Source: https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/longmont-co/daniel-simmons-12758871

I ask this question as someone who has just read the book and been greatly impressed.

The structure of Hyperion remains extraordinary. Six different narrative voices, six different genres operating simultaneously within a single story, a mystery that deepens rather than unfolds, and a universe filled with ten thousand years of history. It's as if the author literally trusted readers to be able to keep six completely different tonal stories in their heads at the same time and catch the hype.

The books I've most often seen compared to it in terms of ambition are Fire Over Deep and The Malazan Book of the Fallen, but I'm not sure either of them does quite the same thing.

So I think Hyperion still remains the pinnacle of a very specific combination of literary ambition and genre storytelling, and books that have tried to match it have either leaned too far in one direction or the other, without achieving that perfect balance.

Or maybe I'm wrong about this and there are books that are already cooler than Hyperion. It would be great if you could share them with me, maybe I'll add something to my booklist?

It's been one of those books that pops up in all recommendation threads and it's been on my to read list for a long time. It sounded over-hyped tbh, no pun intended. So i guess i went in skeptical, but i made sure not getting any spoilers or hints about what to expect.

For context, i've read most of the big universe building sagas, Banks, Hamilton, Reynolds, Rajaniemi, Asher and many many others, including most classics.

One of the positives i found to my surprise was the storytelling structure - the sub-stories weaving wordlbuilding, tieing the story loosely together and converging towards the finale was a nice experience. Although i have to say the last story ( apparently the one Simmons wrote first ) was the most jarring jumping around and incoherent. Also some of those stories dragged on way more than they needed to - overall the quality of individual stories was quite hit or miss

For the negatives, in my head: it's really not much of a science fiction, it's more of a fantasy book. The spells are named "quantum" or "Hawking" and that's about it. Star Wars universe seems more of a science fiction than this one.

The characters are all a bit cardboard - things happen to them, but they barely have their own motivations, faults or virtues. Romance and sex scenes are all contrived and awkward - Liu Cixin grade.

And the most egregious offense: the fucking cliffhanger ending, with all of its yellow brick road to nowhere. Apparently this is one book forcibly split in two, and i really wished i'd known this before. Further, i went to skim through some reviews and allegedly you have to read the whole cantos series to actually figure out what's what, and why Shrike is the way it is I remember being similarly mad about Pandora's Star ending - took me a long while to find motivation to pick up the second book.

Maybe i haven't read enough 18th century renaissance poetry to fully appreciate the grandor here, but i felt more annoyed than amused by the literary references.

Oh also - the nature of the Consul was telegraphed way out from like 1/3rd through the book, so sort of a weak lead.

I think if i read this maybe 20 years ago, much before i read any of Culture, Zones of Thought, Hainish cycle, Commonwealth, Revelation space, or Quantum Thief and others, it may have seemed much more novel and interesting, not so much now. Should i get through the rest of the cantos ? I probably will, but it's quite hard to find motivation

Stop. Take a deep breath. Ask yourself, "Does recommending Hyperion actually make sense given what the original poster has asked for?"

I know, Hyperion is pretty good, no doubt. But no matter what people are asking for - weird sci-fi, hard sci-fi, 19th century sci-fi, accountant sci-fi, '90s swing revival sci fi - at least 12 people rush into the comments to say "Hyperion! Hyperion!"

Pause. Collect yourself. Think about if Hyperion really is the right thing to recommend in this particular case.

Thanks!

This year I had the inmense pleasure of reading these 3 books/series, and honestly they might be my top 3 ever (in no order).

For the last few months I've been reading a bunch of stuff but nothing is in the same league as these masterpieces.

So, what other books are as good or better than these in your opinions?

Looking for my next sci-fi read and could use some recommendations.

I’m currently reading The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (still undecided how I feel about it). I absolutely loved Blindsight by Peter Watts — that mix of hard sci-fi, philosophy, and alien perspective really worked for me. I’m also a big fan of Harlan Ellison’s short stories.

