Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons
This review contains spoilers for “Hyperion”, the first book in the series. This review sort of acts as a review for both, but be warned that this also means there are spoilers for both below.
Overall Review: Dense and filled with complexity, Fall of Hyperion nonetheless feels more cohesive than its predecessor, Hyperion. This is science fiction at its best — expansive and highly technical while exploring the social, technological, and personal implications of humans branching out across time and space with futuristic technologies. While not very accessible to non-fans, I highly recommend the Hyperion Cantos series to anyone who loves science fiction. I especially encourage people to read through to Fall of Hyperion, as I enjoyed it more than Hyperion.
Synopsis: Picking up where Hyperion left off, the pilgrims have arrived at their destination and must now confront the Shrike while the planet around them is being invaded by a foreign fleet. At the same time, Joseph Severn (an AI construct placed into the human body of a poet) is brought into the Hegemony government’s inner circle to advise CEO Gladstone. Joseph is telepathically linked to the pilgrims via his dreams and must straddle their experiences and the political complexities of a Hegemony government at war. Meanwhile, the machinations of the AIs play out in the background, and the pilgrims explore the ruins of the Shrike knowing that they are fated to eventually confront it.
I loved Hyperion and its sequel, Fall of Hyperion. The world-building of the series is second to none, and it threads the needle perfectly between giving exposition and leaving details of the world ambiguous. As Joseph navigates both the political machinery of the government and the physical worlds of the Hegemony, you see firsthand the effects that various futuristic technologies have had on society. Nothing embodies this better than their portal technology (called farcasters). Beautiful rivers flow between worlds with Venetian gondolas carrying tourists via the portals, and then, as the war progresses, the farcasters are shut off and mob violence overtakes the rivers. Desperate refugees clog the portal entrances trying to get through via boat because everyone has become so dependent on instantaneous travel that few worlds are self-sufficient. Throughout the story, you get a real sense of how the worlds of the Hegemony operate without all of the exposition you see in some other books.
I also adored the chapters which take place in the AI realm. I loved how visceral they felt and the unimaginable complexity Simmons leaves hidden behind the shroud of cyberspace. Through the incomprehensibility of the digital environment, you can tell the tiny humans were coming up against an intelligence many orders of magnitude more powerful than them. The AIs are truly Lovecraftian horrors in technological form. Simmons uses fantastic onomatopoeia to reinforce this notion — the AI’s laugh is so alien but also so clearly a laugh that it makes the AI feel both familiar and terrifying. The AI parts reminded me of William Gibson’s cyberpunk books, particularly Neuromancer and the Sprawl Trilogy (I also highly recommend his excellent Bridge Trilogy).
One thing I preferred about Fall of Hyperion over Hyperion was its more limited use of perspectives. Hyperion, being a frame story, follows the independent perspective of each of the seven pilgrims as self-contained mini-stories. In comparison, the sequel follows only two perspectives — Joseph in the Hegemony and the pilgrims back on the planet Hyperion. I found the latter to be a lot easier to follow. The thread of the story was more cohesive, and it was easier to follow the plot rather than having to context-switch between seven distinct stories (each with different world-building).
The fact that Fall of Hyperion got to rely on the initial world-building of Hyperion helped as well. While still great, a lot of the world-building didn’t pay off until the sequel. It’s possible that fans of more exotic story structures would enjoy the first book more, but I liked the simpler story structure of the sequel.
The only other critical thing I can say about this book is that it’s not very accessible unless you’re already a fairly hardcore science fiction fan. The book is technical and relies heavily on a number of invented futuristic technologies, including but not limited to: an alien warfleet with hyper-futuristic sci-fi weapons, objects that travel backward through time (like in the movie Tenet), an AI cyberworld, portal technology, genetic engineering, and time-dilation spaceflight. If you’re uninitiated to science fiction, this can be overwhelming. At the same time, though, the wealth of imaginative worldbuilding is what I love about the Hyperion Cantos series and Fall of Hyperion in particular, so I think it’s a necessary evil for the story.
On a related note, I went to a book club recently where a lot of people said they didn’t like The Three-Body Problem because they felt it was only about technology and the characters were undeveloped in comparison. While I understand where they’re coming from, that’s the kind of stuff I love! And while Fall of Hyperion uses all of its futuristic technology as a core part of its story and uses it to explore “what-if” scenarios in societal terms, it doesn’t revel in technobabble like other stories do (such as The Three-Body Problem, Foundation, or The Martian). The characters each have their motivations and relationships with each other, which evolve over time. In particular, Sol’s struggle to save his daughter is touching. While I wouldn’t say the book is about relationships at its core, it does a great job of deeply fleshing out its many characters.
Overall, Fall of Hyperion is an amazing book. It wraps up the ideas from Hyperion beautifully and earns its place as a masterwork of science fiction. I can’t recommend it enough to anyone who solidly enjoys science fiction and space operas.