To begin, finished Hyperion last night. Masterpiece. Gave me a literary smack to the face, my jowls still shake
I've spent many a day searching for art of the highest order across the different mediums of creative expression. Amidst this oft fruitless search, I repeatedly find myself giving top marks to works of which I am fond, but am left with a haunting sadness and the hollow thought of, "Alas! Is this truly a peak versions of 'x' type of art?!? To hold it in that sort of esteem feels... erroneous!" [Shakespearean hand gestures in tow] But Hyperion!!! Hyperion... is of the artistic ilk that rebalances the scales! It's a unicorn-ish legit 10/10. Enough so that if it resides at 10, books that I'd believed to be 8-9/10 need to be knocked down at least a point or two retroactively [and then thrown in a trash can fire with the other inferior scribblings!].
I'm of course being silly, but that type of hyperbole helps convey how much I loved this novel. The reality feels lived in and alive, extremely well fleshed out and brought to life, excellent characters that I grew to care about in a relatively short amount of pages, imaginative lore, intelligent insights into humanity & so much more. The multiple backstory structure of the character 'tale' sub-arcs allows for the overall story to go to in a diverse set of directions and include a plethora of focuses, styles & feelings all into a singular story. Then they all come together as one, despite covering so much ground, in a way that more 'normal' linear storytelling would have a tragedy of a time not coming across as disjointed and awkward while trying to match. Surely a prime example of 'greater than the sum of it's parts,' which is saying something because them parts are already greater than great, friends!
On the other side of the coin, the only real criticisms that I can level at it would be that it can get a bit burdensome with, what I feel is, over-description at times. I know the story needs to feel full [and it certainly does] but there's too many names of people and places that don't really matter to the story, too much physical description of areas/actions that can feel unnecessary and like it's only jumbling up the page. Nothings perfect, so I 'penalize' it minimally for this but when the writing would lean that direction it would stick out like a sore thumb, to me, amongst the otherwise magnificent writing.
Now on to the tale rankings, I figured that this would've had to have been done on this sub before, but i searched and could not find a thread of this kind [possibly searched wrong keywords, dunno]. But either way, considering that no new Hyperion material is going to be coming our way any time soon, may as well take the opportunity to talk about something that we appreciate. As you may be able to tell from the beginning, my brain is ever trying to rank and quantify the quality of things, so since I put the book down I've been thinking of how the different tales stack up against each other and am rather curious on how other readers of Hyperion feel about the subject.
{1.} Choosing which sits atop the mount is perhaps the toughest decision in the ranking for me, but I wager that I gotta go with The Priest's Tale.
When I'd finished with the intro, I wanted to read just a little ways into the first character tale before I put the book down to go to bed due to having things that needed attending to early the next morn. I ended up unable to pry myself from the pages until The Priest's Tale was done. I happily incurred the sleep-debt and next day tiredness to follow the riveting account til it's end! That's when I knew I was in for a ride for the rest of the book.
I love when an author breaks the manner in which a story is being told and switches it up temporarily like Simmons did with the diary entry framework used in the majority of this tale. It really complemented how this section of the story was told, helped bring Father Dure's experience and mind state to life and made me feel like I was reading some prized, secret document.
At first, the story of Father Dure was an adventure into an unknown frontier, followed by fascinating sociological ethnography of the Bikura and then it became a compelling mystery about why/how they had become what they were and then, quite unexpected to me, it turned into some form of tension filled horror-esque story [I adore when a story can encompass divergent 'genres' in a short span like that]. When the Bikura were taking Dure down into the labyrinth to receive a cruciform and meet the Shrike, the oppressive atmosphere and dread were palpable in my room from naught but ink on a page. Almost made me look over my shoulder just to make sure nothing was there! I was already enamored at this point by the masterful use of this frightful tone but then Simmons also worked revelations and self discovery into this unlikely section. Dure's epiphanous dawnings about life/meaning/religion/duality when the Shrike appeared and embraced him were elegant and weighty, in a way that had a powerful effect on me.
Also, I found the take on the future state of the church thought-provoking, a nice touch. I'll hold back my expectations for how certain things play out in the next book [this all gonna be too long to begin with] but how Father Hoyt carrying Dure's cruciform is going to play out is one of the pieces of the puzzle I'm most looking forward to seeing.
{2.} The Scholar's Tale.
