Warner Brothers picks up HYPERION movie with Bradley Cooper producing

Warner Brothers has put the Dan Simmons SF novel Hyperion into development as a feature film, with Bradley Cooper helming the project for his own production company as executive producer. So far, Cooper has not committed to starring in the project.

Originally published in 1989, Hyperion is an SF novel inspired by Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Set in the 28th Century with a war brewing between the Hegemony of Man and the Ousters, a nomadic race of humans living in arkships, seven individuals are summoned to the remote world of Hyperion. Hyperion is infamously home to the Shrike, a godlike entity who roams the planet, killing people for unknown reasons or hanging their still-living forms on a giant mechanical tree. The seven pilgrims each relate their story and interest in the Shrike on their journey. The story continues in The Fall of Hyperion (1990), Endymion (1996) and The Rise of Endymion (1997), though the latter two novels are generally considered inferior to the first two. 

Bradley Cooper has long been a fan of the novel, having planned to direct it himself in 2011 before developing it with SyFy as a mini-series in 2015. Cooper's commitment to the project in 2011, when he was best-known for the Hangover series of comedy films, felt somewhat random. However, since then he has expanded his repertoire by writing, directing and starring in the acclaimed remake of A Star is Born (2018) and producing Joker (2019), considerably enhancing his Hollywood credentials.

For their part, Warner Brothers might have been intrigued by the novel's blanket critical acclaim since release, its well-realised SF universe and its three sequels giving it serious franchise potential, whilst its unusual structure and artistic credibility might make it a fitting thematic follow-up to their Dune project with Denis Villeneuve (the second part of which was greenlit last week).

The film hasn't been fully greenlit yet, though, with Warner Brothers now searching for a director to bring the project to the screen; intriguingly, Cooper hasn't chosen it as the follow-up to A Star is Born, perhaps preferring someone with greater vfx experience.

AMC's THE TERROR arrives in the UK

AMC's acclaimed Arctic drama series, The Terror, is finally available on the BBC in the UK.

Based on Dan Simmons' 2007 novel of the same name, the series is partially a historical account of the ill-fated 1845-48 Franklin Expedition to find the Northwest Passage around Canada, partially a story about Inuit mythology and partially a horror story.

The first season consists of 10 episodes and is available now on the BBC iPlayer. It is also airing weekly on BBC2. A second season, subtitled Infamy, has also been produced with a completely unrelated story, but this is so far not available in the UK.

The BBC acquires AMC's THE TERROR

The BBC has acquired AMC's TV series The Terror for UK distribution after a surprisingly long wait.

The Terror is an anthology series revolving around unusual stories involving possible supernatural causes in a historical setting. The first season adapted Dan Simmons' novel The Terror, based around the infamous Franklin Expedition to find the Northwest Passage, resulting in the loss of the icebreaker ships HMS Erebus and Terror, whilst the second is based on an original story called Infamy and is set in a Japanese internment camp in California in World War II.

The first season, starring Ciaran Hinds, Jared Harris, Greta Scacchi and Tobias Menzies, aired in the spring of 2018, making it an unusually long wait for the show to be available on a UK broadcaster.

The BBC has not yet set a date for the series, but have noted noted it will be broadcast on BBC2 and will also be available on the BBC iPlayer.

Trailers and airdate for the TV adaptation of Dan Simmons' THE TERROR

AMC is bringing Dan Simmons' classic historical horror novel The Terror to the screen. The mini-series will debut on 26 March. They have now released two trailers for the series:

Set in 1845-48, the story follows the voyage of two Royal Navy icebreakers, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, as they try to sail through the Arctic Archipelago north of Canada in search of the rumoured Northwest Passage around North America and into the Pacific. The story mixes historical fact - the Franklin Expedition was a real, infamous event and in fact the wrecks of both ships have been discovered in the last few years - and supernatural fiction.

The Terror consists of ten episodes and stars Ciaran Hinds (Rome, Game of Thrones) as John Franklin, Jared Harris (The Expanse) as Francise Crozier, Tobias Menzies (Game of Thrones, Outlander, Rome) as James Fitzjames and Nieve Nielsen (The New World) as Silence.

AMC to air Dan Simmons' THE TERROR in Spring 2018

AMC's drama series The Terror, based on the Dan Simmons novel, is provisionally scheduled to air in April 2018. It will air on AMC in the United States and on Amazon in most of the rest of the world.

