Hyperion (Simmons novel)

Volume one of the Hyperion Cantos, and a Hugo winner. Seven pilgrims travel to the Time Tombs on the planet Hyperion to petition the Shrike, a creature that kills almost everyone who meets it, and each tells their own story on the way — the structure lifted straight from The Canterbury Tales, so the book reads as six novellas inside a frame.

Context: a16z groups the four volumes as one entry in its Fantasy section, calling the series “science fantasy” set in 2732 after humans have colonised hundreds of worlds and built superhuman AI and teleportation “farcasters” — and, like Wolfe, “intentionally mysterious.” This is where it starts, and the tale-telling structure makes it the most self-contained of the four.

Connections

• a16z Infra Reading List — the list this came from; Fantasy section, Hyperion Cantos entry.
• Dan Simmons — the author.
• The Fall of Hyperion — volume two, which resolves the cliffhanger this one ends on.
• Endymion (Simmons novel) — volume three.
• The Rise of Endymion — volume four.
• Science Fiction — the genre; the series is usually read as space opera with a literary frame.
• Artificial Intelligence — the series’ TechnoCore is one of the canonical fictional treatments of machine intelligence with its own politics.
• a16z — the firm whose infrastructure team curates the list.