Hyperion

Name: Hyperion
Author: Vladimir Oane

Dan Simmons

9 ideas

1.49K reads

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The Canterbury Tales … but in Space

Like the famous medieval book, Dan Simmons’s book deals with 7 characters (a Jesuit priest, a military genius, a scholar, a private detective, a poet, a starship master & a diplomat) who meet on a pilgrimage. To pass the time each of them tells their story as a way to answer the question ”Why are you here?”.

The book is thus a collection of distinct genre-beneding stories:

psychological horror story
part war story, part erotic novel
supernatural thriller
detective story
family drama
political thriller

You get to understand the universe and the themes to these individual stories.

241 reads

The Universe of Hyperion

The story happens 1000 yrs after the accidental destruction of Earth.

The human race expanded on 200 worlds, forming a federation called the Hegemony.
The humans are aided by a sentient independent AI civilisation called the TechnoCore. They provide the technology powering the Hegemony’s instantaneous travel (farcaster) and communication (fatline). No-one knows how the tech works or what the AI intentions are.
The Ousters are a human-like society spread over much of our arm of our galaxy, preferring to explore the outer edges space. Initially they act as the boogie-man for the Hegemony.

197 reads

The Planet of Hyperion, Time Tombs and the Shriek

Hyperion is a planet on the outskirt of the Hegemony, home to mysterious Time Tombs, a structure that somehow makes the time to flow backwards. Speculation regarding the purpose of the tombs and the reason they were sent traveling backward in time is one of the mysteries.

The Shrike, a legendary indestructible shape-shifting being made of blades protects the Tombs. A new religion develops around the reverence of the Shrike. It is said that the Shriek will grant one wish to a person from a 7-people pilgrimage and kill the rest. Our heroes are on such a pilgrimage.

168 reads

Pain as the ultimate human connection

The pilgrims manifest a connection through pain that forms the binding agent for the pilgrimage. The theme is explored in all stories, both physically but also culturally:

The evolution of religions. Christianity and Judaism are niche religions while the Shriek church is on the rise with a doctrine of ultimate destruction.
The “The Abraham Problem.” Why, exactly, did God want Abraham to offer his son as a blood sacrifice? What was His purpose?
The pain of existence & the search of meaning.
The nature of sacrifice and the promise of a Messiah

147 reads

There is a fullness and calmness there which can come only from knowing pain.

Words are the only bullets in truth's bandolier.

And poets are the snipers.

DAN SIMMONS, HYPERION

155 reads

In the beginning was the Word.

Then came the fucking word processor.

Then came the thought processor.

Then came the death of literature.

... And so it goes.

DAN SIMMONS, HYPERION

147 reads

Words bend our thinking to infinite paths of self-delusion, and the fact that we spend most of our mental lives in brain mansions built of words means that we lack the objectivity necessary to see the terrible distortion of reality which language brings.

DAN SIMMONS, HYPERION

144 reads

After fifty-five years of dedicating his life and work to the story of ethical systems, Sol had come to a single, unshakable conclusion: any allegiance to a deity or concept or universal principal which put obedience above decent behavior toward an innocent human being was evil.