Markus's Reviews > The Fall of Hyperion

Buddy read with Athena, Desinka, Gavin & Kaora

"The Final Days are here, priest. The prophecies given to us by the Avatar centuries ago are unfolding before our eyes. What you call riots are the first death throes of a society which deserves to die. The Days of Atonement are upon us and the Lord of Pain soon will walk among us."

The shadow of war has fallen on the Web. The Ousters are initiating a full-scale invasion of the central planets of the Hegemony of Man. Chaos rules in the corridors of power on Tau Ceti Center. Out of reach from the clashing empires, the artificial intelligences of the TechnoCore manipulate everyone and everything. And on Hyperion itself, where battle rages in the skies and the streets alike, the pilgrims fight desperately for their lives in the Valley of the Time Tombs.

The Fall of Hyperion removes itself from the style of the masterpiece Hyperion and instead of a collection of short stories with a frame story, we get something a lot more similar to a traditional novel. The second book has only one real protagonist, a character who was also rather significant in the first. Other than that, there are secondary points of view written in third-person narrative through the protagonists's dreams. While very different from the first, this change in style was performed flawlessly by Dan Simmons, and while I did not, and still don't, find the protagonist particularly endearing, this was not a change for the worse.

The storyline was not as enthralling as that of the first book, unfortunately. This is war, pure and simple. And despite that, there are few actual battle scenes. Most of the time, our story takes places in equal parts on Tau Ceti Center and in the Valley of the Time Tombs. In the beginning, the switches between the two locations were praiseworthily interesting, but after a time, very little happened in either of the places. Except for general panic.

Characterisation is in my opinion not one of Dan Simmons's strengths. Even in the first book, there were no truly memorable characters. In a science fiction series an interesting setting can be just enough to keep the reader captivated for one book, but when you get to the sequels, you need to have strong characters who can hold the series on top. And I actually felt that Simmons managed this to some extent. The protagonist, while not my favourite, is an interesting character, mostly because of who he actually is. The Shrike remains an enigma. And while all three of the major powers; Hegemony, Ousters and Core; are difficult to root for, they are all incredibly to find out more about.

And there is one character who stands out from among the rest. Meina Gladstone, Chief Executive Officer of the Senate of the Hegemony of Man and arguably the most powerful human in the universe. Gladstone was a very minor character in Hyperion, but rose to the centre of the scene here in the second book. Gladstone is a sometimes ruthless political realist, but all her intentions are as noble as they get. It's amazing to watch her try to save a society crumbling in the flames of war, and remain a beacon of hope for billions of Hegemony citizens.

Writing a sequel to Hyperion must have been a difficult job for Dan Simmons, and it shows in the book. The Fall of Hyperion is just not as good as the first book. Both the beginning and the ending were up to it, but there's a rather large part in the middle where there is no plot or character development and it's more or less dreadfully boring. Some of the most important scenes in the book could also have been much more climactic if they had been written better.

Still, this was far from a bad book. The Hyperion Cantos has still got me firmly on the hook, and I am definitely excited to unveil the rest of the mysteries of the universe Simmons has created for us. His writing is extraordinary at times, and as a taste of it I'll leave you with my favourite passage from the series so far, which is very reminiscent of a certain fantasy author I've read a lot of books by this year.

In the dead city, screams echoed for another minute, growing fainter and farther away. Then there was a silence broken only by the doves returning to their nests, dropping into the shattered domes and towers with a soft rustle of wings.

The wind came up, rattling loose Perspex panes and masonry, shifting brittle leaves across dry fountains, finding entrance through the broken panes of the dome and lifting manuscript pages in a gentle whirlwind, some pages escaping to be blown across the silent courtyards and empty walkways and collapsed aqueducts.

After a while, the wind died, and then nothing moved in the City of Poets.

3.5 stars