![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(SFF Bingo): Hyperion, by Dan Simmons
Jun. 12th, 2026 05:57 pmWhat I'd managed to osmose about this book: it's interesting thematically/religiously, but also it can be very #menwritingwomen, and some of the later sequels are iffy. Also, it won the Hugo Award. I mention this not because I necessarily agree with Hugo voters' tastes, but because clearly it was considered enough of a standalone to be well-regarded on its own merits, not just "part 1 of N."
Premise: hundreds of years in the future, the planet Hyperion is infamous for its four-armed, metallic, horrific deity called "the Shrike," worshipped by faithful across the galaxy. Also for its "time tombs" which appear to be traveling backwards in time with their "anti-entropic fields." With war looming, seven people with different connections to Hyperion are summoned for a pilgrimage to the Time Tombs and the Shrike. (The Shrike likes prime numbers.) As they journey, they relate their stories and explain what brings them there. Like the "Canterbury Tales" (which I haven't read), the bulk of the story is here in the individual backstories.
1. A Catholic priest tries to uncover the mystery of a lost colony which worships an ancient cross--probably placed thousands of years before Jesus lived on Earth.
2. A military cadet in virtual reality simulations has amazing hot sex with a mysterious woman who appears to be an AI living in the sims.
3. A poet gets drunk, swears a lot, genetically modifies himself to resemble a satyr, and finds his muse is most active when the Shrike is killing people.
4. A Jewish father searches for a cure for his daughter, who contracted a mysterious disease when visiting the Time Tombs. A lot of arguing with God, and working through the theology of the binding of Isaac story.
5. A female noir detective takes on a client, who turns out to be an AI built around the persona of the historical poet John Keats (known for the unfinished poem "Hyperion")
6. A spaceship technician falls in love with a woman from an isolated world being colonized by the galactic Hegemony; because of time dilation, their visits span about four years in his life and fifty in hers (starting when he's nineteen and she's almost sixteen, classy).
7. There is no seven because one person dies or disappears or something, which might be a problem because of the prime number thing, but don't worry about it, they all have bigger problems.
So...yeah, this was all over the place. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I found the two religiously-themed stories to be by far the most interesting. Sol muses that "God broke His word by destroying the Earth a second time in the way He did," and Duré's recognition of "the tone of complacent finality common to oft-repeated formulae and religious litanies" was nuanced and self-aware.
It's one of those where "men do, women are" might not be so bad if it was just one example on its own, but the overall ratio of male interiority to women being objects of desire/mourning/etc. is frustrating. For a chapter like Sol's, it's like, okay, I like seeing the depiction of a man whose predominant role in the story is as a parent rather than an academic, that's a characterization that women get more often so it's good to see a man. But cumulatively, it's annoying. And then there's just a lot of gratuitous squick/body horror/edgelordy swearing that's not really my thing.
There are glimpses of other factions in the galaxy--small clones that work on ships, blue-skinned androids, translating dolphin language--but not a lot of in-depth worldbuilding about them. The exception is the AI, who get expounded on a lot more in Brawne's chapter, and are eventually revealed to be taking a more active role in events than they seem. But I wanted even more of the "and here's how the strands tie together."
Bingo: One-Word Title, Unusual Transportation (there's a "treeship," the Benares is pulled by manta rays, a wind-powered sailboat across the "Sea of Grass," even flying carpets known as "Hawking mats.")
Premise: hundreds of years in the future, the planet Hyperion is infamous for its four-armed, metallic, horrific deity called "the Shrike," worshipped by faithful across the galaxy. Also for its "time tombs" which appear to be traveling backwards in time with their "anti-entropic fields." With war looming, seven people with different connections to Hyperion are summoned for a pilgrimage to the Time Tombs and the Shrike. (The Shrike likes prime numbers.) As they journey, they relate their stories and explain what brings them there. Like the "Canterbury Tales" (which I haven't read), the bulk of the story is here in the individual backstories.
1. A Catholic priest tries to uncover the mystery of a lost colony which worships an ancient cross--probably placed thousands of years before Jesus lived on Earth.
2. A military cadet in virtual reality simulations has amazing hot sex with a mysterious woman who appears to be an AI living in the sims.
3. A poet gets drunk, swears a lot, genetically modifies himself to resemble a satyr, and finds his muse is most active when the Shrike is killing people.
4. A Jewish father searches for a cure for his daughter, who contracted a mysterious disease when visiting the Time Tombs. A lot of arguing with God, and working through the theology of the binding of Isaac story.
5. A female noir detective takes on a client, who turns out to be an AI built around the persona of the historical poet John Keats (known for the unfinished poem "Hyperion")
6. A spaceship technician falls in love with a woman from an isolated world being colonized by the galactic Hegemony; because of time dilation, their visits span about four years in his life and fifty in hers (starting when he's nineteen and she's almost sixteen, classy).
7. There is no seven because one person dies or disappears or something, which might be a problem because of the prime number thing, but don't worry about it, they all have bigger problems.
So...yeah, this was all over the place. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I found the two religiously-themed stories to be by far the most interesting. Sol muses that "God broke His word by destroying the Earth a second time in the way He did," and Duré's recognition of "the tone of complacent finality common to oft-repeated formulae and religious litanies" was nuanced and self-aware.
It's one of those where "men do, women are" might not be so bad if it was just one example on its own, but the overall ratio of male interiority to women being objects of desire/mourning/etc. is frustrating. For a chapter like Sol's, it's like, okay, I like seeing the depiction of a man whose predominant role in the story is as a parent rather than an academic, that's a characterization that women get more often so it's good to see a man. But cumulatively, it's annoying. And then there's just a lot of gratuitous squick/body horror/edgelordy swearing that's not really my thing.
There are glimpses of other factions in the galaxy--small clones that work on ships, blue-skinned androids, translating dolphin language--but not a lot of in-depth worldbuilding about them. The exception is the AI, who get expounded on a lot more in Brawne's chapter, and are eventually revealed to be taking a more active role in events than they seem. But I wanted even more of the "and here's how the strands tie together."
- Polar exploration drinking game! "...Mamet Spedling had been a minor explorer affiliated with the Shackleton Institute on Renaissance Minor..." (Simmons wrote the novel "The Terror," so shouldn't be a surprise.)
- The scattering of humanity after the destruction of Earth is named the "Hegira," like the event in the Islamic calendar, nice worldbuilding.
- The pilgrims travel in a ship called the Benares, named after the Earth city of Varanasi in northern India. This isn't particularly interesting on its own, but I'm mentioning it for reasons to be explained later.
- Martin's chapter didn't do much for me on its own, but the opening is hilarious, and the commentary on postliterate societies has aged well since 1989: "IN THE BEGINNING was the Word. Then came the fucking word processor. Then came the thought processor. Then came the death of literature. And so it goes."
- Merin and Siri meet at a wild sesquicentennial party that goes on for five weeks. Warning to all US Americans :P
Bingo: One-Word Title, Unusual Transportation (there's a "treeship," the Benares is pulled by manta rays, a wind-powered sailboat across the "Sea of Grass," even flying carpets known as "Hawking mats.")
