Book Review: Hyperion

Dan Simmons

1989

Awards: Hugo, Locus

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ –

SPOILER ALERT

The Story

  

Hyperion is the first book in what eventually became a four-part series called the Hyperion Cantos. It is set in the distant future, at a time when humans have settled far and wide throughout the galaxy.

The most powerful political entity in the universe of Hyperion is the Hegemony, which governs a large number of technologically advanced member planets. Hegemony worlds are connected by faster-than-light communication and space travel, as well as instantaneous Star-Trek-transporter-like portals called “farcasters.” This planetary information and transportation network is referred to as the “WorldWeb.”

Outside the Hegemony are a number of remote, inhabited planets that aren’t connected to the others by farcaster. Even with FTL travel it still takes years to get to them, which discourages visitors, colonists, and commerce. Some of the inhabitants of these planets like it this way.

One of these remote planets is called Hyperion. Hyperion is home only to a small number of indigenous people, archaeologists, exiles, and missionaries. It is sparsely populated not only because it is physically distant and technologically isolated, but also because it is the home of the Shrike: a terrifyingly huge homicidal monster, basically humanoid in form except that it has four arms and metallic spikes poking out all over its body.

Most people are terrified of the Shrike. Some have formed a religion around it and the places it frequents—particularly the mysterious Time Tombs of Hyperion.

As the book opens, fleets of battleships from the Hegemony and their primary enemies, the “Ousters,” are headed to Hyperion to battle for control of the planet. Knowing that Hyperion will be changed forever no matter who wins, the Church of the Shrike invites seven people to go on what will probably be the final pilgrimage to the Time Tombs. The novel tells the story of the pilgrims’ journey to the Tombs and intertwines that main story with their individual back stories, which they tell each other on the way.

The strange thing is that it turns out that none of the pilgrims are members of the Shrike church. And they come from a weird range of professions: priest, poet, scholar, soldier, detective, ship captain, diplomat. But their stories reveal that they each have a strong reason for being on the pilgrimage and for confronting the Shrike.

Respect for the Past

Hyperion is consciously modeled on the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer’s novel about pilgrims telling stories to each other on the way to Canterbury Cathedral, which I have to admit I didn’t really like when I read it in school. But the tales told by the Hyperion pilgrims are really good. They are varied and unique, and several are told in radically different styles, reflecting the very different voices of their tellers.

The scholar’s story, for example, is very sad. His beloved only daughter was an accomplished archaeologist working on her dream site in the Time Tombs on Hyperion. But during an accident in the Tombs she caught an affliction that caused her to age backwards. The scholar has had to watch her regress painfully from brilliant scientist back to childhood; by the time he is picked to go on the pilgrimage, she is an infant. His story moves all the other pilgrims, and he uses it to raise bigger existential questions, almost like a bible lesson or philosophical exercise.

This stands in contrast to the detective’s story, which is like a gritty noir mystery except with the gender roles reversed. The scotch-drinking (female) detective is world-wise and tough, ogling the beautiful (male) client who walks into her office one day to hire her. Her story is almost a mini Neuromancer, a cyber-piracy adventure involving artificial intelligence and cyber-cowboys and a heady trip through the virtual “DataSphere.” It pays deliberate homage mainly to Raymond Chandler and William Gibson, but also to Philip K. Dick, Aldus Huxley, and Arthur Conan Doyle.

Creativity and Foresight for the Future

 

Simmons is aware of his predecessors, and overtly (and respectfully) draws from their earlier works. But, at the same time, he also creates some really inventive new elements for each of the sub-stories in his novel. He thinks up new technologies, both large and small, for war and entertainment and commerce. His worlds often have striking scenery (like the Sea of Grass on Hyperion) and original and sometimes oddball biota (like the migrating, floating islands of Maui-Covenant).

And, unlike Vernor Vinge, he really explores his ideas, fully integrates them into his story, and then wraps them up nicely before moving on to the next, so you don’t feel like you’re being blasted with an undeveloped-idea firehose.

One of my favorite of Simmons’ environmental inventions is the flame forest of Hyperion. This forest is full of tall mushroom-shaped trees that, under the proper conditions, become giant lightning rods bursting with lethal zaps of electricity, turning everything in their entire area into smoldering cinders. This deadly forest is used to great effect both at the beginning and the end of the priest’s tale.

 

Simmons also appears to be pretty foresighted in certain areas. In the poet’s story, for example, he experiences the sense of hopelessness and ennui that can come from being constantly plugged in to political minutiae through intrusive, omnipresent communication technology that we didn't even have yet in 1989.

The poet is also disappointed when the TechnoCore (the collection of artificial intelligences in the Hegemony) loves his latest epic poem, but doesn’t buy any copies, and his agent points out that “copyright means nothing when dealing with silicon.” She says that the first AI who read it probably downloaded it and shared it instantly with all the others via the WorldWeb network. I don’t know how many other people were thinking about this on such a big scale back then.

And keep in mind, also, that Simmons was writing about his “WorldWeb” network of cyber-connected planets and computers at a time when the World Wide Web was barely a glimmer in Tim Berners-Lee’s eye.

The Down Side

 

There are some down sides to this novel, unfortunately. For one thing, there is only one female character of any importance, and she is deliberately modeled after male predecessors. The other women who show up in the book are dominatrices, character-less wives, or idealized lovers waiting patiently for their men to return.

Simmons’ writing also has a tendency to get overly long, romantic, dreamy, and obscure. I’ll have to admit I skipped some of the more overwritten parts and that I found the consul’s story—one of the most important ones for the Shrike story—pretty confusing.

But I still think I want to read the next one (Fall of Hyperion) to find out what happens to some of the characters. And to see what more new cool landscapes and life forms Simmons will invent.