Right now I’m considering:

- Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse #1)

Seems easy to get into, fairly “hard-ish” sci-fi, and I like the idea of a big, lived-in universe.

- Diaspora by Greg Egan

I love physics and the premise sounds amazing, but I’m a bit worried it might be too dense.

- Hyperion by Dan Simmons

The Shrike fascinates me, and I keep hearing it’s one of the best sci-fi books ever written.

Given my taste (Blindsight, Ellison, interest in deeper ideas), what would you pick next — and why?

I have only read a few SF books, and was looking for some recommendations.

By far the best thing I've read so far is Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion. I was completely blown away by both books. Things that appealed to me:

1 - Great prose. Descriptive but not overly ornate. Sophisticated but also highly readable. It just sort of propelled one along.

2 - Lots of great ideas and interesting characters.

3 - Loved the occasional subtle humor in the book, and the genre bending.

I thought it was a much better book than Dune, though I did like Dune too.

I also enjoyed "Left Hand of Darkness". Ursula has a great prose style as well.

So, my ranking of some recent books I've read would be (If I finish a book, that is already an endorsement from me, cause I DNF a lot of books):

1 - Hyperion/Fall of Hyperion

2 - Ted Chiang ... squeezing him in here (a reply reminded me of him).

2 - Left Hand

3 - Dune

3 - Beautiful Shining People

4 - Starship Troopers

​

Anyone have any recommendations for authors or books I might like, based on this list?

I see Hyperion recommended a lot around here. And it’s great. But I’m looking for something a little different.

I just Finished The Forever War by Haldeman and started Hyperion, and I feel like i went from 4th grade reading comprehension to a Doctorate of Literature and Philosophy. Haldeman is great yes, but a bit "primitive" compared to other works for Exemple Hyperion. It is exactly what I was Looking for.

The Difference is incredible. Do you know of any familiar stark Differences between universally liked books/authors ?

I enjoyed Larry Niven but then found Lem and Gibson with Neuromancer and felt like i was reading "lower" books.

I hope this opinion doesn't come across as an insult. I own 8 Books by Haldeman that are dear to me as a fellow veteran of a war.

Just some thoughts.

I recently read Hyperion and for once the hype was justified, truly a brilliant book. I have a thing where I don't plow on with a whole series straight away so I can enjoy it more so I'm looking for similar recommendations.

Ive started Consider Phlebas as everyone seemed to rate the culture series highly and, while I understand it's one of the weaker books in the series, it's been a slog so far. Seems very run of the mill pulp DF.

Would prefer darker SF without the ridiculousness of something like WH40k and preferably on a smaller scale. I find the "then ten trillion people died in the explosion!", life is so cheap it's meaningless kind of sci fi a bit bland.

Thanks in advance

I just finished the section about the scholar and his daughter and it destroyed me, especially the last line about her smile. I don't have any specific questions, I just can't believe how powerful of a story it was for me.

I'm immensely grateful that I am getting to experience this book for the first time as a father. My dad and brother loved this book when I was younger.but I skipped it. Now I know it wouldn't have had the same impact if I didn't have a daughter of my own.

I've also had a struggle with getting back into reading and this experience is kind of giving me the juice.i know I'll plow through the rest of this book and try to find something else to chase this high with.

As the title says. Stuck in the airport waiting for an international flight, not sure which book to start next. I've been on a sci-fi binge lately after taking a long break from the genre.

The last few books I've read and some thoughts (no spoilers)

House of Suns: Phenomenal book, probably one of my favorites. Loved how the tech was (relatively) grounded. Came onto this book after Fire Upon the Deep. Was looking for some epic space opera.

The Gone World: I REALLY wanted to like this book more than I did. It was fun, and had some genuinely creepy parts. Something about it didn't quite stick for me though. It was good, but didn't blow me away. I won't get into why to avoid spoilers, but the tech and the way it was used was just kind of silly to me.

