r/Hyperion

Down to discuss anything! Loved every page of it. Immediately watched and read a bunch of reviews, I can’t believe how split the opinion is??

I thought Simmons did a wonderful job of alternating viewpoints, the chaos of multiple POVs per chapter near the end really conveyed the frantic state that everyone was in. The addition of Severn was a bit rough at first, but he blended into the story incredibly well.

When I started Hyperion last month, I read a comment on this sub saying something along the lines of, “Simmons never introduces something he doesn’t later come back to explain”. And that was absolutely true! My favorite part about this, other than being a satisfying conclusion, was that nearly all of my questions were answered in very interesting fashion! Really scratched my sci-fi itch!

Now onto The Book of The New Sun before diving back into Endymion.

The Scholar's Tale: "The River Lethe's Taste is Bitter" in Hyperion was obviously one of the best that ever was. It introduces the witty exchange between Sol and his daughter. One says 'See you later, Alligator' and the other replies 'After a while, Crocodile' . This became one of the most tragic exchange in the whole series and everytime, it just felt sadder and sadder. However, the last time it was used was in the final book 'The Rise of Endimyon'. That last reference to these words really has a different feel of its own.

The Rise of Endymion is often considered the least of the 4 books but still that book did deliver a lot in the form of nostalgia and paid a few of the best homages to the charectors of the previous books, while giving it a bittersweet but satisfactory conclusion to the whole arc. Of all those moments, my personal favourite is the conversation between Endymion and Rachel Weintraub.

The 'See you later, Alligator' from Endymion and 'After a while, Crocodile' from Rachel hits really really hard. That one exchange of words just made it all so wholesome. It really shows how much everything and everyone has changed but yet they are all still somehow those same people, we had started our journey with in the first book, Hyperion. It took me so deep in nostalgia to Sol's story from the first Hyperion book. Somehow all the pain and suffering of Sol's story came crashing down in just one single moment. Really that was one the best homages I have ever read or seen in my life.

What do you all think?

Had a good week of letting it all sink in and one of the first things I thought was “I should have bought the books so I can reread them right away, or at least look up things, now everything is still fresh”.

First I was a bit divided on the ending. I was expecting/hoping an ending like FoH - super epic, with an insanely deep impact ( >!Blowing up the farcaster network changed the entire way everyone lived!< ) - but later on I realised >!Aenea’s death!< really did change everything, just on a longer timescale.

Lots of people here are a bit turned off by the love story between Raul and Aenea, but it didn’t affect me. But I should say I read it in Dutch and seeing here that in the English version the term “kiddo” is used a lot, I get it. In Dutch, they use “meid” and that has a less juvenile sound to it. Was it “meisje”, then it would have had the same vibe. But generally it was made clear in the story a few times, once things got more “intense”, Aenea was 21. So yeah, ok.

I love how the >!cruciform!< got a central role later on in the story.

The story line about Moneta and Kassad didn’t have that big of an impact as I expected, but it was a good time bending side story.

There was a lot of poetry which, I must admit, I mostly skimmed over quite rapidly.

The metaphysical angle about Empathy was a lot to take in the first half, because it felt quite vague. Glad to see that got more context in the later half.

How did Raul suddenly realise >!A. Bettik!< was >!an Observer!< after he said something seemingly random during their goodbye? It felt a bit bolted on there to close a loop, but maybe I missed some subtleties.

Curious to hear your ideas, fellow pilgrims.
See you later, alligator.

I can't understand how the Ousters haven't developed weapons systems that makes everything the Hegemony or the Pax have looks pathetic.

The Pax and Hegemony are both stagnants due to the Core parasitism, while the Ousters are building a Dyson sphere. They should have technologies even the Core can't understand and replicate.

They are also aware that the Hegemony and the Pax are genocidal maniacs, with all the sentient species that have to take refuge in Ouster space to escape extermination, and latter the Pax crusade.

How why they don't develop more advanced weapons system and ships to defend themselves against the Core, or even invade them to end the atrocities they commit with their Hegemony/Pax puppets? From what I read in the book it feels they let themselves being slaughtered.

Even if the archangels use Core weapons more advanced than what the Ousters can imagine, they could have studied the ship of De Soya after he defected, and had 10 years to build counter-measure to the archangels. They also took control of Gideon drones, so they can share these counter-measures to all Ousters system without time-debt.

Even if they can only use the Hawking drive, they seems to have much more ressources available than the Core and the Pax puppet, so they could have in every important systems enough ships to defeat any Pax ship agression, or even invade Pax space to at least force them to be on the defensive so they can massacre Ousters civilians.

After the agression of the Hegemony at Bressia, I think they should have wage war against the Hegemony, and they could have invade all of it during the Fall, and make sure the Core influence of humanity disappears.

I have almost finished the last book, so maybe there are more explanations, but for know it simply breaks my suspension of disbelief.