Tildes Book Club discussion - March 2025 - Hyperion by Dan Simmons

I've finished the book now, and my god, I loved it. I wish it hadn't taken me so long so I could've participated with the rest of you, but I'll share my thoughts here, and in a few loose comments below.

I'll start by saying that I really liked the framing device of this book. Having a story take place in the "present" still allowed for ongoing tension, while plenty of room was given to each individual tale to explain how we got to this point in the first place.

In the beginning, Simmons really throws a lot of unknown words and concepts at you: the Hegemony, a hegira, time debt, farcasting, fat lines, the All Thing. It makes for an overwhelming intro, but it also gives you the sense of being dropped into a real and fleshed-out world. The details begin to reveal themselves as we delve into each individual story, and by the end, we feel like we have a stronger (even privileged) understanding of the inner workings of this society.

@Idalium made a great point that each story feels like the most important one as you read them: I mean, becoming immortal? Gaining the ability to manipulate time? Writing humanity's future? Uncovering a super-intelligent AI plot? Double-crossing two major factions of humanity? I just kept thinking, "How can they top that?".

Every revelation informed your understanding of the different worlds, factions, and complex motivations that govern them. Each character was flawed in their own way, but had logical motivations that made sense within their own context. Each story had a unique feel and theme, and yet all of them were enthralling and consequential in their own way.

If I had to pick though, I think my two favourites were The Priest's Tale, and The Scholar's Tale. The former was an incredibly strong opening story, matching our own naivety of this unknown planet, while showing the brutality that Hyperion is capable of. Duré, crucifying himself as Christ to break the binding chains of immortality -- I mean, wow, that's powerful imagery.

Weintraub's tale was also deeply moving, and far more personal than I was expecting. His story had me hooked from the beginning, as we already knew his daughter as an infant, and yet his tale begins with her growing into adulthood. Some really fantastic foreshadowing.

I'm not a student of religion, but even I could pick up on some of the themes of Jewish persecution and hardship it contained. I enjoyed the moral philosophizing, the interpretation of Abraham's dilemma, and his attempts to grapple with this impossible situation despite all of his scholarly training. It felt like he was being put to the ultimate test.

The religious themes were heavy throughout much of the book, yet they always felt appropriate and respectful. I actually think it's interesting that religion plays such a common role in scifi. In The Expanse, Mormonism grows to become a powerful political force. And as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, in Dune, Judaism manages to last for tens of thousands of years into our future.

This feels like a useful way of grounding a scifi story, and making it feel more directly connected to us. And unlike some older stories that describe the future as purely secular, it actually feels like a more realistic view that pockets of religion will continue to exist in some form, even if the beliefs and doctrine undergo change over time.

I was reminded of Dune in other ways, such as the multi-layered political intrigue of different houses and factions. Everybody is working towards their own ends, and there's no clear good guys or bad guys.

I was also reminded of Pandora's Star, largely by the focus on teleport technology, and the advanced yet unknowable AI that prefers to live just on the periphery of human civilization.

Towards the end of Hyperion, while I felt it moved a little too quickly, the Consul's Tale served well the bookend the overall story. I really liked the nautical theme, and the language usage helped support that feeling. For example, Siri would often refer to Merin as a sailor or shipman. We readers understand that his "ship" is a spaceship, but it helped sell the nautical fiction.

The tale also had strong condemnation of colonialism, and after reading Born a Crime in February, that resonated with me a lot deeper. While the author described Maui-Covenant, I kept picturing the inhabitants of South Africa being met by these strangers in their advanced ships, making all sorts of promises. With that context, I found it a lot easier to understand Merin's decision to destroy the farcaster and incite a rebellion, even if it only bought them a few more years of independence.

I enjoyed the twin-narrative of this story, and felt it mirrored the separate time streams that Merin and Siri experienced. The contrast between the two time periods also helped sell just how difficult time dilation can be on people. Months for him would be years or decades for her, and yet they still tried to make the relationship work.

While I had already suspected the consul of being the traitor, I enjoyed his perspective as an unreliable narrator. Or perhaps a not-completely-forthcoming narrator would be more accurate. I had already found him a little eerie towards the beginning, in how he coolly confronted Father Hoyt to get the full story out of him, and his reluctance to share his own tale. But it all clicked into place when he told his story, and I realized that even here, he was only a traitor from the perspective of the Hegemony. He was still doing what he thought was right.

As for the ending, while I admit I would have liked to know how it all played out once the pilgrims reached the Time Tombs, I expect that will be explored more in the sequels. There's still a lot of unanswered questions, like what the TechnoCore are planning, what role Lamia's pregnancy will play, and what happened to Het Masteen. The templars actually felt like the one area of the universe that we know very little about, so I'd like to learn more about them.

Hyperion is a masterful book, and I'll definitely be reading further into this series. I don't know exactly how I'll balance it around our current schedule, but since I'm already behind I'll likely end up skipping a month or two to get back on track. I do plan to read Elder Race though, both because it's so short, and because I think I'll really enjoy it.

Same with the lateness! I bought it during the sale someone alerted us to, but life absconded with my reading time (for text) the last couple of weeks. I'm at 4%.

I'll definitely be late this month. I'm more than 50% done though! Hoping to finish up tomorrow or Tuesday and I look forward to rezzing this thread.

I finished the book a couple of days ago, I have to say it was a worth read, the ending let me down with the complete change of tone into The Wizard of Oz and leaving all questions unanswered, while I like to read more about this universe it's a big punch to take that none of the stories are finished unless I read another book, which I will definitely read, thankfully the Consul's story added tons of depth to this universe, I want to know much more about the Ousters now.

I enjoyed mostly all the stories, they all had something special that in itself could have been its own book.

My favorite still remains Father's Hoyt, or maybe I should say Father Duré, incredibly how captivating the Bikura way of living was, the twists in the Consul's story, the tragic story of Sol's daughter, how the AI have their own way of life were also amazing.

What I didn't enjoy as much, was Kassad's horniness, the "kill your enemies and have sex next to their corpses" felt like a teenage fantasy and his story was probably my least favorite for this exact reason basically an action movie and his character had not much depth, I do not have any problem with other sexual parts in the book for example the poet was hilarious when he talks about it, maybe I just consider the stories had more value than what the romantic parts wanted to add with Lamia's love at first sight or hearing about Siris's buttocks for the fifth time.

I don't want to complain much more, the book it's really high up in my ranking and I will recommend it to anyone who loves Sci-fi.

I really appreciate the insight on the sequels. I was a bit disappointed that Hyperion ended on such an open note. I would have liked closure but I also understand that it was already a long and complex enough book. I'll be interested to see how the storytelling changes with the narrative style change.
I, too, was impressed at how complex the story could be while not being confusing. The vignette-styling really helped compartmentalize the individual stories while giving the reader little moments of "Oh wait, I know that character already!" A very satisfying read overall.