The Fall of Hyperion Mass Market Paperback – March 1, 1991

One of the best novels I've ever read, but more specifically for this review, I feel it's the best narration I've ever heard (other than maybe Michael C. Hall). It's a dynamic, emotional performance that made me hold my breath as the narrator increased in speed and intensity at the really powerful moments, and again as he slowed down and dropped to almost a whisper for some of the horrific or upsetting climaxes.

Sometimes less is more. Simmons loads his narrative with multiple unexplained technologies, cultural peculiarities, and magical events that obscure the plot. It took a while, but I got Dune and Foundation well before I finished the first volume and looked forward to the remainder of those tales. After two Hyperion installments, I’m not sure I want to continue.

great condition, arrived quickly

A friend recommended this series and I can admit this has gone beyond my expectations. Weaving a tale with this many main characters is complex and it’s done masterfully here within the even more complex context of this World Web.

The Fall of Hyperion, like the first in the series, is told through the perspectives of a large cast of characters who are all trying to find their place in the larger puzzle. While the first book was more about establishing the world and conflicts and told in short story format, Fall of Hyperion delves far more into space opera territory, and attempts boldly and at a relentless, frenetic pace for just about the full 500 pages, to tackle just about every social, economic, and political issue we deal with today (and at the time). Even more than this, it tussles heavily with the idea of the deus ex machina and the concept of God, and what our relationship as a species should be with a God.Put all this together, and at its best, it becomes an almost religiously captivating experience to read, with perspective shifts seemingly every other page, every piece of the puzzle fitting together as if predestined, and it's so satisfying at these points.At its worst, it relies heavily on the deus ex machinas to keep the overarching story from collapsing under the weight of all its threads, but in the context of what the series is actually about, it serves a larger point being made.Even outside this, there are still issues, with the characterization of a few major characters still being relatively weak, but Simmons did a fantastic job of knowing when and how to focus on his characters to create the out to more gold.Absolutely needs an adaptation of the Dune caliber, it would be absolutely stunning imagined on the big screen.

I really enjoyed Dan Simmons's Hyperion, a series of nested narratives told by a group of pilgrims on their way to see an avatar of death; in fact, I enjoyed it so much that I basically instantly bought The Fall of Hyperion, the second half of the book (it was originally planned as one book, apparently)...and then suffered pretty extreme whiplash. Fall couldn't be more different from its predecessor; gone are the nested narratives, the focused emotional stories, the limited perspective. Instead, what you get is a massively sprawling tale about galactic war, artificial intelligences, the nature of God, the poetry of John Keats, and much, much more. Yes, we continue the tale of our pilgrims, but we also add in many, many more characters, all of which constantly shift in and out of the story, which is also unfolding across numerous time periods - oh, and did I mention that some of the sequences are unfolding in non-chronological order? Look, Fall of Hyperion is ambitious, and I like that in my books, but the difficulty jump here is extreme; indeed, for a while, I really struggled to enjoy this book, which felt like it was turning its back on everything I enjoyed about the original. But as Fall continued, I started to see the ideas of the series - ideas about humanity's relationship with God, about how art helps us to process the world, about parenting and sacrifice - and the series's ambition started to justify itself. I still think Fall is perhaps too complex for its own good - this is the rare time when I can honestly say "I wish this was two books" and I had more time to take in some of the nuances and complexities, instead of sometimes just having to pull up a summary to make sure I wasn't missing some of the connections. But I can't deny how fascinating and rich the text is, nor the scope of Simmons's imagination, and I'll be continuing onto the second half of the series...probably a little later, though, after a bit of a mental break.

While this one starts out a little slow and is more heavily engulfed in the politics of the universe Dan Simmons has created, after the first 100 pages we get right back into the thrilling mystique that is the planet Hyperion, the Shrike and the Time Tombs! The first book in this series stands as my favorite, not just in the sci-fi genre but of all time. It is a hallmark to what modern sci-fi should strive to achieve and this sequal is a worthy continuation of that story. I really don't want to say too much because this is a sci-fi MYSTERY and as someone who writes in an identical genre where I hope for my audience to read as deeply as they can and let them decipher the greater whole of the story for themselves, I'll just say, I was definitely caught by surprise in so many instances, it was well worth the read, I look forward to the next two books in the series and I hope that Bradley Cooper is able to adapt the series as a whole and do it justice!

The story is OK, but the amount of descriptive bull feces and useless delirium is mind-boggling.