Spoiler Warning, basically the entire book will get spoiled here.

Hyperion

Sci-fi space opera set a few centuries in the future, where humanity is spread across many worlds using “farcaster” portals to enable immediate travel/communication, as well as through the use of FTL drives, sub-light drives, etc. (but non-farcaster travel incurred time-debt through time dilation or cryo-sleep). The book covers a multitude of genres including action, adventure, romance, and mystery. The story is about pilgrims heading towards Hyperion, split into 6 chapters, each detailing the story of one of the main characters and why they’re going to Hyperion (some in first person, some in third person). Others say this is similar to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.

The Priest’s Tale

• At first I was surprised to see such heavy handed religious themes in a sci-fi book, but after thinking about it this shouldn’t be a surprise. Science fiction just explains current problems/situations in an alternative setting to help us see things from a new perspective.
• This chapter felt almost like a white savior tale, with a Catholic priest coming to bring God and civilization to the savage Bikura. And I guess that’s the preconception someone from my time will have when encountering such a tale, but the genius of this chapter is that very quickly you being to agree with Duré. You see how dumb the Bikura are and how insane their practices seem to Duré, and through this you can empathize with his position, i.e. someone from a “civilized” world interacting with an “uncivilized” world.
• Duré’s tale is pretty ironic (and I think irony is a common thread among the tales) in that he was sad at seeing Christianity’s decline, forged evidence of it predating its creation on Old Earth, was exiled to Hyperion where he began to lose his faith, found crucifix symbols that really did predate Earth, only to find out that the cruciform on Hyperion is a horrible parasite, finally destroying his faith.
• The concept of the cruciform is pretty terrifying/sad. Basically a parasite that resurrects you after death, but as an imperfect copy, and over time you become a bald, sexless, mentally handicapped shell of your original self like the Bikura.
  • Other analyses say this is Simmons’ criticism of Catholicism/Christianity, that it’s followers are sexless and mindless like the Bikura. I didn’t make that connection at first, but I see it now, especially considering that all the Abrahamic religions have a character to represent them and their flaws. Perhaps the overall point Simmons was making was that all religion was bad (the Shrike Cult in the book is about sending people on a pilgrimage to their death, so is he saying that all religion will lead you to your death?).
  • The cruciform also robs the Bikura of their individuality, but I guess this is tied to the sexless and mindless result of the imperfect resurrections.
  • Continuing on this thread, most religions promise a life after death, whether that be an afterlife or reincarnation. The cruciforms of Hyperion deliver this promise, but not in the ideal that religions believe in. Is Simmons’ comparing the promise of religions to a Monkey’s Paw, in that you must be careful what you wish for?

The Soldier’s Tale

• Kassad is a soldier of the Hegemony, and through his story we get a glimpse as to how war evolved throughout the future. The total wars of our modern era were seen as unethical, and in Hyperion’s future war returned to the olden days of professional soldiers fighting on neutral ground, where civilians wouldn’t be involved. Dirty nuclear bombs were replaced with clean fusion bombs that didn’t have radioactive fallout (but were just as, if not more, deadly, and so were reserved for desperate situations). The book describes a “New Bushido” code that the FORCE subscribed to, basically the idea of ethical wars.
  • Is it possible to have an ethical war? Isn’t that just an oxymoron? I guess it depends on your beliefs, but I’d argue that there is no such thing as an ethical war, as all killing is bad. We only do it because evolutionarily we needed to compete for scarce resources, why would killing be necessary in a future where resources are near limitless? Although in Hyperion’s universe, they don’t seem to be post-scarcity.
• Kassad eventually is forced to betray this code while fighting the Ousters, as they didn’t subscribe to the New Bushido and used guerilla tactics, putting civilians in harm’s way, and so Kassad had to kill civilians in order to deal with the threat. This led to him becoming a pacifist.
• Following the religion is bad theme, Simmons paints Islam in a violent light through Kassad, as well as a terrorist faction led by the “New Prophet” who wanted his followers to wage war on the “infidels”. In my time this feels racist, but I guess in 1989/pre-9/11 times the general populace didn’t have the terrorist stereotype, and Simmons paints all the Abrahamic religions (and religion in general really) in a bad light, so this doesn’t feel targeted.
• Going back to the irony thread, I think the irony of this tale is that he was a soldier who became a pacifist, and in order to prevent the interstellar war that the Shrike wants to unleash, he needs to kill again (the Shrike).

The Poet’s Tale

• Silenus was born rich but financial woes led to his emmigratoin from old earth, taking sub-light travel in cryo-sleep hoping that interest would accumulate and their riches would return. But complications of cryo-sleep mentally handicapped him, specifically it took away his capacity for language and he could only speak in a few different swears for many years.
• After getting his language back he wrote a bestseller about Old Earth, and became fabulously wealthy, but then became disillusioned when realized that continuing to be popular meant writing drivel, which feels like a meta-commentary on writing (hell this entire chapter is a bit of meta-commentary on writing as it’s told through the perspective of writer).
• Eventually he goes to Hyperion so he can go back to writing for himself instead of for money (self-expression vs. commercialism, this could be related to the ideas of Digital Gardens vs. Streams really), but finds that he can only really write his great work, the Hyperion Cantos (more meta) when the Shrike is out and about and killing people. When the Shrike takes his friend, the Sad King Billy, Silenus burns his work thinking it would banish the Shrike, but laments his unfished cantos for years. He fears the Shrike and regrets the death of his friend, but he needs to finish his work.
• Not sure what the main ironic point is here in this chapter, is it being born rich but still being forced into essentially slavery? Writing popular books at the cost of self expression? Writing self expression at great cost to those around you?