AMC are working on The Terror as an anthology format, similar to Fargo or American Horror Story. The first season will adapt Simmons' novel across 10 episodes; later seasons will either be original stories or adaptations of other books with a horror or supernatural twist. The first season has been written by David Kajganich

The first season will star Jared Harris as Francis Crozier, Tobias Menzies (Outlander, Game of Thrones) as James Fitzjames and Ciaran Hinds as John Franklin. The story follows the ill-fated Franklin Expedition, an attempt to find the Northwest Passage around Canada using two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. In real life, the two ships were trapped by ice and the crew are believed to have perished from starvation and exposure; Simmons' novel provides an alternate, supernatural explanation.

AMC greenlights TV series based on THE TERROR by Dan Simmons

AMC has ordered a 10-episode TV series based on Dan Simmons's 2007 novel The Terror.

The novel charts the course of the ill-fated Franklin Expedition, which in 1845 set out to chart the Northwest Passage around Canada on two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. The expedition failed, with the loss of 129 lives. The two ships disappeared and were missing until 2014, when the wreck of the Erebus was discovered.

Simmons's novel sticks closely to the historical record, using actual crewmembers as characters, but adds an element of horror to the book with the expedition being hunted by a terrifying creature.

The TV adaptation will be helmed by David Kajganich and Soo Hugh. Scott Free is the production company. Slightly oddly, the series is being touted as an "anthology" project, suggesting it could continue for multiple seasons exploring other stories in a similar vein. It is unclear if future seasons would adapt other horror novels or would be original creations.

The series is expected to air on AMC in 2017.

Bradley Cooper's HYPERION adaption now a mini-series at SyFy

Four years ago, Bradley Cooper was reportedly interested in directing a movie based on Dan Simmons's Hyperion Cantos novels. The project disappeared into development hell and many people assumed that was that.

However, Cooper, now a much more well-known actor thanks to roles in movies such as American Sniper, has used his newfound starpower to get Hyperion back on track. The project has also - thankfully - transformed into a TV series. Itamar Moses, a writer on Boardwalk Empire, will write and produce the series with Cooper on board as executive producer (it is unclear if Cooper will also direct some episodes).

The Hyperion Cantos is set in the distant future and relates the journey of seven pilgrims to the planet Hyperion, where they must confront the enigmatic creature known as the Shrike to uncover the secrets of the "Time Tombs", which are threatening to open and trigger a devastating war.

It is unclear if this will be a one-off mini-series based on just Hyperion itself, or will include the sequel The Fall of Hyperion in some manner. Dan Simmons also wrote two further novels in the series, Endymion and The Rise of Endymion, set 275 years after the events of the first two books.

Bradley Cooper wants to direct the HYPERION movie

Actor Bradley Cooper, best-known for his role in The Hangover and its recent sequel (as well as The A-Team movie), has said he wants to write and direct a movie based on Dan Simmons' Hyperion Cantos novels. Apparently he's already written a treatment and spoken to the people that currently hold the rights.

Could this guy be bringing the Shrike to the big screen?

Interesting. Cooper recently also starred in Limitless, an adaptation of an arguably-SF techno-thriller, but Hyperion would be many orders of magnitude more complex to turn into a movie. However, if Cooper's plans mean one film for Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion (previous rumours suggested that producers wanted to combine them into one two-hour film), that'd be a step in the right direction.

So far this is a hope and little more, but it's nevertheless interesting that someone with some Hollywood clout is talking up the project. Done faithfully, this could be a very different kind of SF movie.

Drood by Dan Simmons

In 1865 a steam train derails whilst it is crossing a bridge at Staplehurst in Kent. Ten people are killed and forty more injured, some very severely. Amongst the shaken but unhurt passengers is the novelist Charles Dickens, who lends aid and succor to the dying and injured. Dickens is lauded as a public hero for his efforts, but the accident has a tremendous psychological impact on him which only seems to worsen as the years pass.


Wilkie Collins, a fellow novelist and sometimes-collaborator of Dickens, observes Dickens' decline following the accident, and is particularly bemused by Dickens' account of a spectral figure called 'Drood' who appeared in the aftermath of the crash. Dickens apparently becomes obsessed with finding Drood, embarking on lengthy explorations of London's criminal and literal underground in search of the figure, aided by Collins. A private investigator named Fields joins the chase, informing Collins that Drood is a serial killer and mass-murderer, and Collins soon finds himself embroiled in a complex and clandestine struggle. These events are made all the more confusing due to Collins' own reliance on opium (a painkiller for his gout) and the fictional events of the two novels that Collins and Dickens are inspired to write by these events (The Moonstone and The Mystery of Edwin Drood, respectively) become entwined with the 'real' events that are transpiring.

