This has been mentioned on reddit before, but I just now realized that the phrase "Lions, Tigers and Bears" is from The Wizard of OZ. The phrase was used by Tinman to describe the unknown dangers that would be lurking in the woods. The Wizard of OZ had already been referenced at the end of Hyperion, so it is very likely another callback between the two books.

Sorry to be that guy, every other sub i'm in berates people that ask the dreaded question "should I go on", but I feel that where I sit after book one warrants the question. I recognize the immense literary talent of Simmons and thought the story was one of the most original ive ever seen, but I wouldn't consider myself in love with it upon completion of Book 1.

Because it did feel like a set up for the ensuing 3 books, can someone tell me how the rest of the series correlates to book 1? What is the general plot trend? Would it be a giant mistake to give up now?

I could see myself loving this series, but I'm not there yet after one book. Let me know what you think, and again, sorry to be that guy.

BE WARNED, HEAVY SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE SERIES BELOW

One year ago I embarked into the Hyperion Cantos journey and yesterday I finally finished it. I'm still trying to process a lot of things and the ending hit me much harder than I would've imagined, but overall I have to say I am extremely satisfied with what I got out of the series. It's unfortunate that the quality started to vary towards the end. I'm gonna go through each book below:

Hyperion:

This book is pretty much universally praised by everybody and there's not a lot of new opinions that I can bring to the table. I love everything about it.

The Good:

• The narration style was great and and the way the stories of the pilgrims intertwined with the "present" day plot was amazing.

• I loved the "not so in your face" world building". From the first page Simmons starts throwing in made up words and concepts and he expects you to just go with the flow. You gradually learn what everything means and once everything starts clicking, it feels very satisfying.

• Top tier character development.

• The Priest's Tale and The Scholar's tale are my two favorites. It's very hard for me to choose one over the other, especially with how hard hitting both are, but for different reasons. If I really had to choose, as much as I love the horrors of The Priest's tale, I think I would choose the Scholar's one to be the winner. The fact that one of the most memorable sections of a Sci-Fi book is centered around a very "grounded" family tragedy tells you how good and powerful the writing is. My heart was shattered to pieces by the end of it. See ya later, alligator.

If I had to rank the stories: Scholar's Tale > Priest's Tale > Poet's Tale > Soldier's Tale > Consul's Tale > Detective's Tale

Brawne Lamia's tale was ok, but nothing too mind blowing. It's not bad by any means, it's just that the others are so so much better. I initially hated the Consul's Tale but as I read more of the series, I've grown to like it more as a lot of the new information that I was getting recontextualized the events for me.

• The Shrike is one of the most horrific and imposing entities that I've ever seen portrayed in media (applies only to the 1st and 2nd books).

The Bad:

• Literally nothing. Maybe the fact that it ends in a massive cliffhanger? However, I wouldn't necessarily say this is valid considering all books have been out for more than 2 decades, so it shouldn't matter.

Rating: 10/10

Fall of Hyperion

The Good:

• I enjoyed the 2nd installment of the series just as much as the first one, even if the narration style changed. I welcomed it and it clearly was the best approach for the story that Simmons wanted to tell. We've gone from a small scale story to full on space war.

• The world building goes beyond top tier in this one. I can't fathom how somebody can make such an expansive and detailed fictional world that feels so "real". I've read other books that do this before, but they were mostly of the Fantasy genre, where I feel this can be much easier to do since you can take much more creative liberties.

• I loved the war room scenes. These were some of my favorite sections in the books. So much palpable tension and unpredictability.

• Very satysfing character arcs and conclusions (where a conclusion was given).

The bad:

Unfortunately, the 2nd book is where some cracks start to show.

• There are a few sections in the book where the pacing is not great. The Ummon section was extremely hard to follow (although I think on a second read it would make more sense) and the Old Earth Rome chapters were pretty boring.

