The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons (Spectra Books, 1995)
★★☆☆☆
Epic sequel to that Canterbury Tales-style masterpiece of fiction, Hyperion, expanding the story to include interstellar battles, political intrigues, mysterious AI gods, and the continuation of the Hyperion pilgrims’ stories.
SHOCKINGLY TEDIOUS AND BORING.
First, there’s the protagonist, Joseph Severn, who is a reincarnation of the poet John Keats. Through unjustified luck, Severn is placed at the center of events, in the ruling quarters of the Hegemony of Man. He has dreams of the pilgrims, far away on Hyperion, and earns his keep by relating these to the Hegemony’s leader. Yet his lens is incredibly unsympathetic—little helped by the pilgrims just not doing very much. The gradual reveal of Severn’s purpose (excruciatingly drawn out by him being kidnapped) turns out to have no payoff and mostly anticlimax. So many of his emotional beats depend on Simmons’ dropping just the right Keats poem at the right moment, and I gotta say, it doesn’t make me care more about 19th century poetry.
The menacing bladed organic-steel antagonist of the first book—the Shrike—returns here. Its who and why remain largely incomprehensible, which is fine... but it goes from being a malignant presence to having way too much light (and screen time) shed on it. As so often happens in 80s horror movies, the result is comedic, or at the very least low-budget. Its scenes were first a thrill to read, then soon drudgery.
Stakes throughout are completely arbitrary. Game-breaking portals are closed one moment and open the next with no justification. Is this happening in future, present, or past? Who cares, because multiple futures exist, and characters are constantly passing between timelines!
But the thing that really grinds my gears: the ceaseless male gaze and reductive female characters. Literally no female character (minus the older Meina Gladstone) is introduced without tiresome attendance to what her breasts or curves look like, or her immediate involvement in something sexual. But worse than that is the reductivity: how no female character is important as an individual in her own right; only in her relationship to other forces or characters. Take Brawne:
“What has happened to the Mother?”
“What mother?”
“The Mother of Our Salvation. The Bride of Atonement. The one you called Brawne Lamia.”
In a single sentence, she is reduced to Bride and Mother, roles that are defined by their relationship to Husband and Child. Admittedly, the quote is from a particularly religious, patriarchal character, but it holds essentially true for Brawne’s purpose in the story. For this anti-marriage, childfree female reader, it’s more than grating; it’s deeply problematic.
Another way female characters are deindividualized is that at two points in the story, Simmons attempts to achieve emotional resonance by having someone literally mistake one female character for another (or belatedly realize they are the same person).
And what the hell was with…
(content warning: rape)
Moneta raping Kassad? This served no plot purpose I could see, and was extremely problematically justified post-facto by Kassad as something he “actually wanted.” Uh, NO. There are so many things wrong with that. I see other Goodreads reviewers praising the “romance” between Moneta and Kassad, and I’m like… what romance? I saw physicality with no apparent emotional connection (what little there was was far from believable), and the author’s gratuitous non-consent sex fantasy.
On a positive note, Simmons’s prose is a pleasure to read, with some of his descriptions and ideas leaping off the page—just, stunningly creative. I’m giving the book one more star for an incredible, pitch-perfect ending.
But was it worth the 500+-page slog to get there? 🤔