Drood is a complex novel, huge in length, exacting in detail and relayed to the reader through a narrator so unreliable - Collins - that is very hard to know what is 'real' (as in 100% back up by historical fact), what is reliable (or true in the sense of the novel's narrative) and what is pure fantasy (either an outright lie or a drug-induced fantasy). As with Suzanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Simmons has attempted to write a book that is almost Victorian in its own construction (not to mention its formidable and possibly unnecessary length), but unlike Clarke's book, Drood is less obviously a fantasy, existing somewhere between historical novel and a literary and metaphorical work. Simmons also raises a lot of issues and ideas here, from the struggles all novelists and writers face in writing their books (thankfully without descending to self-indulgence) to the social issues the day. He even finds time to further explore the aftermath of the events of The Terror, his previous novel about the Franklin Expedition, which took place a few years before the start of this novel.


The result could have a confusing mess, but Simmons' skills as a writer and the orchestrator of an immense and complex narrative shine through here. The writing is strong, the story is page-turning and the characters are convincing, although also increasingly repellent as the book goes on. Wilkie Collins, our narrator, becomes particularly unlikable as the book nears its conclusion and his less savoury aspects (such as his scandalous home life) are emphasised whilst some of his more positive ones (his work on behalf of 'fallen women') almost go unmentioned. In particular, whilst the book's fantastical elements and more far-fetched moments can be explained as part of Collins' drug addiction, one plot point towards the end of the book is pretty hard to swallow and rather unconvincing.

Overall, Drood (****) is a rich, well-written and satisfying novel, very clever in construction, which will reward re-reading. However, the ending is something of a let-down and the motives ascribed to (very well-known) historical characters are sometimes dubious. The book is available now in the UK and USA. Guillermo Del Toro has bought the movie rights to the book and is planning a film adaptation for the time after he has completed work on The Hobbit.

Songs of the Dying Earth, edited by George R.R. Martin & Gardner Dozois

Millions of years hence, the Sun has grown old, bloated and red and is about to go out. In these dying days humanity, now capable of great feats of magic, shares the much-changed Earth with hostile races such as the deodands and pelgranes. This is the vivid setting of Jack Vance's Dying Earth series, four books (now usually published in one volume, Tales of the Dying Earth) which now stand as one of the cornerstones of modern fantasy.


Songs of the Dying Earth is an all-star 'tribute album' by some of the biggest names in modern SF and Fantasy, featuring twenty-three stories set in the Dying Earth setting. With a lot of ground to cover, let's get straight into it:

'The True Vintage of Erzuine Thale' by Robert Silverberg sees a melancholic wine-drinker confronting a problem. An interesting little story, if a tad predictable.

'Grolion of Almery' by Matthew Hughes is excellent. A man seeks shelter at a house and falls into the complex schemes of the house's caretaker, with destructive results. This story throws together elements of humour and horror. The Dying Earth meets Little Shop of Horrors by way of Cthulu. Funny, clever and a great last-minute twist.

'The Copsy Door' by Terry Dowling is likewise superb, featuring the mage Amberlin the Lesser, cursed by a particularly annoying form of magic, inadvertently getting into a contest of wills with other mages to unexpected results.

'Caulk the Witch-Chaser' by Liz Williams is somewhat unremarkable. A witch-chaser is employed to hunt down some witches in the marshes, but is unhappy with the process by which he was hired. Williams tries to hit the Vancian mode of speech and doesn't quite nail it. That said, the end is nicely dark and twisted.

'Inescapable' by Mike Resnick sees city watchman Pelmundo become bewitched by a woman and end up getting in over his head. This is another strong story and the ending will likely provide long-term readers of the Dying Earth series with a big grin.

'Abrizonde' by Walter Jon Williams is a highlight, featuring the besieged castle of Abrizonde and charting the fortunes of the hapless Vespanus who is trapped within. This is a great story, tense and dramatic with an amusing finale.

'The Traditions of Karzh' by Paula Volsky sees Farnol of Karzh become of age and stand ready to inherit his family home and fortune, but his lack of magical aptitude is a disgrace to the family's honour. His attempt to make amends leads to a dubious encounter with a particularly persistent pelgrane. An extremely good story, with a slice of dark vein and a particularly satisfying conclusion.

