Posted by throw0101a 4 hours ago
Simmons wrote Drood (2009), which takes these two classical authors and places them in a mystery novel. What struck me as particularly masterful is that Simmons managed to write his prose in such a way that as a reader you soon forget that this book was not written in the 1800s — his tone and style match that of Dickens and Collins so convincingly.
[1]: https://talesofmytery.blogspot.com/2013/02/dan-simmons-river...
Work with considerably more action are Olympus and Ilium.
Apropos given your username XD
lol, I never really thought about that but given recent revelations it does almost seem like they were using it as a template.
You have to have some affinity to religious/Christianity/church topics, otherwise it’s quite a turn-off.
In this case there is quasi-religious imagery but you as the reader aren't actually supposed to be mystical about the god/devil in the story the way the characters themselves are. It's not C. S. Lewis
Do you also find LeGuin uninteresting?
Most science fiction tends to assume that religiosity will fade as humanity matures, and in a few thousand years we'll all have a good laugh at those silly ancient humans. This feels generally right to me. But it's not the only possible future, and Hyperion explores a far future in which religiosity becomes more ingrained.
I thought it was one of the more interesting aspects of the book, and contributed to the feeling of "not just another space opera". You don't have to appreciate religion to like the story.
It’s particular topics of that canon, and you have to fancy their treatment in a science-fiction setting. Some people like science-fiction because/when it proposes fresh perspectives that aren’t rooted in, by lack of a better description, non-enlightenment parts of that canon.
The utopist urge for cultural tabula rasa is a retardation, a attempt of the brain to shirk embracing and discovering complexity. One has to look at the "backwards" parts to start to understand what works in a society and with the actual human beeings lifing in a actual society, not the wingless Star Trek Angels in PJs.
Embrace complexity, embrace analysis, build something without defining the endstate first. Make small things that work, combine them into bigger things that work. Way less calling for cullings of the "sabotaging traitors" as they are usual with utopists on the march.
I’m not a Christian, BTW.
Christian references in the Cantos were probably incidental, given the expected familiarity of the intended audience (american white male young men). eg The Matrix trilogy started with the obvious messianic hero's journey, then attempted to expand it in the following films (karma, cycles of death and rebirth, etc).
For some, these religious messages can be a turn off, I agree. I happened to be raised in a culture that allowed me to ignore it more or less and I can recognize that.
I still think you can enjoy it without caring much about religion.
Without giving away any spoilers to the books, the parasites are only that on the surface. If anything, the books present a wary picture of religion, especially the last two Endymion books, but also a wary picture of technology.
They're not at all incidental. The themes and the literal Catholic Church don't just make it into the books by osmosis, they're central to it and deliberate.
Like Gene Wolfe he's part of a pretty small group of US authors who wrote Catholic speculative fiction. Like Wolfe his writing is also fairly un-American. If Heinlein or Asimov are examples of archetypal US science fiction, Simmons is about as far as the other end as you can be, with the post-modern structure, the Canterbury Tales as a template for the story and so on.
Branches of humanity torn between decadent stagnation and radical evolution. The artificial intelligence civilization with its own agenda. The All Thing (Internet) as the third branch of government.
So much good stuff, published in 1989 no less.
Rest in Peace to a true legend.
Drood: Has Wilkie Collins as an unreliable narrator, depicting the last five or so years of Charles Dickens' life.
Crook Factory: An FBI agent is sent to Cuba to keep an eye on Ernest Hemingway, hijinks ensue.
The Fifth Heart: Henry James and Sherlock Holmes team up to solve a mystery.
The Terror: Tells the story of what happened to the HMS Terror that attempted to make the northwest passage. The Arctic is a character in itself in this amazing story. I thought the TV mini-series was fine.
Abominable and Black Hills: I haven't read these yet but look forward to doing so.
Honestly, I think Dan Simmons is my favorite author. I know his politics became unpalatable but I could never find it in myself to care. My heart sank when I saw this post.
Source: me, I had a huge cocaine problem and worked many years in the tech side of music and movies
I don't have the link handy, and don't trust everything I read on the Internet, etc, etc.
But yeah - this makes so much more sense than breeding, raising, and feeding humans just to harvest their body heat.
https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1amree7/theres_a_wi...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47185076
Machines trying to be benevolent, but overly controlling.
My first favorite would have been: they don’t use the humans for anything, the pods are just the most efficient way to store humans. The machines think they are being benevolent, just want peace and quiet and for humans to stop doing dramatic things like scorching the sky. But I don’t know where the plot would go from there.
Now, over decade later, I am in the middle of re-reading every book in the Cantos series back to back (this time in their original language), and still loving them.
Rest in peace Mr Simmons. You had the words of a poet and the mind of a dreamer.
I read that many years ago, forgot the source.
His early stuff contains some real masterworks. Hyperion is still to this day, going to show up at the top of my scifi recommended reading list, most of his horror novels were also great in their own ways.
PS: I thought Fall of Hyperion should have been the end, it was just too final. There was plenty of space for some prequels but while the sequels contained some interesting ideas, they just never got to the level I felt justified reversing the finality of Fall. And Olympus/etc was pretty forgettable, but I don't regret the time I spent reading pretty much everything he wrote, sometimes more than once. So again, RIP.
I loved Hyperion cantos, Illium and then non sci-fi books like A Winter Haunting and Summer of night (which I read in the wrong order lol).
I am also happy to read that he was a great person overall and a great teacher. May he rest in peace.