Hyperion, by Dan Simmons

The Hugo Award Winning Novel...

Wow, what can I say? I either have a love-hate relationship with this book, or a hate-love relationship. I stand by my earlier post. It is masterful science fiction masterfully written, but tedious to read in places and, coming into the final chapter NOTHING HAD HAPPENED. Simmons took the entire novel to introduce the core of characters, all but one of whom are destined to die, and then in the last page of the book sets them on the last day of their pilgrimage singing "We're off to see the wizard."

So, what is it that makes a tedious book in which nothing happens masterful? Good question. But it is. In ways his society that he mostly hints at developing is as politically rich as Frank Herbert's Dune. His characters are all multi-faceted and surprising. And even though it is tedious in places it is the kind of tedious that I still couldn't put down.

I had a similar type of love-hate-hate-love relationship with Dan Brown's DaVinci Code. That book actually made me so mad in places that I threw it away then went later and dug it out of the garbage because I had to keep reading. It is also masterful fiction masterfully written.

So, will I be reading Simmons' Fall of Hyperion? Probably not immediately but sometime soon.