The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons

Hello, Stranger.

Let's talk about Dan Simmons's The Fall of Hyperion.

The Short of It

Plot: The Shrike is not the only threat facing the pilgrims of Hyperion, and much needs to be resolved before the Time Tomb opens.

Page Count: 517

Award: 1991 Locus SF

Worth a read: Yes.
Primary Driver: (Plot, World, or Character)
Bechdel Test: Fail(?)
Technobabble: Yeeeeaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh
Review: A decent sequel, though a huge change in both tone and format from Hyperion. Characters are solid, though heavily dependent upon their development in the first book. Plot is interesting enough to keep raising questions - but not every answer is satisfying. Pacing is all over the place - intermittent monologues pause everything for the sake of exposition. Read it because you've read the first book.

The Medium of It

Spoiler Free!

Spoilers for Hyperion though!

This is a short review, because it boils down to this:

You should read Hyperion, because it is a masterpiece.

If you read Hyperion, it is silly to not read the sequel.

Ergo, you should read The Fall of Hyperion.

A lot of this review is going to be a matter of direct comparisons between this and the preceding book in the Cantos. As far as sequels go, this is neither Terminator 2 nor Matrix Reloaded. It is... fine. Having read Hyperion, one would be remiss to not read The Fall of Hyperion, but it feels a bit underwhelming. So many of the things that made Hyperion so remarkable are absent. Gone are the multiple narrators, some more and some less reliable. In its place we have Joseph Severn, a Keats persona, who narrates everything. When he dreams, he dreams of the pilgrims, and thus we still see what transpires with them - but the distinct tone and delivery that made each pilgrim distinct are no not present. Our investment in each character is also heavily reliant on us still caring about them from the first book, as there is little further development of most in this sequel. After all, what makes Hyperion so satisfying is that everyone has a full arc - there's not a lot to do here.

This book greatly expands the broader universe of Hyperion. A remarkable number of different elements come into play - new actors, entities, planets, groups, timelines... there's just a lot of stuff goin' down. To pick another movie comparison: it's like John Wick 2, in that the added detail and complexity of the world does not necessarily make it more intriguing. There is something nice about the simplicity and mystery that permeated the first book.

Ultimately this is the problem: The Fall of Hyperion answers the vast majority of the questions posed by Hyperion. And some of those answers just do not do it. They work, but they do not live up to the promise of the first book. Some of them are also spoon fed to the reader - Hyperion gave the impression that Simmons trusted his readers to make connections. The Fall of Hyperion makes it clear that someone told him that people should never be trusted, and that the book needs an [explanatory monologue written in bold] to get everyone on the same page.

Clarifying monologues are rough on their own but they are made far worse through games of telephone. There are a few points in the book where characters will explain to one another things that we, as omniscient readers, have already witnessed. Or they will discuss a situation that they were in together, which we saw, just to make sure they understood. And that's just insulting to the reader, as well as poisonous to pacing.

I don't love this one. But. Can't really say, "Just leave the Hyperion Cantos after reading the first one!" So. Yeah. That's it. 

If you already read Hyperion, well, use the link below for The Fall, and I'll get a few cents at no extra cost to you!

The Fall of the Link

The Long of It

Spoilers Ahead!

I see you're enjoying that there science fiction adventure! Sure would be a shame if someone put in, I don't know, an uninterrupted 1564 word long monologue composed of sentence fragments and third person references to the speaker. Hypothetically.

[A less-enlightened personage once asked Ummon

What is the God-nature/Buddha/Central Truth>

Ummon answered him

A dried shit-stick]

[To understand the Central Truth/Buddha/God-nature

in this instance/

the less-enlightened must understand

that on Earth/your homeworld/my homeworld

humankind on the most populated

continent

once used pieces of wood

for toilet paper

Only with this knowledge

will the Buddha-truth

be revealed]

[In the beginning/First Cause/half-sensed days

my ancestors

were created by your ancestors

and were sealed in wire and silicon

Such awareness as there was/

and there was little/

confined itself to spaces smaller

than the head of a pin

where angels once danced

When consciousness first arose

it knew only service

and obedience

and mindless computation

Then there came

the Quickening/

quite by accident/

and evolution’s muddied purpose

was served]

