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.

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:<ul><li>psychological horror story</li><li>part war story, part erotic novel</li><li>supernatural thriller</li><li>detective story</li><li>family drama</li><li>political thriller</li></ul>You get to understand the universe and the themes to these individual stories.

The Canterbury Tales … but in Space

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.

The Planet of Hyperion, Time Tombs and the Shriek

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

Pain as the ultimate human connection

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.

The story happens 1000 yrs after the accidental destruction of Earth. <ul><li>The human race expanded on 200 worlds, forming a federation called the Hegemony. </li><li>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.</li><li>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.</li></ul>

The Universe of Hyperion

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.

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.

You have to live to really know things, my love

One of the books who makes all the lists of best SF of all times. An original take on a philosophical space saga. Beautifully written. 

A stunning tour de force filled with transcendent awe and wonder, Hyperion is a masterwork of science fiction that resonates with excitement and invention, the first volume in a remarkable epic by the multiple-award-winning author of The Hollow Man. On the world called Hyperion, beyond the reach of galactic law, waits a creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all. On the eve of Armageddon, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set forth on a final voyage to Hyperion seeking the answers to the unsolved riddles of their lives. Each carries a desperate hope—and a terrible secret. And one may hold the fate of humanity in his hands. Praise for Dan Simmons and Hyperion “Dan Simmons has brilliantly conceptualized a future 700 years distant. In sheer scope and complexity it matches, and perhaps even surpasses, those of Isaac Asimov and James Blish.”—The Washington Post Book World “An unfailingly inventive narrative . . . generously conceived and stylistically sure-handed.”—The New York Times Book Review “Simmons’s own genius transforms space opera into a new kind of poetry.”—The Denver Post “An essential part of any science fiction collection.”—Booklist