I Read Books: Hyperion

Hyperion

The hottest science fiction novel of 1989, I’ve finally got round to reading it! Seven pilgrims are on the planet Hyperion, going to the Time Tombs, to request something from the Shrike, a four-armed metal-spiked being that manipulates time, mostly to kill people. They start to tell each other stories, in a Canterbury Tales fashion, that reveals what’s going on. Like why is there a war, and who with, why they’ve been chosen for the pilgrimage, is the Hegemony Of Man actually important or just an adjunct of the AI Technocore, what is the nature of time, and so on.

It's all related to John Keats who wrote an unfinished poem called and about Hyperion, a sun titan in Greek myth, who was replaced by another sun-deity, Apollo. (This story is also unfinished, being completed in The Fall Of Hyperion (1990) which presumably I will catch up on either next year or in 33 years time.) So the old order is falling and a new one emerges.

The planet Hyperion has been colonised three times, once by the indigenes, people who scattered here (presumably) in the hegira, after the destruction of earth. Once by Sad King Billy who brought his court of artists and built the City Of Poets (abandoned after Shrike attacks) and also the city Keats. And one more time as it is brought within the Hegemony Of Man.

All of the pilgrims have found themselves caught up in the history of Hyperion in one or other fashion, all have had strange experiences with time. Maybe the titan being replaced is one of time rather than the sun. Anyway, it’s good, each pilgrim’s tale casting the narrative into new light, each leaving dangling threads, each having its own style and voice.

Read This: A genuine science fiction classic
Don’t Read This: It doesn’t actually finish