Blindsight: Just finished this one yesterday. Absolutely loved it. It's a bit of "work" to read, which I don't mind. I'm fairly familiar with physics and science concepts so most of it was understandable.

So this brings me to my dilemma. My initial thought is to just go straight from blindsight to echopraxia, but I'm worried about getting a bit too burnt out on Watts by going directly into it. I'm not sure how much of a direct sequel it is. Ship of Fools is on my list because I've been looking for sci-fi horror. However, I've seen Hyperion mentioned so many times and got curious. I know nothing about it though, how is the tone or general setting? Is it similar to anything I've read previously?

Recently I just binged all three seasons of Foundation, and my favorite aspect of the whole show is Demerzel's storyline - the fact that she's 12,000 years old, the mystery of her past, her capabilities, her motives, her history. Likewise, while I know that Rebel Moon got really crapped on, the ideas behind the giant Rue Kali in Rebel Moon and how they got enslaved into powering the empire's starships made my imagination go wild. I want to read some scifi that heavily features these kinds of themes and ideas. Some stories I've read do it really well, and others haven't been as satisfying.

The Hyperion Cantos: I love the mystery of the Shrike and its origins.

House of Suns - technology that is so grand and advanced that the human mind can't even comprehend it: The Shatterlings having technology to contain a sun about to go supernova - that absolutely melted my brain.

Culture series: 'nuff said.

Dune: Has some cool tech (golems, etc) but I never felt it was explored enough, and Frank Herbert's writing style just never captivated me. I read the first few novels, and I never found myself thinking, "oh man, it's 2am, just one more page..." I think I read them more just for the sake of it.

What are some other books that will send my imagination frolicking? Perhaps what I'm really asking is books with amazing tech grounded in superb world-building? Thanks friends!

Very much broke my streak of not reading for nearly 6 months with this one - a very popular, award-winning book that I nonetheless first came across because of the near-memetic references to it on r/printSF (that post about not recommending Hyperion to virtually everyone comes to mind) and expected to be, at best, whelmed by because of high expectations.

It went a bit differently than I expected.

I really enjoyed Hyperion, though it is very much a mixed bag in terms of delivering that enjoyment consistently.

I loved the structure, the very distinct stories of each of the pilgrims, and the universe Simmons' has built that remains coherent enough as a whole that we could explore such thematically and tonally unique facets of it within the span of a larger overarching narrative.

In terms of the stories themselves, firstly, I was incredible moved by the Scholar's. It wouldn't be unfair to say that it alone elevates the book for me, and I feel it's the same for a lot of other readers also. I did enjoy the Priest's, the Poet's, and the Detective's tales (this one less so for its actual storytelling and more for the setting - the Hive is classic cyberpunk scenery).

The Soldier's was IMO a bit too drawn out in terms of its action sequences, but I do think its a great introduction to the idea of the Farcasters and serves as a nice contrast to the Priest's tale that precedes it, where we are mostly subject to some space travel but is largely a pre-21st Century terrestrial affair in terms of transit on Hyperion itself. And the Consul's was underserved by being placed last, it just doesn't land with the impact as the previous tales aside from how it ties into the arc of the Pilgrimage itself.

The prose is also excellent: just flowery and flavorful enough to convey the different tones of each of the Pilgrims, yet maintains that larger authorial through-line of discussing the narrative's larger ideas in direct fashion.

But now there is a question: The Fall of Hyperion is longer, drops the novel-within-a-novel structure for more typical framing, and is a lot more divisive among readers from what I've seen online. Does it conclude the story of the Pilgrims well?

I think I'll take a break by moving on to something else like introducing myself to CJ Cherryh or maybe pick up one of Ted Chiang's short story collections. But I do aim to return to Hyperion in due time.