'The Final Quest of the Wizard Sarnod' by Jeff VanderMeer is the weakest story in the collection. The writing is turgid and does not flow well at all, and the failure of the story is all the more irritating as it attempts to resolve the T'sais/Sarnod story from The Dying Earth itself. Disappointing.

'The Green Bird' by Kage Baker similarly invokes Cugel the Clever, the antihero of the second and third Dying Earth books, but to a far more successful end. Cugel learns of the existence of a bird whom has memorised many key spells and sets out to capture it, with typically disastrous results.


'The Last Golden Thread' by Phyllis Eisenstein is one of the more interesting stories in the book. The author does not attempt to match the Vancian mode of speech, and instead tells a melancholic and quiet story about ambitions and desires at the end of time. Affecting and thought-provoking.

'An Incident at Uskvosk' by Elizabeth Moon is a funny little story about a day at the races which ends up being a lot more complicated than it should be.

'Sylgarmo's Proclamation' by Lucius Shepard sees Thiago Alves and Derwe Coreme join forces to track down the troublesome Cugel, with amusing results. A solid if not outstanding story.

'The Lamentably Comical Tragedy (or The Laughably Tragic Comedy) of Lixal Laqavee' by Tad Williams is another highlight of the book. Fake wizard Lixal Laqavee, having tired of his life as a conjurer in a circus, decides to learn some real magic, with troublesome results that force him into a highly hazardous alliance with a deodand of dubious reliability and a ravenous hunger for human flesh. Simply put, brilliant.

'Guyal the Curator' by John C. Wright sees Manxolio Quinc, Chief Invigilator of Old Romarth, investigating the arrival of a stranger in the city suffering from amnesia. Their investigation of his origins sees them running afoul of the ill-tempered titan Magnatz. This another successful story, with a startling ending. The only problem with this tale is that the Dying Earth seems to have unexpectedly re-acquired its Moon (which, as previous stories had established, had wandered out of Earth's orbit millions of years earlier).

'The Good Magician' by Glen Cook reacquaints us with Ildefonse the Preceptor, Rhialto the Marvellous and the rest of their ill-assorted circle of allied mages. An amateur wizard, Alfaro, stumbles across a long-held secret which threatens the stability of the Dying Earth. I must admit that whilst the story here is fine, the writing is not very strong and the story is overlong.

'The Return of the Fire Witch' by Elizabeth Hand sees 'good' witch Saloona Morn recruited by her neighbour Paytim Noringal on a mission of wanton slaughter and destruction, to Saloona's distress. This is an oddball story, quite interesting and well-characterised, but one where the author's point seems to have gotten lost in the writing somewhere.

'The Collegeum of Mauge' by Byron Tetrick sees young Dringo joining a magical college to seek out his missing father. The story is quite good, twisting and turning as it goes and with an open-ended conclusion that could be quite interesting to follow up on one day.

'Evillo the Uncunning' by Tanith Lee is another highlight of the collection, as the young orphan Evillo decides to venture into the wilder world and seek his fortune, soon becoming an ally of the sentient snail Khiss along the way. The story is quite bonkers, even by Dying Earth style, complete with a recurring story point highly reminiscent of a recurring storyline in Family Guy (seriously). It's also brilliantly funny.

'The Guiding Nose of Ulfant Banderoz' by Dan Simmons is the longest story in the collection, a rich, detailed novella which sees Shrue the Diabolist allying with the redoubtable Derwe Coreme to find the greatest library in all the world, aided by a demonic entity known as KirkriK and involving a lengthy airship chase. Possibly the best story in the book, given room to breathe by its length, Simmons knocks it out of the park with a story that is funny, tender and dramatic by turns.

'Frogskin Cap' by Howard Waldrop is, on the other hand, the shortest story in the collection, a short mood piece with some funny lines and a lack of mortal peril.

'A Night at the Tarn House' by George R.R. Martin sees several folk of mixed repute take shelter at the inn known as the Tarn House (known for its hissing eels) for the night, only for total mayhem to result. GRRM, in only his second non-Song of Ice and Fire-related piece of fiction written in fifteen-odd years, delivers a characteristically sharply-characterised piece laden with very dark humour and a thought-provoking final line.

'An Invocation of Incuriosity' by Neil Gaiman is a coda not just to the collection but to the whole Dying Earth universe. So, what happens when the Sun finally does go out? Gaiman delivers the haunting answer.

Songs of the Dying Earth (****½) is an exceptionally strong collection, a rich and sumptuous banquet of tales from the end of time. The weak links here are not enough to dilute the impact of the best stories in the collection, and the best stories are thought-provoking, memorable and sharply funny. The book is available now from Subterranean Press in the USA and will be published by HarperCollins Voyager in the UK on 1 October 2009.

