Now u-rate-it is officially dead and buried, I'm thinking of posting my reviews from there over here...
Now u-rate-it is officially dead and buried, I'm thinking of posting my reviews from there over here. Anyone interested?
Member since:16.06.2001
Reviews:71
Members who trust:166
If you think that the Web dominates communications today, get yourself put into cryogenic fugue for eight hundred years or so, and if Dan Simmons’ vision comes to pass, not only will they actually be able to revive you, you’ll be able to see *real* Web domination. For the Web of the twenty-ninth century draws communities together *physically* – its gateways are Farcaster portals which can interconnect on demand to give zero travel time between two points. (Fancy a residence built on a dozen different planets? No problem. Dinner at that restaurant you found while on honeymoon? Be there in five. Office space in the crisp air of the high mountains accessed from a door in your country retreat? Very popular these days). But not all known worlds are Web-connected, and travel beyond the technological gossamer still incurs the time-debt associated with relativistic speeds – as you approach the speed of light, time stretches and you reach your destination younger than your theoretical twin...
This then is the setting for the first part of Simmons’ Hyperion Cantos. As the book opens, a crisis of galactic scale is looming. The feared and reviled Ousters have begun the long-dreaded war against the Web’s ruling human Hegemony, and the focus of their initial attentions is the distant colonial planet of Hyperion. Home of the enigmatic Time Tombs, reports are that their legendary guardian, the Shrike, Lord of Pain, has reawoken and is spreading even more fear and panic. What secrets do the empty Tombs hold that the Ousters are so desperate to gain and the sentient Web All Thing is so desperate to retain?
The answers are to be found in the tales of the seven pilgrims chosen by the Church of the Final Atonement and the All Thing. Brought to Hyperion by the Templar treeship Ygdrasill, and joining its captain on this journey to the Shrike’s lair, are a failing Catholic priest, a vengeful soldier, a watchful detective, a diplomatic consul, a tragic scholar and a visionary poet. One among them is an Ouster spy – but which?
The pilgrims’ tales are told in such an order as to gain maximum effect; each builds on the last in some way and it is difficult to imagine the book being quite so good should the poet Silenus’ draw been made differently. But this of course is just a literary device of plot construction…
Simmons is a very clever writer. Each pilgrim’s tale is told in a different style; some are even in the first person, which is difficult to do without sounding like a primary-school essay. Like all good authors, he is also able to manipulate the reader’s emotions at will. At the pilgrims’ initial meeting, I felt sympathy for only two of the seven – the obviously ill priest Lenar Hoyt, and the scholar Sol Weintraub carrying his baby daughter. As the group descend into the valley at the end of the book, there was only one who I felt did not deserve any particular sympathy – and it was not the spy.
Winner of the 1990 Hugo Award for Science Fiction, “Hyperion” is a beautifully crafted beginning to the four-part Cantos; highly readable, a real page-turner. The characters are as highly developed as they are diverse; the various locations as clear and detailed as they would be on celluloid. I am not ashamed to admit that I was moved to tears at one point in the Scholar’s tale, but to tell you why would be to reveal too much – you will just have to find out for yourself. And so I must thank my fellow Ciao member offy for bringing this masterpiece to my attention – and hope that you in turn, once you have read this stunning book, will thank me for bringing it to yours.
Best price (inc P&P) 1 Mar 2002: £7.69 from whsmith.co.uk
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I never read this type of Book so I'll have to trust you on
this one..LL
oedipus 07.04.2002 22:18
Good op, good book. The little guys that regenerate are downright unsettling. I think Simmons can't quite maintain the bravura of the first book across the trilogy but the initial premise keeps you going. If you like this try Alastair Reynolds' Chasm City - part Space Opera, part Cyberpunk and the finest SF I've read for a year.
Connoisseur_Haggler 15.03.2002 11:18
You've taken me to a different planet with this one...I could drift away into another world with this one..sadly I dont get time (or make time) as much I'd like for reading Fiction as much as I did when I was in school/college and seem to be reading only current Affairs! :( This sounds likes an intriguing skillfully engineered story/plot. Excellent -CH
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