• Once again, we're not given a conclusive ending. A lot of questions are left unanswered. There's 2 more books, but at this point I thought that some reveals would've been due. It felt like we kept pilling more mysteries and plot points on top of each other.

• I wasn't a fan of the Shrike's demise. I couldn't stop thinking about the Night King from Game of Thrones. That's pretty much the last time we get to see the Shrike in its full glory.

Despite the negatives that I listed, these didn't made me enjoy the book any less. I absolutely adore it and it still is a 10/10 in my heart (realistically, it's probably a 9/10).

Endymion

Oh boy. Here we go with the controversial part of the cantos. I want to make it known from the get go that this was my least favorite book and is the reason I took a 6 month break from reading this series.

The Good:

• The book starts strong. Really strong I would say. Seeing how the world evolved in the almost 300 years from the Fall was really really interesting and Simmons did a good job of conveying that even if we're in the same "place", the "rules" of the game have changed. The first part gave me hope that everything would still feel like Hyperion and FOH but sadly, that didn't last long. The book only starts becoming good again towards the end .

• The PAX and Father De Soya were really cool and I enjoyed almost all of their chapters.

• I loved seeing the cruciform being brought back and having it become a crucial part of the story. I found it strange how the 1st and 2nd books touched on it so little besides The Priest's tale and I thought it was a missed opportunity, without knowing how essential it's gonna become later.

The Bad:

• Well.. I don't need to say what everyone else had said already. Raul and Aenea.. weird.

• The main gang was simply boring to me. Whenever a Raul chapter would come up I couldn't wait to get back to De Soya. I didn't mind the fact that he was portrayed as dumb so much, but he never really did anything interesting. Aenea is a smarty pants annoying child at this point in time. A. Bettik is cool, but not cool enough to make me care about their boring plot. It didn't help that for more than half of the book we don't even know what we're doing, where we're going and why.

• The pacing falls off a cliff once they get on the River Tethys. That's when I involuntarily took a 6 months break from the series because I just didn't find myself wanting to read more. I found all the worlds to be boring, expect Mare Infinitus (which apparently is an unpopular opinion). I hated the Sol Draconi Septem chapters with a passion. Ok, there's a lot of snow, a lot of ice, and a lot of caves. Just move on already. I couldn't stand reading one more word about the Chitchatuk. I fucking hate the word Chitchatuk. I'm so glad the Chitchatuk died.

• The Shrike... oh how they massacred my boy. The omnipotent entity has been reduced to a bodyguard. Yeah, sure, he's still menacing, but he lost 90% of what made him so cool and intriguing. The fact that Rhadamanth Nemes was introduced which is more or less a Shrike wannabe was the final nail in the coffin. In the previous books Simmons really took his time to set up the stage and to describe the Shrike whenever it would appear. Starting with Endymion, he does this less and less, making its presence feel smaller and smaller with each apparition. The fight was cool tho'.

I rate this book a 6/10, just because of the good parts with the PAX. It's mostly filler and its only purpose is to set up the next book.

Rise of Endymion

The Good:

• I finally got many of the long awaited answers and I'm happy to say that I was satisfied with most of them.

• At times, the book would return to form and feel like the old Hyperion again. I particularly loved chapter 13 a lot (the one where the Pope and Albedo give everyone a lore dump and finally reveal the answers to some long standing questions). Seeing the scene unfold through Isozaki's eyes made it so much better as he was just as clueless about it as the reader.

• Despite not liking it initially and finding it extremely creepy for obvious reasons, I think that by the end of the book Raul and Aenea's relationship managed to grip me.

• The Shared Moment was both a beautiful and sad event. It made me feel both hopeless and hopeful. I found the whole premise and its goal to be really thought provoking and it's gonna stick with me for a long time.

• It was really really cool to finally get Het Masteen's story. I think this was a very big missed opportunity. Having a chapter called "The Templar's tale" and having it told through his perspective would've been an awesome callback to the 1st book.