This and The Priest's Tale are closer to 1a/1b for me than 1st/2nd but I just went with snap reaction when ordering them. This was the most emotionally involving character backstory/tale for me. I caught myself tearing up a few times at the painful predicament that Sol and his family found themselves in. It so was vividly told and well written that I felt as if it were my plight as well, like I were suffering alongside them. I ever have an extra layer of appreciation for a story that can get my own gears turning about how I would react and the decisions that I would make in a certain situation. This tale sent my brain deep down that rabbit hole as far as what I would've done if I were Sol/his wife and even what it must have felt like to be Rachel, living this inescapable age regression/memory-identity loss nightmare. To make this 'far from my own reality' set of circumstances hold a place in me akin to something that I could indeed face myself is possibly one of the richest heights reached by this novel.
Another part of what I found such a success of this individual tale [which did play a sizable part in what I just spoke of] is how simple yet resonant it is compared to much of the rest of the fantastical story. In a book filled with mindblowing future tech on hundreds of different planets, cataclysmic interstellar wars and complex, clandestine political intrigue and a million other fucking other crazy things, descriptions of how this family was going about their day-to-day lives in an attempt to live the best that they could was not overmatched or made to be dull at all, and actually really helped ground the entire story.
Forgive me for not looking up the precise quote, but there was a description of how Sol's wife found the small, regular pieces of life to be the most meaningful as oppose to the usual 'big days/events' that humans tend to give more value, that perfectly encapsulates what works so well in this tale. That statement almost felt like some 4th wall break-nod to the reader about what Simmons had tried to accomplish with this tale.
Side note: I had a stupid moment [or handful of them] when it took me a bit into this tale before I realized Rachel was the baby that Sol had been with through the story prior. Ha got a good chuckle and head shake at my own expense on that one!
{3.} Now it gets a bit easier for me to put the tales into their perspective places. The clear runner up behind those two fighting for first place would be The Poet's Tale.
Aside from the diary entries of The Priest's Tale, this one is the most uniquely told. Of the pilgrim crew, Martin had the most personality filled way of telling his story. It's the tale that most comes across in the "character's voice" rather than being something closer to the base Dan Simmons narration voice. This also results in this tale possessing the most comedy of any of them [and probably more than all of them combined], which I welcomed, especially because Simmons is funnier than one would expect from the austere nature of much of the novel, so it was a nice change of pace.
I think that this tale contains the best use of the heavy description w/o it devolving into tedium. The explanation of Martin's awesome, mega-rich person's farcaster house with rooms on like 30 different planets is a superb example of when a lengthy breakdown of specifics is crucial to nail the imagination world down into a more 'realistic', graspable context.
On top of all that, I think Simmons channeled much of his wisdom and feelings towards writing/the writing industry/writer-reader dynamics into Martin's own relationship with writing and his audience/publisher. There are many occasions where one can see Simmons' affection for the art of the word throughout Hyperion, but it was as if he let himself put a dash more of he in between the lines of this tale. This feels present to me in how this tale held some of the most polished "writers' writer" type of prose and I found it to be fitting [considering it was The Poet's Tale].
Also the descent into obsession/madness towards the end of the tale was visceral and entrancing. And lastly, this tale profited from my desire for information pertaining to Old earth. The beginning of this tale [pre-Old Earth destruction] was highly intriguing.
{4.} The Consul's Tale clocks in at a comfortable 4th place.
This one differs from all of the others in that the best part of it is not the character backstory sub-arc. All of the tales begin and end with narration that pushes the 'current' story forward. For the other tales, these parts are more procedural [interchangeable form of transportation to interchangeable destination that sets up next character backstory] with little tid-bits of meat and potatoes, but the main steak 'n' taters of this part is the bookend narration.
Once the recording of his grandparent's tale was completed and the Consul proceeded to tell his own tale back in 'real time' was when this one shined. It fully rearranged my view of the world/universe of Hyperion. The account of how the Hegemony dealt with any possibly competitive [i.e. smart/sentient] species was like a hard and cruel reminder of how we would potentially act if we had access to the galaxy at this point, or near, in our evolution. When I was reading this end-piece where the Consul spoke of what his life in the Hegemony has been, his meeting with the Ousters [definitely need more of them in the next installment, fingers crossed!] and hits the reader with a buncha of great twists, I had to put the book down to go to my Dad's. But I pulled up the audiobook on my phone and listened to it during the drive because I couldn't stop, it was like food to a starving man ha! That inability to delay the gratification of intaking more is one of the biggest complements I could give any story. Unfortunately, more often than not it's the opposite these days; it can almost feel like I have to force myself to pick up some books back up.
