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elwenI just finished rereading Hyperion.
It was almost like reading it the first time. I couldn't remember most of the stories until they were told again, although echoes of memory would return to me of what was to come. I can't remember when was the last time I read the books. A few years ago, I suppose. I had completely forgotten what most of the stories were about until they started, but the moment the key idea was mentioned -- Kassad's lover, Siri's Rebellion, Father Paul Duré -- usually a rough outline would come back.
I remembered Rachel's story the best, at least the tragic points along its way, so it was like reading a trainwreck. I remembered Rachel giving up on trying to tell herself what had happened, and her parents' subsequent efforts to live their lives backwards with hers, and Sarai getting killed. I suppose Rachel's story is the most moving, if only because it has the pathos of being about a child.
I would say it's been "too long" since I last read the series, given how little I remember, but that makes it all the better reading this time, really. The revelations are just as amazing and surprising as they were the first time. What got me the most was King Billy's death, I think. That totally came out of nowhere to me.
Like the first time, I was really drawn into the story by Brawne Lamia's tale. I get addicted to Johnny the moment I hear of him -- I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that he's quite explicitly introduced as a prettyboy -- and it all rolls out from there. Plus I just think it's cool, that he acts and thinks and emotes so humanly, but he can do things like guide a Hawking mat from lightyears or more away, or take one through the datumplane by taking one's hand.
The book unfolds beautifully as a way to introduce the reader to the world. The way each story stacks on top of the previous ones in providing background. First just the strangeness and the new technology. Then the Ousters, and only in the second half the TechnoCore, that becomes so important. I didn't even think about them until I got to that part.
It's still kind of frustrating, though, that the book ends . . . at the beginning. The whole thing is just a huge prologue: it finishes setting the stage, the pilgrims waltz off to the Time Tombs, and--The End. Or rather, "To be begun." But you know what I mean.
I forget whether I had already posessed the second book when I finished the first. I think not. I think I might even have read a library copy in my desperation for continuance. I'm pretty sure I bought the books one by one, first because I was just sampling, and then because of stocking issues.
I absolutely adore Dan Simmons' vision of the future. It's not precisely believable, but easily accepted, I suppose. The way the characters talk about existing history that moves so seamlessly into the invented parts. Citing real classical writers and imaginary ones. (I wish I could read this George Wu guy.) And just the picture of technology.
The TechnoCore is awesome, in a scary and incomprehensible way. I always feel echoes of The Matrix in it, especially later on in Endymion when we find out what they've really done. But it just seems like such a... modern vision of the future, if that makes sense. The only other science fiction whose vision I clearly remember is Isaac Asimov's, so maybe that explains to you where I'm coming from. Instead of robots, there's the updated, programmer's version, speaking of AIs and variables and the WorldWeb.
I've "always" felt -- meaning in my more recent years as far back as I clearly remember having any thoughts on the subject -- that humanity has kind of moved beyond robots, or at least humanoid robots, before we ever reached them. The thought occured to me in Japan -- or maybe the thought occured to me later in conjunction with memories of -- when we visited Tepia, kind of like the Tech Museum, showcasing technologies for the future, primarily robots. There were a lot of remote machines, looking like slinkies and worms. Even the household robots, still designed to be more toys and novelties than really helping with anything, were just barely human in shape. The truly functional things were built into appliances, without anything "robotic" in the sense of seeing arms moving about. That's the more likely way the future will be, I think, where rooms still look the same, but everything is controlled by a computer, and we aren't going to see little self-contained electronic mirrors of ourselves.
Who would build a useful robot in the semblance of a human being, anyway? We creatures who still haven't quite learned how to walk upright without eventually developing back problems. Whose two-legged walk is just a form a controlled falling? Yeah, I don't believe in cyborg robots.
But Dan Simmons' TechnoCore -- which I continue to insist is eerily The Matrix, sans Machines -- that I can believe in.
--
Adding things that somehow didn't fit in the above: I know that the two of you whom I know have read Hyperion found it less than inspiring. That's fine, even if I think it's too bad. I just happen to really, really like it. And somewhere in Endymion or Fall of Endymion is painted my answer to that tired old conversation starter, "If you could visit any place, real or fictional...?" Yes, even more than Lothlorien or Rivendell, I want to visit the Ousters. Maybe even just God's Grove or Maui-Covenant, but that might be because I just read it.