The Bad:

• Unfortunately ROE suffers from the same pacing issues that the 3rd book has. Fuck the mountains in T'ien Shan, fuck the clouds on the gas world, and fuck the trees in the Startree. Contrary to what most people say, I didn't mind the kidney stone side quest as much (although given the stakes of the story, it felt extremely stupid to dedicate so much time to such a stupid plot).

• There's a section in one of the T'ien Shan chapters where Simmons fills an entire page with random names of people and places, nothing else. I honestly don't know what happened and why he started wasting so so many pages with details and events that are literally irrelevant to the plot. I also find it hard to believe that there are many people who enjoy reading something like this. As a non-native English speaker, those chapters were hell for me, because a lot of times I wasn't sure if the words that I was reading even meant something or they were made up gibberish. I have to admit I skipped quite a few lines, otherwise I would've dropped the book right there. ROE could've been easily reduced to half the size if somebody stopped Simmons from getting sidetracked like this.

• The Rhadamanth Nemes and Raul fight made 0 sense. I still don't understand why and how he was able to stand up to her, let alone defeat her. One punch and he should've turned to dust. Did I miss anything here? Did he unlock Ultra Instinct or something? It would've made so much more sense for Kassad to take his place in this fight. One of the few moments in a brilliant story where logic was thrown out the window for no apparent reason.

• The "destruction" of the Shrike is completed in this book. This is one of the most disappointing aspects for me in the entire series. The Shrike should've either remained shrouded in misery, or a proper explanation should've been given. Instead we received a half assed explanation that honestly doesn't make a lot of sense and attaching Kassad to its supposed origin was extremely underwhelming. Seeing how the story went and how unpredictable the Shrike was throughout it all, I expected it to be tied to another unknown entity, similar to the Lions and Tigers and Bears. An unrevealed 4th mystical player would've been so much cooler and it would've explained the "unexplainable" behavior of the Shrike.

• I also hated how Aenea would sometimes mention that she already explained some things, but we as the readers didn't know them because Raul was not there. And conveniently enough, Aenea wasn't in the mood to repeat all that for him. Pretty unusual writing choice and makes it seem like an ass pull to prevent having to reveal certain story elements too early.

I honestly don't know how to rate this one. The parts that I loved, I really loved, but the parts that I hated, I really hated. Considering that it managed to wrap up this humongous story in a successful and satisfying way, I have to give it its flowers. For now, it's a 8/10. Time will only tell if I'll like it or hate it more.

Misc thoughts:

• Probably a controversial opinion but I really liked the way Simmons handled the retcons. It made sense in the context of the story and realizing that the 1st and 2nd books were written by an unreliable narrator is pretty cool. Some were questionable and unnecessary but I don't remember finding any of the retcons offensively bad. I would be curious to know if we had the entire story planned when he wrote Hyperion and FOH or if he winged it after he saw the first 2 books were successful. If it's the latter, I have to applaud him for managing to wrap it all up so nicely.

• I was surprised to see that we didn't get more Kenzo Isozaki, Anna Pelli Cognani and Gregorius. For the first two especially, it looked as if the seeds were being planted for a much bigger plot but after the Pope & Albedo reveal, we never see them again and Isozaki is briefly mentioned a couple of times. Really weird. Not sure if it was intentional or Simmons cut some chapters. I guess describing mountains is more important.

• The lack of Rachel / Moneta was also really weird. Given how important she was to the events of the first books, I would've expected more focus on her. Instead, she was a minor character who only got a few minutes of screen time.

• I don't know how to feel about A. Bettik being an Observer. I guess it made sense, but I expected a grand reveal or a holy shit moment. Nope. Raul realizes this in the last pages of the book and that's that.

• I might be one of the few stupid people who didn't piece 2 and 2 together regarding Raul being the father. I guess I am just as dumb as him. It was a legit shock when I read that.

