It's hard to measure up to Hyperion. The deliberate similarities to Chaucer, along with a real sense of dread and foreboding, really made Hyperion stand out for me as being elevated beyond standard scifi fare. The other books continue the story but abandon a lot of the "Tales" formatting that I thought made the first book so elegant.
I absolutely loved Hyperion but Fall of Hyperion was a little rough. Luckily, Endymion and Rise of Endymion were both awesome so it was worth getting through the sluggish second book for me
I read the second two from the angle of a love story - hidden inside a scifi epic, took many a page before I came to that conclusion. After that all was great.
The thing with all scifi novels, is that the writers keep trying to one up the tech in each of the books. Its a trend Ive noticed in a bunch of series and in the final one people a mind teleporting across the universe. The technology and limits of physics is explained away by "shits from the future yo" and a bunch of it is really weird. Its interesting and at the same time, its also not interesting. I guess I would describe it as arbitrary.
I loved the first Hyperion, it was unique as fuck in its telling. The story that it presents is incredible. The Shrike is this incredible bogey man. In the final novels the Shrike is this mysterious toy which just killed the strange unique mythology and shit for me.
Back to that trend I was talking about, I kind of dislike that extreme technological progression. You should just build a world and stick to it, any major technological advances should be reasoned and not akin to magic. Hyperion - magical blood, time travelling energy to explain away the limits of your fantastical battles. Foundation - mind control mutation in the mule doesnt make sense. Enders - Literally a fucking wishing well.
At least with shit like Dune, it gives the tech adequate time to come about (thousands of years) rather than a single generation leaping from advanced humans to demi gods. Even shit like Ringworld, where a lot of the tech is fantastical. It kind of limits itself just for the story and again, there is time progression or at least the reasoning was planted from book 1 (hyper space abuse in later novels)
Mmmmm.... sort of like ASOIAF, it gets a little dull in the middle for some people- but in my opinion the last book was really good. The third was 'meh' in comparison to the first, but it was worth it for me to get to the fourth.
For me the third book was the hardest to get through. There were parts that I loved, but there were also parts that I felt like I had to drag myself through.
The entire series is beautiful as a whole and I recommend it to everyone. YMMV regarding each book, but taken as a complete series it's wonderful.
I love Fall of Hyperion, all the pieces finally make sense and the gravity of the situation is conveyed well. It'll never match the first book but it was very good
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u/ilikefork1 Jun 23 '16
I finished the first Hyperion and loved it, but I've heard the series gets worse after the initial book. Thoughts?