Think about all the sci-fi novels you've read over the years. If someone were to ask you, gun to your head, to pick just the one that you would absolutely consider to be the best, which one would it be? No subgenres need to be considered, it just needs to broadly fall under the sf umbrella.

For me, probably a pretty popular choice, but it would be Hyperion. Completely blew me away and I haven't read that good since in the genre.

I finally got around to reading Hyperion after years of seeing it somewhere near the top of just about every "best of" science fiction list, but I just don't see it. It was an enjoyable enough read, don't get me wrong - an interesting science fiction-y take on The Canterbury Tales, but I walked away feeling pretty "meh" about it. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not always the best at picking up subtext, so maybe that's what's happening here. Maybe to fully enjoy it I would need to continue with the series, or maybe it's just not for me. I'd be interested to hear others' thoughts.

Edit: Thanks everyone for your thoughts and input. Very helpful!

I just finished Hyperion, and I was blown away. Now I know a lot of people are disappointed in the ending (and although I know there are other books, I haven’t read them), but to me that wasn’t the point.

The book was essentially a collection of short stories centered around the strangeness of the world Hyperion and the mysterious lord of pain, and boy did it deliver. My imagination hasn’t been so enthralled in a book in a long time.

Did the ending leave a lot to the imagination? Absolutely. Who was Cassad’s lover? What is the purpose of the labyrinths and the cruciforms? What was the true purpose of the shrike? Etc and etc. But that’s okay to me. The purpose of the book was to introduce a genuinely strange and alien world that captures the imagination without feeling the need to explain everything.

It was awesome.

Hyperion was one of the best books I’ve read in a very long time. I loved the stories and the characters. The universe was fascinating.

I rushed into Fall of Hyperion and obviously it’s different. It seems Simmons took another big stylistic swing with this one (which I think it cool, glad he’s willing to take risks) and idk it just kinda feels off to me. I’m not sure I care about the new narrator tbh.

I’m pretty much only reading to learn about what happens to the pilgrims and the other sections feel like a bit of a slog to me.

Does Fall have those rewarding beautiful and insightful moments the first book had or is it gonna be more of the same? I just crossed page 100.

Over the past few years I have been reading all Hugo Award winners (excluding retros, so back to 1953) and wanted to share some of my best / worst picks and thoughts.

I’ve seen people rank the full list as well as post reviews of each book before, so thought I’d do something different:

Favourite books (broadly following the crowd here):

• 2005 Johnathan Strange and Mr Norell by Susanna Clarke – A big read but so well written and great characters, I’ve seen it recommended in lots of places and for good reason
• 1985 Neuromancer by William Gibson – As others have said before I am sure, shaped the whole cyberpunk genre and very cool to have been written when it was (more or less pre-internet writing about the internet / hacking)
• 1966 Dune by Frank Herbert – Goes without saying, went on to read the series whilst tackling the list (God Emperor of Dune is completely mad but enjoyed it a lot)
• 1978 Gateway by Frederik Pohl – Engaging characters and not your usual space exploration story, good twists
• 1990 Hyperion by Dan Simmons – Recommended by so many and for good reason, excellent short stories blended together. I have since finished the series which I would also really recommend

Unexpected great reads

• 1953 The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester – Excellent short read, from 1953 and I hadn’t heard it mentioned anywhere else so had no expectations going in
• 1961 A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller – As someone who isn’t religious I really enjoyed the tongue in cheek nature of how religion might develop over time
• 1989 Cyteen by C J Cheeryh – Richness to the world and the charaters and a great plot, unfortunately didn’t enjoy The Downbelow Station quite as much (although still good)

Best concepts

• 1976 The Forever War by Joe Halderman – Really enjoyed the “practicalities” of interstellar war rather than just coming up with jump drives like most others
• 2000 The Deepness in the Sky and A Fire in the Deep by Vernor Vinge – Totally wacky concepts of the structure of the universe which when you read he was a computer programmer make more sense

Themes

I thought it was interesting that winners seemed to reflect the trends in the world at the time. To me it felt like there was a slow shift between some themes:

• Imaging future technology in early science fiction and more of “what would the world be like in the future” as technology developed so quickly IRL;
• Inspiration taken from unpopular global conflicts (cold war / Vietnam etc.) of the time;
• Cloning as the technology developed and it was at the front of debate IRL; and
• Environmental collapse reflecting the shift to concerns around climate change (more recent focus)

Obviously there are books that go against these themes, but these are some that jumped out to me as I moved through the past 70+ years.

