Hyperion, by Dan Simmons - Book Review

Enter Dan Simmons’ extraordinary space adventure. The book focuses on the planet Hyperion, a little developed rock in space, known for the cosmic being called the Shrike. The Shrike lives around some mysterious place called the Time Tombs.

The book follows seven chosen ones, who perform a pilgrimage to the Time Tombs to confront the Shrike before an all-out cosmic war with a force wipes out the planet and the Hegemony human empire.

Each pilgrim tells their personal story about Hyperion, which takes up most of the book, painting a broad and beautiful look at the planet and Dan Simmons’s genius world. The pilgrims then land and embark on their journey to seek the Shrike. What happens next is out of this world.

In one word: fantastic. Although Dan Simmons normally writes in the horror genre, Hyperion somehow becomes a masterpiece of science fiction, while keeping all of Simmons’s horror themes and amazing prose. It’s well written,  descriptive and simply beautiful.

Through the stories of the pilgrims, Dan builds an entire planet from scratch. The spacey terms aren’t too heavy and confusing. Everything makes more and more sense as the book goes on and the story is just generally well-told. The characters feel real and fresh. Their motives are clear.

I could see every single detail of Hyperion, the characters’ faces, the environment, the mood – everything. I was turning page after page until 2 am unable to put this book down. It’s not just one story, or even seven – it’s more like fourteen or fifteen overlapping tales that connect and make sense, leading to the amazing ending of this book.

I highly recommend it to anyone, who enjoys science fiction or horror. Or neither. This book is for anyone who loves a good story. It’s that good of a read.