All that being said, I felt that the Merin/Siri story was a tad overlong, it dragged in places. It had heart and I did care about them, just not nearly as much as others like Sol & fam. This tale's emotions were well-captured and the sci-fi elements were more than competently done. It did it's job of setting up the heavy-lifting for the remainder of the book. I feel that the finest aspect of this tale [of it's own merit, outside of setting up Consul monologue] is how much it hammers home the time-dilation/debt consequences for human lives. In general, this part could've benefitted from shortening the backstory and expanding the aforementioned Consul monologue.
{5.} As we approach the bottom, the ranking gets complicated for me again. I'll go with snap reaction to determine this one as well. So the penultimate installment of the list goes to The Detective's Tale.
All tales in Hyperion surpass what the average writer churns out, but by juxtaposition to the rest of the story, this and The Solider's Tale are left feeling somewhat lacking to my sensibilities.
The cyberpunk-ish stuff and the most in-depth detailing of what the TechnoCore was, is what's keeping this tale from coming in last place. This tale was the worst offender of the disorienting over-description. There is too much meandering of 'these people or that person went here and did this or that...' and too much basic description of fighting moves for half a page w/o any real flair, both of which are things that Simmons is easily better than.
Lamia's chase of the queue guy is the only part of the whole book that felt like a chore, thankfully they visited the interesting Old Earth re-make right after. Ahhh but then the worst sex scene of the entire book happens. On reflection, I'm thinking I may need to de-rank this one ha! But Johnny and the cybrid/persona recreation stuff was cool enough to keep the pages turning. Really wasn't a fan of the bulk of the action in this tale, but the Johnny & Lamia ultra decked-out assault push to the Shrike Cult temple provided some redemption in that arena. As a whole, I do like Lamia as a character more than I liked her tale, so that lent itself to a measure of disappointment as well.
{6.} If you've read this far in my self-indulgent HYPE-erion [get it?!] diatribe, you know that The Solider's Tale comes in last place, though it's still better than Game of Thrones [just kidding, don't kill me!].
I always run into the same conundrum when ranking books, movies, music etc; how to evaluate even ground vs peaks/valleys, so to speak. The Solider's Tale doesn't have the same amount of lows as The Detective's Tale but it also lacks an equal amounts of highs. To me, this tale is the overall better written of the two. It's only substantial failing is that it doesn't really add all that much of importance to the story comparable to the other tales [which is why the TechnoCore related stuff earned #5 to M.Detective].
Kassad is a good character, I like him, but he was unavoidably the most prosaic and trite of the party in my estimation. He could've been a solid main character in most stories, but not up to Hyperion par, especially w/o a strong backstory to offset that like it kind of did for Hoyt.
The FORCE training simulations of old battles were a fun inclusion. The scene where the Ousters attack the med ship followed by Kassad's escape onto Hyperion is my favorite action sequence in the whole book and the highlight of this tale. Although, the climax of this tale [all the Shrike team-up/timestop fighting then Kassad/Moneta sex scene] felt convoluted, albeit still inventive and entertaining, but I think it's safe to say that this was the weakest climax of any tale. This was the violence-porn and just porn-porn episode of the story, neither of which I have a problem with, but it all just wasn't executed as well as could've been by a craft master such as Simmons.
In closing, It's saddens me that this exceptional book [and hopefully exceptional series] has flown so far under the radar. I am aware that many place it in the sci-fi pantheon, but for the most part it seems to be rather unknown to the reading population at large. I hadn't even heard of it until a sci-fi loving acquaintance of mine saw me reading the Dune series and told me on no uncertain terms that I gotta check out Hyperion & Ilium.
Anywho, let me know how you ranked the tales and/or tell me that I'm an idiot and got it all wrong. Feel free to also gush about how good the book is. And of course, I'm diving into The Fall of Hyperion soon and I'm plenty ready to incur some more sleep-debt!
Submitted June 08, 2019 at 11:28PM by How1ntriguing http://bit.ly/2XCzJdU
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