1989, Bantam, NY, 482 pages

Thanks to Ishmael for the loan of this book.

Hyperion is a colonial world at the edge of a vast space opera setting which centers around a Core data base, with preserved AI versions of such minds as Ezra Pound. As with most space opera settings there is either an evil empire or barbarian outsiders. In this case the empire is neutral and the outsiders represent the evil. Mankind is altered and scattered to various worlds where branches of humanity seek divinity. Greg Bear’s Hegira and Strength of Stones comes to mind as similarly monotheistic-obsessed future worlds. This builds a strong moral contrast for a science-fiction setting. In the case of Hyperion, we have a world that seems to be home to a divinity door or dimension door—along the lines of V.J. Waks’ Tau setting—infused with a strong catholic sense of the temporal.

On Hyperion there are such wonders as the Tesla tree and vast seas of grass. Most fascinating is a carnivorous being that lurks Grendel-like in the hinterlands and about whom an Aztec-like death cult has sprung. The Shrike is the dark shadow lurking about the fringes of Hyperion even as the interstellar barbarians descend on this sector of space. This triggers a quest of seven—very much a Fellowship of the Ring—dedicated to discovering the mystery behind a journal left by a certain Jesuit, Father Pure. The Journal of Father Paul Pure is a compelling sci-fi novella in its own right, beginning on page 31 and ending on page 94. This and five other tales are told by the named members of the Seven, in the presence of the main narrative voice, which is that of the anonymous Consul. There is the priest who caries Father Pure’s burden, an Islamic warrior, a poet, a child, a Jewish scholar, a ship’s captain of a Templar order, a female detective and the illusive Consul, who is at the center of the grand tale, which seems to have been the foundation of a massive series.

Simons writes with a lyric quality that falls stylistically somewhere between Orson Scott Card and Gene Wolfe. Hyperion is a taught, low-action, high dialogue, big-scope, steeply intriguing classic of the science-fiction genre, a complex tale of humanity lost at the terminus of its own technological arc and still searching for its soul.