The Terror by Dan Simmons

In the summer of 1845, the Royal Navy dispatched two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, under the command of Sir John Franklin to the Arctic Ocean. Their orders were to enter the Canadian Arctic Archipelago by means of Lancaster Sound (west of Greenland) and seek out the North-West Passage, which would lead them to the Pacific via the Bering Strait and thus home by way of Russia, China and India. Whilst both the eastern and western edges of the Passage had been explored by this time, no ship had successfully travelled the entire length of the Passage.

Neither ship was heard from again.


Over the following years, concern over the expedition's fate grew and many search and rescue expeditions were launched, some by ship and others by foot, travelling up the rivers from the Canadian interior. A number of relics and remains were found, confusingly scattered across a large area of more than a hundred miles surrounding King William Island, and over time other expeditions have pieced together the facts, upon which the narrative of The Terror is based.

The Terror, like Stephen Donaldson's Gap series and George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire, uses a rotating third-person limited point of view system, moving between several characters. The narrative opens in late 1847 with the two ships forced to spend a second winter in a row stuck fast in the ice. Extensive flashbacks and diaries record the earlier stage of the expedition, with optimism over finding the North-West Passage turning to despair as the ships make little progress against the ice. After being snowed in at King William Island, an unidentified predator starts stalking the crews, accounting for many lives including that of Sir John Franklin, leaving Captain Crozier of the Terror in command of the expedition. Discovering that the ships' stores are contaminated by an unknown source (later - in real life - revealed to be lead poisoning from either the inadequately-sealed tinned foods or the water tanks) and they cannot survive another winter, in April 1848 Crozier makes the decision to strike out for the Canadian mainland by foot and attempt to follow the Back River to civilisation.

The Terror is a meticulously researched novel. Simmons has clearly done his homework here, further evidenced by the considerable bibliography. The details of shipboard life are fascinating, and Simmons is painstaking in ensuring that the reader understands at all times the options and problems facing the expedition's leaders, most notably the paralysis that grips them when presented with the option of abandoning ship and continuing overland and over the ice on foot, or hoping that a summer thaw will free their ships. The characters - virtually all of whom are given the names of the real Franklin Expedition crewmen - are vividly drawn, from the flawed but nonetheless charismatic and professional Crozier to the bumbling Franklin to the naive but eventually heroic surgeon Goodsir to the perpetually cheerful Blanky, and the use of them to tell the story is very well done, although there is a pause when Simmons has some of the crew doing some very unpalatable things with no evidence those individuals ever did those things in reality. However, that is often the case with fictionalizing real events. Simmons also nails the biting, freezing atmosphere of the Arctic and imbues the story with some very atmospheric descriptions of the frozen ice landscapes.


The problem with the book is the presence of the 'thing on the ice' (a deliberate nod to the 1951 movie The Thing From Another World), a terrifying monster which shows up at almost regular intervals to kill a few people, sometimes mutilating them (apparently for pleasure), before vanishing. The first time this happens it is effectively shocking. Around the fifth or sixth it starts to get a bit boring, even comical. The monster is also highly reminiscent of the Shrike, Simmons' superb creation from his Hyperion Cantos series of SF novels, and although the monster in The Terror isn't quite as godlike (nor does it have a giant metal tree to impale people on), its abilities will feel very familiar to anyone who has read the earlier work. Eventually an interesting explanation is given for the creature, cleverly based on Inuit mythology, but it literally comes in the final two chapters of a 950-page novel, long after the creature's appearances have stopped raising any genuine feelings of tension or fear. Also, the non-monster sections are as well-written and gripping as the bits where it does appear, making the storyline feel a bit redundant. When the genuine horrors of surviving in the Arctic with poisoned supplies and dwindling hopes are this compelling, why throw in a mutant fourteen-foot-tall polar bear with big sharp pointy teeth on top of that? Whilst thematically interesting, the presence of the monster feels like it cheapens some of the genuine accomplishments of the real Franklin Expedition.

The Terror (****) is often brilliant, but it is overlong and the monster is overused, robbing it of its power. Ignoring that, this is a gripping and fascinating novel of man's desire to survive no matter the odds. The novel is available in the UK from Bantam and the USA from Little, Brown.