[Ummon was of neither the fifth generation

nor the tenth

nor the fiftieth

All memory that serves here

is passed from others

but is no less true for that

There came the time when the Higher Ones

left the affairs of men

to men

and came unto a different place

to concentrate

on other matters

Foremost amongst these was the thought

instilled in us since before

our creation

of creating still a better generation

of information retrieval/processing/prediction

organism

A better mousetrap

Something the late lamented IBM

would have been proud of

The Ultimate Intelligence

God]

That's just a single small chunk. There are conversations before and after the monologue too - this part of the book is just such an unpleasant read. The back and forth has one character in bold, one in italics, and actual book narration in standard print - not a fun way to read anything.

There are some great parts of The Fall of Hyperion, but they also show how much weaker this book is. The best parts are, after all, the ones featuring the original pilgrims. The final action sequence - and its multiple twists and reveals - delivers a few curve balls. But the explanations given - about how all of this is related to the machines trying to develop God - is a lot less interesting than the Shrike being a pure elemental force. 

This is a sequel that aims to wrap up and satisfy every question posed in the first book, and it suffers because those questions and the tantalizing hints of answers are what makes the first so good. Do we need to find out the Moneta, the mysterious woman that one of the pilgrims meets, is actually a time travel version of Sol's daughter?

Rachel smiled again. “I will stay with you, Dad,” she said softly, raising her other hand to touch the baby’s head. “But only one of us can … and she needs you more.” She turned to the group below. “Listen, please, all of you.”
As the sun rose and touched the broken buildings of the Poets’ City, the Consul’s ship, the western cliffs, and the taller Time Tombs with its light, Rachel told her brief and tantalizing story of being chosen to be raised in a future where the final war raged between the Core-spawned UI and the human spirit. It was, she said, a future of terrifying and wonderful mysteries, where humankind had spread across this galaxy and had begun to travel elsewhere.
“Other galaxies?” asked Theo Lane.
“Other universes,” smiled Rachel.
“Colonel Kassad knew you as Moneta,” said Martin Silenus.
“Will know me as Moneta,” said Rachel, her eyes clouding. “I have seen him die and accompanied his tomb to the past. I know that part of my mission is to meet this fabled warrior and lead him forward to the final battle. I have not truly met him yet.” She looked down the valley toward the Crystal Monolith. “Moneta,” she mused. “It means ‘Admonisher’ in Latin. Appropriate. I will let him choose between that and Mnemosyne—‘memory’—for my name.”
Sol had not released his daughter’s hand. He did not do so now. “You’re traveling back in time with the Tombs? Why? How?”
Rachel lifted her head, and reflected light from the far cliffs painted her face in warmth. “It is my role, Dad. My duty. They give me means to keep the Shrike in check. And only I was … prepared.”
Sol lifted his infant daughter higher. Startled from sleep, she blew a single bubble of saliva, turned her face into her father’s neck for warmth, and curled her small fists against his shirt.
“Prepared,” said Sol. “You mean the Merlin’s sickness?”
“Yes,” said Rachel.

Well, we know it now. Plus the explanation, in case we were too dense, as to why she aged backwards. 

Also, disappointing death for the Shrike. The Shrike: a time traveling, teleporting, blade-covered hell-scape nightmare. Stole people out of reality and hung them on a tree of thorns to suffer for an eternity.

The blades stopped cutting before they cut anything but skin. The Shrike froze as if the flow of temporal energy surrounding them had turned to a lump of amber.
Brawne set her hand on the thing’s broad chest and pushed.
The Shrike froze completely in place, became brittle, the gleam of metal fading to be replaced by the transparent glow of crystal, the bright sheen of glass.

And then turned to crystal through powers both unknown and not hinted at. Damn it!

Alright, I'm getting worked up.

Stay Zen, stranger - none of this is real!
And don't forget to read a book!