• I've seen people saying that you should stop after the 1st or 2nd book and I don't really see how that is feasible. Like sure, you can do it, but it's like telling someone that they can just watch Lord of the Rings up until the middle point of the Two Towers and then stop. There are so many mysteries and plot threads that get resolved in the latter books that it would just be weird to drop the series like that.

• I really hope this series gets adapted into a TV Show one day. I honestly think this has the potential of being the next Game of Thrones. I've read that Bradley Cooper has the rights and that he's working on getting a movie series started, but I doubt that's the right way to go about it. The first book at least is literally episodic in its structure. They would have to cut so much just to cram all the stories in a single movie that it would ruin the entire point of the story. One can dream.

That's it. That was my Hyperion Cantos experience. 10/10, would recommend as long as you like Sci-Fi, good characters, good mysteries, good world building and if you have nerves of steel to go through pages upon pages of irrelevant descriptions.

I Just started Hyperion, i'm on page 28 but is it normal that i under stand any of it ? The books seems to talks about things (gritch, the temple, hyperion, where are we ?) that i've never seen like i should understand. Is it normal or am i missing something ? Should i push through ?

Just watching mastermind in the UK. One contestant did Keats.

Proud to say after 3 consecutive guesses I correctly answered Endymion.

That is all

Unpopular Opinion: Aenea shouldnt have time travelled into the future to marry the Future Version of Raul. And Raul shouldn't have been written so incompetently and dull and/or dumb. Also even if he is dumb (or whatever) doesn't mean he shouldnt be redeemed. I was expecting for Raul to understand out of logic or illogically(or out of all odds) of what is going to happen by the end of the story. It felt way too cliffhanger and insufferable for me as reader to read the whole story from first person view.

The ending felt like the exact opposite of Sol Weintraub's ending with Rachel. Where Sol was optimistic about getting his daughter back unlike Raul.

I have seen a lot of posts for how Raul and Aenea's relationship being creepy written and I totally agree. But the genesis of these problems is the writer trying to ​convince this a love story by making her go back into the future to "​marry" and have "kids" with someone else even if it's the same but actually a "different" version of Raul.

The past version of Raul and the future version of Raul should be different Raul for the reader in my opinion.

Here she could have easily freecasted into the Jovial World where the ship was stuck and she could have saved two years, if time is such a constraint. These could easily add more dimension to the backbone of the ambiguity. Plus i find it inconsistent for Aenea's attributes as messiah leader.

It's like the writer was trying to reach deadline so he has to make the stuff up by as the story "went on" towards the end.

On top of that Raul totally giving into Aenea's advances on him was totally wrong and premature. To him she should have been 16 year old when he went to Tien Shen. Plus this is where the dialogue got jumbled up of being incest ​and jealousy. I can see why Raul is​ frustrated that the per​son he loves is married and has kids

But as​ a male reader who is reading/associating from a first person's point of view of a ​male character i found it frustrating to read the narration all the way to the end. Its ​like the writer didn't try to make the ​reader like the character or at least redeem the character. I think the writing got all fussed up for making it ambiguous and cliff hanger all the way.

Overall what ​i only liked about the two part sequel to Hyperion is the ​worldbuilding. Particularly the Ousters and Tien Shan. Those Akrekali creatures ​were great. I guess the reason why I liked it is that that it channelled with Hyperion. Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion is one of my favorite novels but this was a let down sequel to be honest.

It seems like Victor Bevine is a very well-received narrator. I am in, what I think is, a very small minority of people who does not like his narration. For me, it's severely over-dramatized. It makes me think of how a really nerdy middle-school-aged kid would try to do it, having loads of passion for doing the reading justice, but lacking the self-awareness to realize how silly they sound in reality. Everything he says is so breath-y and spoken like it's fucking Shakespeare. He even does it sometimes just stating the chapter number.