It was almost like reading it the first time. I couldn't remember most of the stories until they were told again, although echoes of memory would return to me of what was to come. I can't remember when was the last time I read the books. A few years ago, I suppose. I had completely forgotten what most of the stories were about until they started, but the moment the key idea was mentioned -- Kassad's lover, Siri's Rebellion, Father Paul Duré -- usually a rough outline would come back.
I remembered Rachel's story the best, at least the tragic points along its way, so it was like reading a trainwreck. I remembered Rachel giving up on trying to tell herself what had happened, and her parents' subsequent efforts to live their lives backwards with hers, and Sarai getting killed. I suppose Rachel's story is the most moving, if only because it has the pathos of being about a child.
I would say it's been "too long" since I last read the series, given how little I remember, but that makes it all the better reading this time, really. The revelations are just as amazing and surprising as they were the first time. What got me the most was King Billy's death, I think. That totally came out of nowhere to me.
Like the first time, I was really drawn into the story by Brawne Lamia's tale. I get addicted to Johnny the moment I hear of him -- I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that he's quite explicitly introduced as a prettyboy -- and it all rolls out from there. Plus I just think it's cool, that he acts and thinks and emotes so humanly, but he can do things like guide a Hawking mat from lightyears or more away, or take one through the datumplane by taking one's hand.
The book unfolds beautifully as a way to introduce the reader to the world. The way each story stacks on top of the previous ones in providing background. First just the strangeness and the new technology. Then the Ousters, and only in the second half the TechnoCore, that becomes so important. I didn't even think about them until I got to that part.
It's still kind of frustrating, though, that the book ends . . . at the beginning. The whole thing is just a huge prologue: it finishes setting the stage, the pilgrims waltz off to the Time Tombs, and--The End. Or rather, "To be begun." But you know what I mean.
I forget whether I had already posessed the second book when I finished the first. I think not. I think I might even have read a library copy in my desperation for continuance. I'm pretty sure I bought the books one by one, first because I was just sampling, and then because of stocking issues.
I absolutely adore Dan Simmons' vision of the future. It's not precisely believable, but easily accepted, I suppose. The way the characters talk about existing history that moves so seamlessly into the invented parts. Citing real classical writers and imaginary ones. (I wish I could read this George Wu guy.) And just the picture of technology.
The TechnoCore is awesome, in a scary and incomprehensible way. I always feel echoes of The Matrix in it, especially later on in Endymion when we find out what they've really done. But it just seems like such a... modern vision of the future, if that makes sense. The only other science fiction whose vision I clearly remember is Isaac Asimov's, so maybe that explains to you where I'm coming from. Instead of robots, there's the updated, programmer's version, speaking of AIs and variables and the WorldWeb.
I've "always" felt -- meaning in my more recent years as far back as I clearly remember having any thoughts on the subject -- that humanity has kind of moved beyond robots, or at least humanoid robots, before we ever reached them. The thought occured to me in Japan -- or maybe the thought occured to me later in conjunction with memories of -- when we visited Tepia, kind of like the Tech Museum, showcasing technologies for the future, primarily robots. There were a lot of remote machines, looking like slinkies and worms. Even the household robots, still designed to be more toys and novelties than really helping with anything, were just barely human in shape. The truly functional things were built into appliances, without anything "robotic" in the sense of seeing arms moving about. That's the more likely way the future will be, I think, where rooms still look the same, but everything is controlled by a computer, and we aren't going to see little self-contained electronic mirrors of ourselves.
Who would build a useful robot in the semblance of a human being, anyway? We creatures who still haven't quite learned how to walk upright without eventually developing back problems. Whose two-legged walk is just a form a controlled falling? Yeah, I don't believe in cyborg robots.
But Dan Simmons' TechnoCore -- which I continue to insist is eerily The Matrix, sans Machines -- that I can believe in.
--
Adding things that somehow didn't fit in the above: I know that the two of you whom I know have read Hyperion found it less than inspiring. That's fine, even if I think it's too bad. I just happen to really, really like it. And somewhere in Endymion or Fall of Endymion is painted my answer to that tired old conversation starter, "If you could visit any place, real or fictional...?" Yes, even more than Lothlorien or Rivendell, I want to visit the Ousters. Maybe even just God's Grove or Maui-Covenant, but that might be because I just read it.
