[Update 5-25-2007:I just finished yesterday. And now I know why people say that it’s really just half the story. Take that as literally as possible. You can watch Alien without seeing the others. To a degree, this is true for A New Hope also. But Hyperion is more akin to the Fellowship of the Ring. You can’t just stop at the end of that. I should have known because that’s exactly how Ilium and Olympos were.
It’s a fairly easy read. Especially considering the format. Each member tells a story that spans about seventy pages each if I do the math correct. I tried to knock one story out a day on the bus and between classes. Every time a story starts, I couldn’t help but think about how boring the character was and how boring the coming story would be. But I was terribly wrong. Only one of them was o-k. The rest were pretty much um wow. I sit here and wonder: how can someone imagine all this stuff? Then to sort through it and make it entertaining. It’s really amazing. You might be thinking, “Wow, he’s ranting and he’s lost his mind. Is this the best book ever?” IT IS]
People say Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion are essentially one book so I guess this is really about the first fourth of the book–because I’m only halfway through Hyperion right now. Still, I’m gonna go ahead and declare it the best book ever. I really liked Ilium, but a lot of people (aka Amazon customers) said that it had nothing on Hyperion. They might be right. Here’s my summary so far: 7 people far in the future (think fast space ships) have secret pasts all involving encounters with the Shrike (pictured). Yah bad summary.