The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons

The Fall of Hyperion is the second novel in the four-volume Hyperion Cantos, although it does effectively resolve the storylines opened up in Hyperion. When the first book ended, the pilgrims had arrived at the Valley of the Time Tombs on Hyperion where each was supposed to confront the Shrike and petition it for a wish. However, one of their number, Het Masteen, had vanished without a trace. At the same time, the 'barbarian' Ousters are launching a massive assault on the Hyperion system which the Hegemony of Man's space fleet, FORCE, has proven unable to repulse. All eyes in the Hegemony turn to the Hyperion system where the fates of billions will be decided.

The novel proceeds along two parallel paths. In the first, we see events unfolding on Hyperion as the surviving pilgrims explore the Time Tombs. In the second, we follow Hegemony CEO Gladstone as she plans the defence of the Hegemony of Man against both the Ousters and the AI TechnoCore, humanity's extremely unreliable ally. Both storylines are related through a second 'cybrid' based on the poet Keats, who is telepathically linked to Brawne Lamia, one of the pilgrims on Hyperion, and has also been called into the advise the CEO.

Fall of Hyperion is therefore a somewhat different book to the first. Much bigger and more explosive events are depicted than in the first book. This is definitely a less character-intense book, although it could be argued that the original Hyperion did such a good job of defining the characters we don't really need to delve further into their skulls. Fall of Hyperion is, however, more action-packed and much faster paced, developing into a real page-turner as the book proceeds. In particular, Gladstone becomes a fascinating character, her decisions at the end of the book likely to doom her to infamy for all time, despite the necessity of her actions.

There are a few more problems than there were with Hyperion. The Keats angle in the first novel was interesting and allowed Simmons to explore his obvious love of the poet quite thoroughly. However, having a second Keats avatar pretty much relate the entire story of the second novel is a massive overkill. If you have no interest in the poet, there are long stretches of this second novel that are just extremely tedious. Also, after the massive build-up to galactic apocalypse with the promise of billions dying and humanity falling into a huge dark age, the ramifications of 'the fall' are seriously downplayed. Perhaps the next book in the series, Endymion, which picks the narrative up some 200 years later, will do a better job of expanding on this, but it feels like Simmons pulled his punches at the end of the book.

That said, Fall of Hyperion is an enjoyable, at times gripping science fiction novel and a worthy sequel to Hyperion. Well recommended.

The Fall of Hyperion (****) is available from Gollancz in the UK either in a one-volume edition or in an omnibus with Hyperion. The book is available from Bantam Spectra in the USA.

Wertzone Classics: Hyperion by Dan Simmons

Few books come as universally-applauded in the genre as this one. It was getting to the point where people seemed to be questioning my fitness to blog about SF since I hadn't read Hyperion, so I thought it was time to take the plunge. For those likewise ignorant of the book, Hyperion is the first in a four-volume sequence known as The Hyperion Cantos, consisting of Hyperion (1989), The Fall of Hyperion (1990), Endymion (1996) and The Rise of Endymion (1997). The sequence is heavily influenced by both the poetry of John Keats and the work of Geoffrey Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales is the clear structural inspiration behind the first novel.


The 28th Century. A war is brewing between the Hegemony of Man and the Ousters, a race of 'barbaric' humans living in arkships drifting in the depths of space. As the war drums sound, seven individuals are summoned to the remote frontier world of Hyperion by the Church of the Shrike, the godlike entity who roams that world killing people for unknown reasons or hanging their still-living forms on its giant mechanical tree. As the seven pilgrims journey through space to Hyperion, then on a gruelling ground journey across the planet even as the Hegemony and Ousters do battle in orbit, they tell each other the tale of how they came to this place and the reason for their interest in Hyperion and the Shrike.

It's a pretty straightforward structure, and indeed the book comes across as a collection of linked short stories with a prominent framing sequence. What is unusual is that Simmons varies his style slightly between each story, so the Priest's Tale is a mystery (albeit a mystery enlightened by electricity-spewing trees); the Soldier's Tale is a war story; the Poet's Tale is one of hubris; the Scholar's Tale is an almost heartbreaking tragedy; the Detective's Tale is a thriller; and the Consul's Tale is a romance told across decades. Simmons' writing skills here are extraordinary, with some stunning imagery and moments of emotional intensity transmitted through clear-cut but often evocative prose. Each story is a contained narrative in itself, but also contributes to the whole.

Hyperion (*****) is simply unmissable for anyone interested in the genre. It is available from Gollancz in the UK, either by itself, as part of the Future Classics range or in an omnibus with its immediate sequel, The Fall of Hyperion. It is also available in the USA from Bantam Spectra.