The Scholar’s Tale

• Sol Weintraub tells the story of how his daughter Rachel was researching the Time Tombs and contracted a disease that made her age backwards, forgetting everything after the age she currently is (essentially another take on amnesia). He has dreams where a voice, presumably God, tells him to sacrifice his daughter at Hyperion, mirroring the Binding of Isaac, ironic for a man who wrote books on morality and God.
  • The idea of aging backwards and forgetting everything is particularly sad as it’s described in the book, as you watch Rachel forget about her lover, her friends, details about her parents, everything. It’s like the sadness of a parent losing a child but prolonging it over 2 decades.
• Continues the “religion sucks” theme by showing a Jewish man enduring suffering for no discernable reason, just like Jewish people have been mistreated throughout history for no real reason. Sol questions this himself in the book, asking what is the point of all the suffering his people have endured. He questions why must children be sacrificed, why must adults be sacrificed, and arrives on the resolution that any allegiance to a deity or concept that puts obedience over morality is evil. I think this is the main point Simmons wants to make about religion, in that blind faith at the expense of your fellow man is not noble, it’s evil.

The Detective’s Tale

• Lamia is an interesting juxtaposition by the end, as she’s designed to be like out of a noir film, even uses a normal pistol instead of a futuristic weapon, but she fell in love with a cybrid John Keats and carries his consciousness in her.
• The plot about the TechnoCore wanting to create an Ultimate Intelligence (God) and that to do so they were doing experiments where they resurrected humans from the past (like Keats). Flips the idea of God making human’s in His image, as now AI (originally created by humans) are trying to create a God in the image of them and Man.
  • The desire to create an intelligence that can perfectly predict everything/account for all variables sounds like the AI believe in Causal Determinism, they just need a better intelligence so that they can see the true deterministic nature of the universe.
• Lamia seems to be an analog for the Virgin Mary, as by the end of her tale she reveals she’s carrying Keats’ child (and Keats was a product of an experiment to create God).
• One thing that felt weird to me was Lamia’s fascination with Johnny’s looks from the get-go, it felt reductive for the one female pilgrim to be so obsessed with a man. Although, the other stories from a male’s point of view where love and sex were involved had similar amounts of infatuation with their lover’s looks, so perhaps my unease with Lamia doing the same is a product of my time.
  • Interestingly, the Bechdel Test predates Hyperion, although it wasn’t popularized till the 2000s. And to be fair, Lamia is a character in her own right, but I have something of an itch that makes me feel like her character is told too much in relation to Johnny while Kassad and the Consul felt more individualistic (or is that my own biases as a man?).
• Johnny originally insisted he wasn’t John Keats, but he was based of his memories, and after he collapsed his AI into the cybrid he said he was Keats. This sounds like a Ship of Theseus or Duck Test scenario.

The Consul’s Tale

• This story’s themes read the clearest to me, as it seemed to be a pretty obvious condemnation of imperialism and colonialism. It tells about the Maui Covenant being inducted into the Hegemony, and how this would industrialize and commercialize the planet, ruining its ecology and culture. Like Hawaii had no real choice in joining the US, so too did the Maui Covenant not have a say in joining the Hegemony.
• The planet had dolphins imported from Old Earth, but they were killed by the Hegemony during the suppression of the rebellion, a clear example of nature being destroyed by human greed.
• The tale isn’t actually about the Consul, but his grandparents, a Hegemony shipman named Merin Aspic and a Maui Covenant native named Siri. Merin keeps making trips back and forth from Hegemony space to Maui Covenant, but each 10 month journey for him takes 10 years for Siri, so what was only 5 years for Merin was a lifetime for Siri. His last return is to visit her grave, with his children now older than him. Merin becomes a fighter for the rebellion but eventually dies along with the rest of them.
  • Merin’s and Siri’s story is like the classic tale of lovers from different cultures, but this time it’s not truly the culture that separates them but time itself. How sad it must’ve been for Siri to continue to age and grow and have Merin still be immature and not understand all the things she’s come to know.
• The Consul wanted to get revenge on the Hegemony for killing his family and his planet’s way of life, and also the Ousters, whose war with the Hegemony took his wife and son on Bressia. So he betrays both of them on Hyperion, wanting to unleash the Shrike on the galaxy. Sol mentions that both the Hegemony and the Ousters must’ve known he’d betray them, so his actions were essentially pre-ordained (bringing us back to Causal Determinism again).
• This is the only tale where Shrike doesn’t appear.
• One question that I still have is why do the dolphins miss the sharks? One analysis online mentioned that dolphins need sharks in order to evolve, and in general things need predators or else they’ll stagnate. Therefore the Hegemony needs something to keep them on their toes, like the Ousters or the Shrike. Although, I don’t think this is explored well enough.

Overall Thoughts

• Similarly to Dune, it felt hard to parse this story at first but then something just clicked and it became super engaging.
• One article talks about Hyperion in terms of eschatology, e.g. pain, judgement, final destinies, of the pilgrims. Although I don’t know if I’d agree with that being the main theme of the book.
• I like how the book uses M. for Man and A. for Android as gender neutral honorifics, a small touch to indicate a slightly more egalitarian society than ours.
• The Hegemony vs. Ousters conflict reminds me of Conservatism vs Progressivism. One side represents clinging to the old ways and forcing the world to adapt, while the other embraces change and adapts to the world.