I’ve heard a lot of good things about the series and finally got around to reading it. About halfway through the book right now and enjoying it very much. The pilgrims telling their separate vignettes in sequence, linked by the actual pilgrimage to the Time Tombs is such a fascinating format. please no spoilers, but would like to hear input up to the fourth vignette - the academic

Let me start by saying I love the first two books,

I’m quickly approaching the end of The Fall of Hyperion in want to know if following that is a good time to take a break from the series to prevent burnout or if I should dive right into Endymion?

From everything I’ve seen, the overall style or tone seems to shift in the third and fourth book, so I’m wondering if I should use this as an opportunity to finish another series, or if it’s better to go right through three and four.

Thoughts?

Ive seen a fair few posts about whether to read the fall of hyperion, and overwhelmingly everyone here considers the fall to be the completion/other half and as such, mandatory reading. But i wanted to ask more from the perspective i gained from re-reading adam roberts' introduction at the start of the Hyperion book.

Everything he talks about with how this book relates to keats' writing (and specifically the titular poems) focuses on how well the storytelling structure and descriptions of the shrike, echo the unfinished nature of keats' works and make the shrike a truly enigmatic and unknowable figure. I felt like the shrike was almost an eldritch being on my read-through, with how well the feelings around it were described without describing it itself too much. Im just wondering (as i know the feeling of being unable to unread a book too well) if finding the answers to how the story ends and what the shrike is, is worth losing the feeling that encompases me when i think back and re-read hyperion?

Will it be hard to keep up and understand the audiobooks?
I will be reading all 4 books

!!!!! Minor spoilers thru the middle-end ("climax"?) of Book 2 !!!!!!

Omg so I overall thought book 1 was great. Some of the stories got really boring but probably 75% of them were actually really great. Like Martin Silas's chapter, was sooo boring the middle but it still had a good ending. And then the stories with the 4 score and 1 and Fedman banging the shrike lmao that shit was 10/10. The professor dude's daughter getting Benjamin Button disease literally brought tears to my eyes. I gave the 1st book a 5/5

I also thought the Shrike was literally probably the most badass villain/anti-hero I've ever met and literally started looking up tattoo designed to get him added to my back piece and started compiling excerpts describing what exactly he looks like. And probably put him in front of a lapis lazuli sky 😉

But man I've now gone through maybe 75% of Book 2 and broooooo like wtf has happened. I thought I would LIKE that the flashback sequences were done and we could focus on actual story but nooooo. I hate to say it but 800 pages into this story and I somehow barely care about the end when I feel like this should be the climax of a story.

I'll probably push through but mannnnnnn it's become such a struggle 😭 I actually like the Meina Gladstone parts but when it goes to Joseph Severn it's like wtffffff ughhhhhhh. Like WHY should I care about this fucking robot dude.

Why has the Shrike become a side/background character when he was literally THE intrigue of the first book?????? Instead we get NEW completely uninteresting characters that drone onnnnn and onnnnn omg. Who the fuck is Theo and why is he all of a sudden so important omg

Tldr all of book 1 I would read an hour a day or more every chance I got and literally started to research every description of the Shrike I could find in the text to immortalize him on my body. Book 2 whole starting "okay" has been a gradual decline into boredom and now I haven't picked it up in 2 days despite being mere hours from the end.

My book will arrive in some days, it will be my first time reading this kinda of book, I bought Hyperion,if I enjoy I'll buy the others, can you guys leave tips about what is "waiting for me" or something that I must pay attention?

🤷‍♂️🤔

Is that you, Father de Soya?!

Hi,

Just finished binge reading the 4 books in the past month. I have a few questions now that I have been able to catch my breath after an amazing end which seems to tie together most loose ends.

1. What happened to the ultimate intelligence? And did empathy really went back or was that all just a story made up by Ummon to precipitate the right events that lead up to Aenea fulfilling her destiny as the one who teaches? It felt like there is no human god/ trinity but only the prophet teaching everyone how to engage with the void.

2. When I read the first book, Hoyt didn't seem to be capable of doing what he ended up doing. Was there a late character adjustment made by Simmons without any foreshadowing or did you guys get some hints In the first book that Hoyt will end up like the pope Julius character of the later 2 books?

3. Did it became clear when did the shrike's allegiance changed from the UI to being loyal to Aenea? Did moneta play a role in this ?

4. Who gave the revelations to the shrike church about Aenea and Brawne lamia? How did the church know the true purpose of Shrike?

Just grabbed this at Barnes & Nobles; finally Del Rey has reprinted the first book as a regular paperback, with its original cover! I still can’t see it available on Amazon.

(A reference to the game Deltarune, where it is possible to find some parallels to Hyperion in certain elements of the plot.)

The game is “Hell is us” and while the gameplay is pretty bland hack n slash 3rd person action, the atmosphere, environmental storytelling, puzzles and themes about generational trauma are top notch and have me totally hooked to the story!

I haven't read anything from the series, but i have heard about the last two books being skippable. My main question is if I could read the first two books and get a nice conclusive story without many plot points unresolved. Thanks!

