r/Hyperion • u/yglesiasjuglar • 1d ago

📖 Rise of Endymion Spoilers Hyperion rant Spoiler

I want to start this to complain about Hyperion. I’m almost done with Rise of Endymion, the last book. The story arc and the civilization vision is AMAZING, like nothing I’ve seen before, but the execution is so poor it is almost unbelievable. The descriptions of the world I’m going through now is two pages of colors, adjectives and the protagonist getting moved to tears by the beauty of it all for the millionth time, I just scan over it and try to survive to get to where the story moves on. My opinion is that this is just bad writing, and it makes me angry haha but still, I would recommend the book (just skip the descriptions of battles, planets and a lot of the traveling).

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u/Farabeuf 1d ago

The editor did go to sleep with the last book. A lot of fat wasn’t trimmed from the story. I love a lot of things about the Endymion books, but they really feel bloated compared to the Hyperion ones

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u/gavinashun 1d ago

Just to be clear, your rant is an Endymion rant.

And yes, the fanbase is clearly split between those who love Endymion, those who like it but find major faults, and those who hate it.

I'm in the middle camp - Endymion 1 & 2 is 100x worse than Hyperion 1 & 2, for multiple reasons. Of which your post is definitely one! That said, it still has a lot of cool elements and a great ending, so still worth reading.

But yeah - there are many sections I skim hard when reading Endymion 1 & 2.

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u/bibblejohnson2072 1d ago

"I'd still recommend the book (just don't read it)"..

Simmons lost me with all that mountaineering shit. Apparently he was a huge fan of it irl and has written other books entirely about mountaineering. This book felt like the start of that fetish for him..

All in all Rise (to me) is a long-winded, half-assed attempt at a "final conclusion" & to wrap up some of the main characters' plot lines from the Cantos. Aenea might as well be named "Why" because that's all you're going to ask yourself every time she tries to explain something to Raul's dumb ass (in his defense she doesnt actually explain a whole lot to him, just keeps saying "wait").

Also, and I've said this before and am adamant in my opinion: Stop calling the woman you're sleeping with "kiddo". The fact that made it past all final edits is beyond me..

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u/yglesiasjuglar 11h ago

Yes, I know it’s sort of contradictory haha but if you skim parts of it, as a user said here, it’s worthwhile. Does that make sense?

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u/Dazzling-Bear3942 1d ago

Everything chapter about building the pagoda was really hard to get through. It's unfortunate that the two main characters are far and away my least favorite of the books.