Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, volume 2) by Dan Simmons

[james_davis_nicoll]

Pilgrims on their way to a mysterious artifact fill the time by recounting their personal backstories.

Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, volume 1) by Dan Simmons

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Much as people enjoy analogizing Gilligan and his fellow castaways as avatars of the 7 deadly sins, people seem to enjoy assuming that each section of Hyperion was consciously written in a particular author's style. I'm open to that idea: Warrior's chapter would be Haldeman, Diplomat's would be Le Guin, Poet's would be Ellison, etc. Or we all could be confabulating...

[petrea_mitchell]

Rereading the novel, I wonder what it was that we got so excited by back in day.

I think for me it was the mystery of the Time Tombs plus an affinity for the structure of linked shorter stories, which shows up in a number of my favorite books. (Off the top of my head: The Cyberiad, The Hunter's Haunt, Always Coming Home, Changing Planes, several Peter F. Hamilton novels.) I also had the excuse of being at a much less discerning age than the average award voter.

Reading Ilium and Olympos, though, got me to definitively nope out of any further Simmons, no matter how much praise I keep seeing for The Terror.

[kithrup]

Oops:

I can assure that no such elements appear in this book. I can assure them that no such elements appear in this book.

I am very surprised you gave his undesecrated corpse any attention.

[james_davis_nicoll]

A section was doubled and I didn't edit all of it out...

It was a patron request and as Simmons is dead...