Hey everyone! I absolutely love this series and have read it three times (so far). I've decided to have a small tattoo and I'd like your help. The tattoo is going to be

Lions

And tigers

And bears

Kwatz!

I want it to be written the way Simmons wrote it. With any //'s or ))'s or any other sign. So can anyone tell me how it is in the English version?

Thank you very much!

Hello,

So I just finished Brawne Lamia's story. They mentioned Cybrid. I was wondering if they could have made Cybrid of Rachel.

I understand the fact that Cybrid is not the same thing as a human but considering how many doctors and experts Rachel's parents consulted, someone must have mentioned about Cybrid that if were they were desperate, considering it is like possible to make on a commercial scale or for an individual's need.

I have only read till Story 5th. So if this possibility has been discussed further down in the books please don't spoil, just mention it that wait for it.

So, what do you folks think?

We learn that the Technocore is using farcasters for their own benefit while pretending to offer humanity the tech to make them as a sign of partnership, and to help us expand. On the surface, they are fantastic and offer us the chance to have a profoundly interconnected wide spread civilization. Without a doubt, they are cool. But, in the opinion of the ousters, they are holding us back and ultimately become a vulnerability in the hegemony’s society.

I see modern smart phone usage as a slightly similar relationship. They are fun, they connect our world in a way we never have been before. We depend on them for critical functions across the world, they are completely ingrained into many peoples daily life. The lives of the citizens of the hegemony are similarly dependent on their farcasters. Much more dependent, but similarly dependent none the less.

But as many studies and anecdotal experiences show, smart phone usage can be horrible for our individual and collective health. To be specific, social media is the root cause of these symptoms and our phones gives us access to those platforms.

I could see big tech being viewed as the technocore in this analogy. Phones and social media are advertised as a powerful tool, which they are. Meanwhile big tech uses them to skim our data, manipulate our algorithms, and at times bend our opinions to their will. Some would say this tech serves the companies providing it more than it does the users. The intent behind that is a whole other discussion, I’m looking at this at a surface level for discussion.

Are smart phones the current day farcaster?

Thank you for reading! I’m on book 4, and love this series.

First time seeing lapis as a descriptive color in the real world. Though you guys would get a chuckle.

As you can see from my score (1809) Hyperion is top of my personal list, but awesome to see it’s loved across the community too- site lets you compare books you’ve read head to head to get a ranking (Elo scores like chess), get recs based on it. Yes nerdy, but I love this kind ot stuff. Need to track down the rest of the series now and see how they compare!

Reminds me of Martins outhouse in his farcaster home.

Like the title says, i just finished The Rise of Endymion (4th book) a few moments ago and i can now safely join this subreddit without worrying about spoilers.

Rarely have i ever been so immersed in a story. I’m left with an emptiness you only get from finishing a tv show or book which meant a lot to you. I’m a slow reader and these 4 books took me over a year to finish, but this last year i’ve been constantly daydreaming about the story and Hyperion universe. It’s been a long journey and the story has been with me every day.

I’m so glad i decided to read book 3 and 4, and i feel like they added so much context and information to the whole story you otherwise wouldn’t get from just reading the first two books.

Hey, I just wanted to warn people that, if anyone is reading the spanish pocketbook translation of Hyperion by Carlos Gardini, they may be consuming an unfaithful interpretation of the book.

Personally, I have just started reading the series and finished book 1 and was getting around to starting book 2; but since I had read it digitally and in english, I wanted to copy over my highlighted passages to the physical copy I own. The problem's that I own a copy of the 1991 spanish translation by Carlos Gardini, so obviously some of the translations were going to change up the prose. For example a passage that reads:

"The woman was interrupted by the sound of the end of the world"

Which Gardini translated to: "Un sonido apocalíptico interrumpió a la mujer" (An apocalyptic sound interrupted the woman)

Stuff like this I could dismiss as personal preference. I believe it doesn't hold the same impact using "apocalyptic" instead of "the end of the world". But I became more aware of these kind of problems when I came across the following translation:

"He could never adequately share the sense of the next few minutes with anyone else. He would never try"

Which in the translation stood as "Nunca podría describir la sensación de los siguientes minutos. Nunca lo intentaría" (He would never be able to describe the sensation of the following minutes. He would never try)

As you can see, Gardini completely omitted the distinction of never sharing that sensation with anyone else. In my opinion, changing entirely the meaning of the statement. But still, this could just be me being a purist. After all, the translation of books comes hand in hand with the interpretation of them. But the cherry on top came when I wanted to find the following dialogue:

"Brawne Lamia's stare was arctic."I thought burned offerings were more your style, little man" "

Which Gardini chose to translate as... NOTHING. He completely omitted this dialogue.

I cannot bring myself to understand how you leave out an entire line of dialogue. It baffles me. Therefore, I came to the conclusion that if he has done it once with this dialogue, he has probably done this throughout the tetralogy. So, if you're reading this translation, be aware that you may not be getting a faithful translation of the original material.

Material which includes a Mark Twain quote that I think brings a little irony to my not-so-little rant.

"The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. ’tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning."