Hyperion by Dan Simmons
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Dan Simmon's sci-fi masterpiece is a complicated work.

Using a frame story ala the Decameron and the Canterbury Tales it recounts the individual tales of six of seven pilgrims journeying to the Time Tombs on the eponymous world of Hyperion. Hyperion is a world within the world-web of the Hegemony (a sort of galactice empire), hungered after by the non-hegemony Ousters, and home to the legendary Shrike, a monster/god around which a cult has formed. On the eve of a looming intergalactic war seven pilgrims make their way to the Time Tombs to make a request of the Shrike.

Each of the pilgrims tales is told in a different style. Dan Simmons effectively mixes horror, sci-fi, detective, romance, and thriller genres.

Unlike many classics of the sci-fi genre the characterization is as deep as the ideas are grandiose. I found the tale of the scholar, Sol Weintraub, particularly moving, but also enjoyed General Kassad's military sci-fi story, and the poet's tale. Simmon's attempt at a hardboiled detective story comes off a bit lame, though still enjoyable, and manages to nearly capture the genre's attitude, if not atmosphere, in a way that is beyond Jim Butcher.

Six short stories set in a frame story is a real gamble. A gamble, in this case, that pays off more often than not. The writing varies from terrific to tedious. The skill of each tale also varies, which makes me wonder whether the author's skill improved as he wrote and the stories were cobbled together in a different order than they were written, or more likely, his skill at each genre was heterogenous. The book references literary works, and seems to rather smugly asserts its own literariness, without actually being literary. This coupled with the less than anti-climatic ending of the frame story resulted in a lower rating than some of the individual stories deserve.

I started reading Keat's poetry as a result of reading this book, but I am not sure if I'll read novel's sequel.

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