ALT.SF4M

  Endymion Preview

   • s******j@**.com
     23/04/1996 00:00:000 UTC

     I really, really, really liked Dan Simmons' "Hyperion" books. They were

     big, expansive, thoughtful SF, with tributes to many of the themes of

     the genre.

     Recently, I began reading "Endymion," a sort-of-sequel to the books. It

     is set hundreds of years after the first two books, and shares only

     one character (so far). The book concerns the perils of a young girl

     (Brawne Lamia's mysteriously conceived daughter) who is apparently a

     messiah of sorts. After emerging from a 247 year sabattical in one of

     the temporally weird "time tombs," she is rescued from capture and

     probable death by Raul, a young Hyperion native drafted to be a hero

     by a incredible old Martin Silinus.

     The bad guys are the Pax, a warped version of the Catholic Church

     that uses the parasitic "cruciforms" to give its followers eternal life.

     The Pax representative characters are actually kind of neat, much more

     interesting than Anaea (the girl), Raul, or their android companion

     A.Bettik.

     While I am enjoying the book, there's too much coincidence and handy

     miracles for my to take the thing very seriously. It's almost as if

     Simmons is slumming, writing a relatively shallow adventure novel with

     standard SF cliches rather than his usual whiz-bang ominous stuff. I

     hope the guy is not going to turn this into an endless series.

     --

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     ***@***.com ~ s*****s@a*****.***u.edu ~ s******j@**.com

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       • k******d@d*****i.com
         24/04/1996 00:00:000 UTC

         >I hope the guy is not going to turn this into an endless series.

         Yeah, we'd end up with:

         Hyperion Unchained

         Shrike's Revenge

         and other such nonsense!

         -- Doc

         k******d@d*****i.com

         "We have loved the stars too fondly to be feaful of the night"

         -- John Brashear