Pi in the Sky

Hyperion Cantos (I)

Posted on April 22nd, 2007 at 1:21am by Pi.
Categories: Books.

I just finished the great saga of Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons. It’s one of my favourite series, and over the years it has got awards and critic aknowledgment, even out of the science fiction genre.

Dan Simmons is a writer who seems unable of making a bad book. He has touched many genres, being outstanding in science fiction (notably with Hyperion Cantos), but also in terror (with Carrion Comfort). One of his most attracting habilities is the capacity of mixing genres without trouble; Song Of Kali mixes fantasy and science fiction seamlessly, and the own Hyperion Cantos contain mitologic and fantasy elements, drama, philosophy, thriller, metaphysics and even romantic elements in a science fiction environment of unsurpassed imagination.

But probably the most remarable feature of Dan Simmons is the huge amount of literary references he’s able to create in a story. The most obvious examplie is the first novel of Hyperion Cantos: Hyperion. This novel takes its name from the greek mitology, the titan Hyperion, although in the novel the specific reference it’s the unfinished epic poem Hyperion, by John Keats, which describes the fall of the titans by the new Olimpic gods, and the fight between Hyperion (titan of the sun) with Apolo (Olimpic god of sun).

In this novel, seven main characters are introduced, found in a pilgrimage in a planet called Hyperion, which is in the frontiers of the human domains called The WorldWeb. Their pilgrimage has the Time Tombs as their destiny, home of a strange creature called Shrike, who only communicates through pain. Each one of the seven pilgrims has a different reason to commit the pilgrimage; and according to tradition, at the end of it, the Shrike will kill all the pilgrims except one, who will be granted one wish.

During the pilgrimage, each member exposes their story. And here is where you can start witnessing Simmons’ geniality as writer. Each one of the stories is made with a different style, and the plot which joins the stories has a different style too. And each style is a specific reference to classic literature. The detective’s story uses short and precise sentences, while the shcolar is descriptive and dramatic. The poet’s is lyrical and contains uncountable references to classic poems. All this helps conforming a vision of the heterogeneous group in pilgrimage, besides a part-by-part description of the futuristic universe they live in.

This structure mimics The Canterbury Tales, and each story mimics the style of a specific writer (whose names appear in one of the prologues of my edition, but surely can be found in internet). This granted a recognition of its literary value out of the science fiction genre (and literary critics usually despise genre novels, whatever the genre is).

The pilgrims are really variated: a catholic priest, a muslim soldier, a cynical poet, a strong detective woman, a jew philosophy scholar, a hopeless consul, and the captain of a tree which travels between the stars. Each story is part of the whole story; thus, the detective’s tale helps to explain what are the Time Tombs and their mission, while the soldier’s tale talks about the Shrike’s powers, and the consul’s outlines the politics of the society of that future.

The novel is a bit incomplete in narrative terms, because it tells the story of the pilgrims before the pilgrimage begins, but in present time of the narration, little happens, and the end of the pilgrimage happens abruptly. This usually disappoints readers, due to the fact that the ending is almost inexistent; it looks more the end of a chapter and not a book. But Hyperion is not an independent book; you have to read the two first books to get the whole story. The second part is not an independent story, sequel of the first, but integral part of the whole, as the first is.

Readers expect from a book the typical line of introduction-chorus-coda, that’s why they usually get disappointed by Hyperion. The first book is the introduction of the story, and the beginning of the chorus, while the second book is the extension of such chorus, and the coda. Although many could accuse that Hyperion is a too long introduction, I think it’s not the case, because the story is narrated after it has already begun, and the pilgrims tell us their past stories, which in fact, are at the same time choruses dependant and independant of the main plot. A coral story of unconnected introductions, but which codas are indefectibly joined to conform one big story.

Thus, all the story continues in the second novel, The Fall Of Hyperion. If the first novel took the name of the unfinished poem of John Keats (who even appears as reconstructed personality in the story), the second takes the name from the second, and also unfinished, revision of this poem, this time called The Fall Of Hyperion. In this second chapter we discover the fate of the pilgrims, told from the point of view of a personality reconstructed by the TecnoCore of artificial intelligences. With the WorldWeb in the edge of a war with the farcasters (self-modificated humans who live away from planets), the TecnoCore has prophetized that the fate of the WorldWeb is dependant of the pilgrims, and of their destiny in the Time Tombs, which are opening. Following the plot of the original Hyperion by John Keats, the story is about the possible substitution of one race of gods (in this case, humans), by others.

In the first novel, the prevalence was mainly the narrative of past events, but in the second novel we’re dragged by present events, sometimes at hectic rhythm, with a surprising and complex plot. We jump from an endangered human society, with militar and political conspiracies, to what happens in the Time Tombs with the pilgrims, next to the personal odyssey of the reconstructed personality of an ancient poet from the old Earth in the body of a cybrid (an AI personality in an artificial human body) which is part narrator, and part nexus between one plot and the other. The continuous literary references, from Beowulf to The Wizard Of Oz, are stil scattered among the text, although this time the structure is more orthodox, and it’s unified unlike the first novel.

Taken together, Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion form the first version of the Hyperion Cantos. And the Cantos is a complex story, with great narrative variety, and featuring a huge imagination, both in science fiction terms (with futuristic concepts and a really original naming) and the development of characters and plot twists. In this saga, they are mentioned certain problematics which have a value out of the narration, and they are perfectly applicable to today’s world: the Frankenstein complex, the value of hierarchized religion, the relationship with religion and with a god (and the validity of it, out of the personal beliefs, according to the scholar’s story), the growing dependence of technology, the predestination and free will, the failures and virtues of the society, the alienation of the individual enslaved by the needs of such society (notably in the consul’s tale)… This is not a light story of good-guy-wins-and-gets-the-good-girl, but helps the movement of the rusted gears of our minds.

Besides the literary value of these books, with awards like Nebula or Locus, they’re vibrant novels which make you addicted without noticing it, really entertaining, and I think they could be of the taste even of those who not like science fiction. Actually, I think the Cantos can be read as ciberpunk, or as epic narrative, or paraphrasin the prologue of the second novel (written by probably the best editor and knower of science fiction in Spain, Miquel Barceló), as an alegory or literary structuralism novel in key of science fiction.

I personally recommend these two books as two of the best examples of modern science fiction, in which you can mix action, thriller and spaceship battles, with a solid and creative narration capable of moving you and making you think.

The Hyperion Cantos had a sequel after two years, in the novels Endymion and The Rise Of Endymion. I’ll take care of these novels in the next article.

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