FALL OF HYPERION

Fall of Hyperion, by Dan Simmons,  is the second book of the Hyperion Cantos. It certainly earns it's all Caps treatment in the title.This massive tome of sci fi goodness has taken me the better part of a month to read so I apologize that the updates have been a little scarcer than usual.

Fall of Hyperion can technically be read on it's own but I don't suggest it. There are plenty of recaps for those  picking it up off the shelves without reading Hyperion. Given that this book was fused with it's predecessor in the Cantos I actually found it a little annoying. But the background sketches are likely not enough to make Fall of Hyperion very fun. If you want to jump into this series (and it is a series as there are a set of books set after the Cantos called Endyimion) your going to want to start from the beginning. If for no other reason than Hyperion is the superior book.

Which doesn't mean that the Fall is bad by any means. It is beyond grandiose and does a a good job answering all the questions raised by the first book. It takes the vast foundation of Hyperion and builds a satisfying galaxy spanning conclusion that somehow makes all the disparate pieces work (for the most part). In many ways Fall is a paragon of the conventions of sci-fi. It is optimistic, bombastic, speculative, and towards the end there is a bit about the power of love. For some reason the power of love, along with talking sea mammals, are stalwarts of sci-fi. Not sure why.

The problems with Fall of Hyperion are all tied into the fact that it is so ballsy in its span. I missed the smaller, personal scope of the first books six stories. There are still plenty of nice character moments but they tend to gum up the frantic flow of Fall. For a book with time travel in it Fall follows a fairly linear timeline... but the characters narratives are all chopped to pieces which can be frustrating sometimes. The final flaw, in my personal opinion, comes from the nature of what Fall does. Hyperion was much like sci-fi TV series like Lost and Battlestar Galactica in that all these narratives had all sort of crazy mysteries and unexplained events. When it comes time to tie all of it together... the only explanation big enough to fit is 'God did it.' Which I find rather unsatisfying. As I mentioned in the previous paragraph fall does a good job wrapping things up and providing solid reasons behind a lot of the mysteries (certainly better reasons than Lost). My tolerance for deus ex machina is fairly low so like I said this is really just a minor quibble.

The Shrike: still awesome

In conclusion, if you enjoyed Hyperion you'll enjoy it's conclusion. Fall of Hyperion is a good book that occasionally suffers because of it's scale. It's hard to imagine a more satisfying conclusion to Hyperion though. Go! Read Hyperion! You'll love it, and you'll love it's sequel!