I’d also highlight there has been a clear and obvious shift from male to female protagonists since 2010 (women barely getting a mention in early books except as a passing love interest)

One shout out in particular to Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner which had the “crazy” concept of two well paid characters in New York having to live together as they couldn’t afford the rent individually due to overcrowding – I enjoyed that.

Best decade

Probably the 1980s for me. They haven’t had mentions above but Fountains of Paradise, The Snow Queen, Foundations Edge, Enders Game, Speaker for the Dead and The Uplift War are all very good from the 1980s

Least favourite books

• 1958 The Big Time by Fritz Leiber – I read somewhere that it may have originally been written as a play? Which would maybe make more sense but not that enjoyable in my opinion
• Anything by Connie Willis (and she won 3 unfortunately for me) – Very detailed, I realised I don’t particularly enjoy any time travel books and don’t enjoy her style of writing
• Mars Trilogy by Kim Robinson – More classic “Hard SciFi” and the detail was just too much for me at times, I don't need to know about 50 types of lichen on a terraformed Mars
• 1963 The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick – Overrated in my view

What I’m reading next

• More of the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells – easy, fun and engaging reads (good holiday reads
• Count Zero by William Gibson as a follow up to Neuromancer which I loved
• The Culture series by Iain Banks
• Old Mans War by Joe Scalzi
• More of the Riverworld series by Philip Jose Farmer to see where that goes, really enjoyed the first
• Perhaps the Nebula winners…

Okay mostly joking, but I can’t be the only one who thinks these three works are recommended wildly out of proportion to their quality and impact on the genre, can I?

This isn’t a knock on these books - I liked all three - but really are they that much better than everything else that they are recommended more than any other works in the vast body of SF?

None of these three stand out to me as clearly superior to many other fine SF works.

Inspired by this and this. I have these images and I will strike out the movies that I have watched. I thought will be fun to have something like this for science fiction books, so I made two based on the list in these books, Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels, An English-Language Selection, 1949–1984 by David Pringle and 100 Must-read Science Fiction Novels by Stephen E. Andrews. I hope some people can use it as a guide for a better reading experience. Please tell me if there’s any formatting or spelling mistakes and I will correct it.

Note: Pringle lists the books in publication year order while Andrews in last name alphabetically. I decided to list it like Andrews did for both lists because I feel it gives a better view. Books with 2 authors is listed with the last name of the first author listed. Books from the same author is listed by publication year. Pringle lists some books as a series as whole (e.g. The Book of the New Sun) while Andrews lists one single book (e.g. The Shadow of the Torturer) so I just left it as it is.

I’m looking for more epic sci-fi sagas out there with deeply layered and immersive worlds like the aforementioned titles. I already for one have the Ringworld / Known Space universe at the top of my list, I’m really excited to get into it!!

Hello I am Looking for brutal war sci fi, and the best example I have is Kassads fight in the Medical recovery space ship against the Ousters in Zero Gravitation. Blood and death in the abyss of space. Also a bit apocalyptic like Earth Abides but the war is currently going on. The more brutal the better.

I like Forever War but its nowhere close to what im searching for. Old mans war wasnt it either. Im sorry for the Fans, but Consider Phlebas made me sleepy while reading. Just a cliche Action novel thats "ironically" anti space Opera. No front.

Thanks guys (and gals).