Also, Victor Bevine has a subtle lisp that is not always present, but it is definitely there when his cadence is on the faster side. It's more than that though, it's his overall idiolect that is on the whole like the screeching of nails on chalkboard to me. For example, while the vast majority of native English speakers would pronounce the word "grew" as "gr-oo", Victor throws in a very subtle, long "o" sound in between: "gr-OH-oo". Or, he will pronounce "her" as "Huh-urr". I know it shouldn't, but Jesus fuck, it pisses me off.

I love the story, and I prefer audiobooks because it allows me to get "reading" in while doing mundane tasks like brushing teeth, driving, doing dishes/laundry etc., but I just can't finish the series because of Victor Bevine. I can't finish it because lots of people, for some reason, are not annoyed by his narration and thus have enabled him and Audible and the market in general to have Victor's narration be the only choice out there. Yes, I'm bitching, and yes, it makes me feel a little bit better to blame some people.

I am a little confused about some particular aspects of end of Rise of Endymion.

!Raul takes a hunting rifle for their outdoor adventure. I was under the impression that violence and killing after the Shared Moment caused pain to the perpetrators? I know that Raul is a simple man, maybe he just forgot that.!<

!Also, Aenea is a vegetarian, presumably she won't eat the meat that Raul shoots. Again, maybe he just forgot. Or maybe by the end of this epic Cantos, Simmons just wanted the books to finish.!<

I read it via audible so apologies if I get names wrong

Who invented the shrike? Why was Anea able to control it so in the second two books? How did it explode in the temple of the shrike with Brawn Laymea? Kernel Feddman Cassaad fought the thing and then became the thing?? How did it transform from Monetta into the shrike and why??

What happened to the core after the shared moment?

Why did the Cardinal decide to kill Anea in the middle of her torture? He seemed pretty evil and on board with the cores evil shit so hard to believe he had a change of heart because of Anea’s story.

The people that shut down the fat line, the lions tigers and bears said it’s being used for important work and humans can use it again when they discover what that is…. Did it ever really go into what important work they were talking about?

Did they ever reveal the significance of the old farcasters not being scratched by the Pax’s weapons? Seems like they hyped that up without any follow through

Did they ever explain why the shrike could move through time as well as we can move through space?

Did they ever reveal who built the labyrinths, how and why? I recall bodies being seen there for storage with Councilor Albeddo’s scene but they didn’t really go into the history of it much. Apparently they were like 750k years old or something and the makers just disappeared?

The different time tombs, they were to help the shrike move back in time. Or..? They seemed to be different from one another, confused on each of their functions

The cruciform was just a regular parasite that was modified by the core right? Or did they make the original? If they did they thought the best place to put them is in random ass cave up near the time tombs in Hyperion?

Why would the Sphinx tomb randomly change physical structure inside? Seems like a random feature

I feel like Raul did a good job explaining Anea’s 4 steps and mysteries. Why did Anea have to be so damn mysterious and obfuscating about it? Like super easy to be blunt about where you went for 2 years, who you had a kid with, what it feels like to hear language of dead and living, etc

I’m sure there are others I cannot think of right now. Due to it being audible it’s very possible I wasn’t paying attention in the moment some of this was mentioned.

I just finished Fall of Hyperion and was stunned to read the ending. I really liked it. However there were some loose ends which kinda annoy me. Do you think reading the Endymion dualogy would tie some of those loose ends (Like the old earth)? Im deciding whether to continue

I just finished the entire four book saga on audio book and found it a fantastic and satisfying “read”. I’d never experienced a sci-fi narrative that had so much to say about theology, AI, time paradox, and the human condition. I loved every minute of it… but now I’m in withdrawal!

What books or book series do you recommend as a follow up?

I mean he went into sime pretty hot detail from what I can rember, would be right proper fucked when he fount out Kassadd was talking aboutnhis daughter

I just finished the Red Rising trilogy, and before I dive into Iron Gold, I’m reading Hyperion for a change of pace. It feels quite daunting, but I’m currently enjoying the part where the characters decide to share their stories while heading to Hyperion. The book is challenging, but I’m managing and curious about how it unfolds.

