Here is a Hugo Award-winning landmark in Science Fiction.ĭan Simmons grew up in various cities and small towns in the Midwest, including Brimfield, Illinois, which was the source of his fictional 'Elm Haven' in 1991's SUMMER OF NIGHT and 2002's A WINTER HAUNTING. Here is a superb vision of future technology and ancient religions, of scientific revelation and timeless mystery, of transcendent joy and mind-bending horror. Something is drawing the Hegemony, the Ousters, the Als, the entire universe to the Shrike.

His genesis could mean annihilation for man. The Ousters are laying siege to the Hegemony of Man and the AIs we created have turned against us to build the Ultimate Intelligence God. The mysterious Time Tombs are opening and the Shrike that has risen from them may well control the fate of all mankind. The pilgrims have resolved to die before discovering anything less than the secrets of the universe itself. On the eve of disaster, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set fourth on a final voyage to the legendary Time Tombs on Hyperion, home to the Shrike, a lethal creature, part god and part killing machine, whose powers transcend the limits of time and space. Invasion by the warlike Ousters looms, and the mysterious schemes of the secessionist AI TechnoCore bring chaos ever closer. Lt is the 29th century and the universe of the Human Hegemony is under threat. Normally I'd have thrown a fit over this instead I placed an order at my local indy for the next three volumes in the series.Together in one volume for the first time, the first two novels of the Hyperion Cantos. Because of the intricacy and beauty of the story, I forgive it for violating my own personal pet peeve: it doesn't wrap up the end of the story.

I somehow missed hearing of this author and this book in my long life as a science fiction reader. Each of the seven stories is a harrowing history of that person's past and experience with the planet Hyperion, each story filling in detail about the tragic and baffling history of this mysterious planet. Their goal, alarmingly, is an ancient complex of caves where they expect to meet their deaths at the hands (figurative, see the cover art) of an all-powerful being that is reputed to be traveling backwards in time. It follows the classic format of a group of pilgrims each telling a story on the way to their goal. Strong, robust writing and a complex tale never let up through this book.

The Hyperion Omnibus by Dan Simmons