Back to The Hyperion Cantos Again

   

Oscar Wilde said of reading,

“If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, 

there is no use in reading it at all.”

     
             I so agree!  
             And I'm roaming our galaxy again
             centuries into the future
             through the words of 
             my favorite science fiction writer,
             Dan Simmons.
                        Source:  dansimmons.com

 The Sun's Location in the Orion Arm

of the Milky Way Galaxy

Source:  Google ~ Richard Powell

Source:  Wikipedia

Some years ago, 

Terry surprised me 

on Christmas morning

with Dan Simmons' 

Hyperion,

a book I had never heard of.

Little did I know

I was embarking on

the science fiction adventure

of my lifetime,

as I began to read 

Volume I

of what is now known as

The Hyperion Cantos.

I consider 

the four volumes of

The Hyperion Cantos

the finest 

science fiction

I have ever read.

Now, some readers I have run into
look down on science fiction.

They think that because science fiction 
deals with an imaginary future,
futuristic science and technology,
and such topics as space travel, aliens, 
and parallel universes
it is somehow not literature,
not worthy of being taken seriously.

How mistaken they are!
Excellent science fiction
is much more than shoot 'em up space cowboys
and little green men.

Source:  Wikimedia

Source:  Wikimedia

Science fiction at its best

plumbs the big ideas,

like the consequences of scientific and technological progress,

and it explores philosophy and psychology

to better illuminate humans, their societies, and their ethics.

Fantasy, 

another sometimes disparaged genre,

does this also.

The difference between the two 

is that fantasy uses magic 

and other supernatural phenomena

while science fiction works largely

within the constraints 

of known physical laws.

But there is always room to speculate

and to push the boundaries beyond the known and proven.

(To read more about science fiction as a genre, visit Wikipedia.)

The very best science fiction asks the BIG questions.

It challenges our thinking,

and forces us to confront the metaphysical.

Dan Simmons tackles the BIG questions

in The Hyperion Cantos  

with an audacious creativity 

and a depth and range of imagination

that amazes and delights me.

The four Hyperion novels grapple with such questions as:

Who or what is God?

What is the relationship between Creator and Created?

Hands of God and Adam

Source:  Wikimedia ~ Michelangelo

What is the fundamental nature of the universe

and in what direction is it evolving?

  Cyclic Progressions of the Universe

Source:  Wikimedia

What is humanity's role in the universe?

What does it mean to be human?

Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci

Source:  Wikimedia

Sounds HEAVY indeed ~

but really,

it's all bound up in an interstellar armageddon

with one hell of a scary monster, 

the Shrike or Lord of Pain,

who slays with abandon and gore.

Like the shrike birds of the family Laniidae,

Simmons' Shrike impales its victims

on the thorns of a tree or other sharp objects.

Source:  Wikipedia

The Shrike

Source:  Wikia 

The books are emotional, exciting, 

diverse, and profound;

vivid and terrifying,

bawdy and profane.

I reread them before Christmas,

then turned around and started them again!

I want to know them inside out.

I want to understand more 

about how Simmons 

created and crafted 

his complex and heartbreaking narratives:

                                                             Source                                                   Source                                                   Source       

The Last Three Volumes

of The Hyperion Cantos

Do you like science fiction?

Have you read this series?

If so, what did you think?

I'd love to hear!