In The Fall of Hyperion it's mentioned that the current pope who later dies is called Urban VXI. Why does Lenar Hoyt take the same regnal number? Shouldn't he be pope Urban VXII?

As the title says, I am reading Hyperion for the first time. My newborn woke up at 5:30 am, and I rocked him and read the entire Scholar's tale in one sitting. What an emotional experience reading that tale while rocking my own newborn. By the end, I was crying and needed to share with someone.

Was anyone else disappointed by the Ousters as they're described toward the end of FOH? Their description in Hyperion (Kassad's story) was so exotic, it tastefully hinted at a civilization that's not only technically advanced, but evolutionarily divergent from the Hegemony human species. The Consul's admiration of Outser culture at the end of Hyperion only heightened that impressive ambiguity. Come the end of FOH, and it turns out the Ousters are also.....bees? Fairies? Groundhogs?

I'm also jumping the gun a bit here because I have about 30 pages left of FOH. So unless there's a bait-and-switch I've yet to read...I'm a bit bummed by their more fantastical description.

Thoughts?

I mean it feels so on the nose to me.

"This ship is taking me far away" - reminds me of the beginning of Hyperion with the pilgrims in the tree ship
"Hold you in my arms, I just wanted to hold, You in my arms" - elicits images of Sol Weintraub cradling Rachel
"Our hopes and expectations" - the universes' fate rests in the hands of the pilgrims

I love this song so much and the images it creates in my mind as I listen to it. Just thought I'd share.

My boyfriend asked what part I was at in Hyperion!

I’m about 14% into the book on my Kindle, and at first I thought it was a bit slow. But now im reading about the exiled priest and his experience with the Bikura and oh my god things got creepy real fast. I’m hoping things will escalate even more. Am I in for a fun time?

Just finished the series. Wow! It took me a year to complete taking a break in between FoH and Endymion.

I don’t know where it ranks for me yet in all time series but it’s way up there. Look forward to revisiting in a few years.

1. I agree with most opinions I have seen on here that there is a fall off after the first 2 books to the 3rd and 4th installments. The last 2 books evolved into an overly dense at times weaving of a story that was hard to stick with at times. In the end they came together beautifully and were worth it but it’s worth noting.

2. Aenea was hard for me to emphasize with early in her story. Her constant speaking in allegory annoyed me and made it hard for me to connect with her until much later in the story. Could be by design as she is a time bending savior and has a lot on her mind lol.

Side note: the blurred sexual lines between the preteen kid and full adult Endymion was weird and unneeded imo. Simmons made it work by explaining his feelings ad neaseam but still forced.

3. The world building on Hyperion is probably my favorite I have read this side of LOTR. Incredible landscapes I could feel. Hoyt’s story in the labyrinth and everything in the time tombs WOW!

4. Nemes was such a well written bad guy. Scary and powerful and a great human element to her in her thoughts. Wanted more of her.

5. Mixed feelings about the shrike. Such extreme build up about the shrike in Hyperion (with amazing lines about how he was going to kill them from Martin haha) but as the story goes on the shrike feels like a bit of a get out of jail free crutch in the story. Cool battles and a cool evolution from feared enemy to a friendly but became a bit obvious as it went along.

9.7/10 Overall. One of the most epic tales of all time. Thank you to this subreddit! Love seeing everyone’s opinions and enthusiasm for such a cool story.

I started the fall of hyperion and im on chapter 8. I cant keep track of who works for who. The hegemony wants hyperion to join the web, the ousters want hyperion for themselves. Meina sent the consul to spy on them and he became a double agent because he hates hegemony. He then works for ousters? But she knew the consul would betray them? So she sent him thete anyway because the ai fears hyperion for some reason? Is it confusing like this for a reason that im gonna find out later or am i missing something?