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Dan Simmon's discussion thread
Matthew
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I don't know how many of you have read this guys work, but he's currently one of my favorite writers. I know he's not without his weaknesses, but I enjoy his strength's much more.
He's best known for his Hyperion series, HYPERION, THE FALL OF HYPERION, ENDYMION, and THE RISE OF ENDYMION. his most recent work is DROOD, A horror story focusing on events leading up to Charles Dicken's last unfinished novel.
He has written in a variety of genres, but is best known for Sci-fi/fantasy (the Hyperion series, and his recent Olympus duology) and Horror (Drood, the Song of Kali, etc).
My own personal favorites are his recent Olympus duology. ILIUM, and OLYMPOS. A story about a far future humanity that has forgotten its past, and many of it's advancements, whose life will change by the actions of one man who can read. A whole civilization of robots in the outer ring of the solar system, as seen through the "eyes" of a pair of robots who like to spend time in philosophical discussions about Shakespeare. A group of "gods" on Mars, who entertain themselves by re-enacting the entire Trojan war, and use specially bred scholars to study it and make sure it's going exactly as Homer wrote, but is it really "entertainment" or something much darker? And in the background is a mysterious being called Setebos, and the one being he fears, the Quiet.
It's big (despite being only two books) but it features plenty of epic storytelling, and a massive cast of characters.
Hut have any of you guys read him? What do you make of his work?
He's best known for his Hyperion series, HYPERION, THE FALL OF HYPERION, ENDYMION, and THE RISE OF ENDYMION. his most recent work is DROOD, A horror story focusing on events leading up to Charles Dicken's last unfinished novel.
He has written in a variety of genres, but is best known for Sci-fi/fantasy (the Hyperion series, and his recent Olympus duology) and Horror (Drood, the Song of Kali, etc).
My own personal favorites are his recent Olympus duology. ILIUM, and OLYMPOS. A story about a far future humanity that has forgotten its past, and many of it's advancements, whose life will change by the actions of one man who can read. A whole civilization of robots in the outer ring of the solar system, as seen through the "eyes" of a pair of robots who like to spend time in philosophical discussions about Shakespeare. A group of "gods" on Mars, who entertain themselves by re-enacting the entire Trojan war, and use specially bred scholars to study it and make sure it's going exactly as Homer wrote, but is it really "entertainment" or something much darker? And in the background is a mysterious being called Setebos, and the one being he fears, the Quiet.
It's big (despite being only two books) but it features plenty of epic storytelling, and a massive cast of characters.
Hut have any of you guys read him? What do you make of his work?
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Hyperion was so fantastic
Endymion and The Rise of Endymion were crap. They added nothing to the story of Hyperion; quite the opposite they fucked it up by answering questions that were best left to the imagination of the reader, changing the themes of the original story to fit the sequel, and rewriting the ending completely. They were to Hyperion what the Prequel trilogy was to the original Star Wars movies.
To anyone who hasn't read those novels, I recommend reading the two Hyperion ones, and stopping there.
I think this is true. Olympus was pretty good and some parts of Ilium were good but then things just got too random.
I say read it. Not as good as Hyperion but still pretty good.
Could you expand one what you mean by this? Because I'm not seeing it.
The two original Hyperion novels are certainly sufficient on their own, but the Endymion novels are not crap. Not by a long shot. They are quite worth reading and I would recommend them to anyone that isn't so stuck on the first two that they cannot handle an extension of that material and some changes to things.
Some changes?
Look, I'm no Hyperion fanboy - I've read the novels once and that's it. I'm just capable of recognizing a botched sequel that ruins a series when I see one.
I... liked Hyperion. When I started the book I really liked it, I very much enjoyed the style. It bugged me that the book didn't actually end though. Fall of Hyperion I just finished a month or so ago, and I'm still not sure what to think of it. So much stuff left unexplained, so many bizarre loose ends and incredible events. My favorite parts were the battles with the Ousters. The rest I found.... just to be lacking, and I'm not sure if I can articulate exactly why.
...what? I mean I preferred Hyperion too but you're very much misremembering stuff:
I did get tired of his blatant references to all manner of things by the Fall of Hyperion; I get it Silenus is named after a satyr, you can stop tipping me off by describing him as satyr like.
He was more than satyr like, he had himself transformed (via genetic engineering of some sort) into a satyr for a period of his life. Not really trying to be subtle there.
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As for 'Good AIs' recall that there were, IIRC, three AI factions during the events of the series.
Uh, yeah. Dis' already pointed out some of the problems in your examples here, and the last few largely just read as ,"Waah! I wanted more of the same and didn't get it!"
also, the blood was explained as having nanomachines in it, not too magical if you ask me....
I actually picked up Ilium some time ago but I've been afraid to read it due to that very reason - the reaction to Olympos I saw was a lot of ranting and disappointment.
I've also heard that Song of Kali is either one of the scariest novels ever or a steaming pile of racist trash.
The Terror was pretty good (though it never quite clicked with me), right up until
I found Olympos to be just fine really, if a little different from what you expected reading through Ilium. Frankly, I found many of the storylines in Olympos to be extremely interesting, Daemann's vendetta, and the survival of the human's on earth. The new Prometheus, Achilles and his "bride," and my favorite character, Prospero, the living computer.
Yes, endings are a bit of a sore point for Simmons, but I think his characters make up fro it.
It's not either, really. Definitely not all that scary, but not trash. My wife, who is Indian, would probably take offense and so I'll never be suggesting that one to her when she's looking for something new to read, but I expect she would find it offensive in the same way that she does Indiana Jones & The Temple of Doom - which I am also not ready to declare racist trash.
I would say it's Simmons' worst work that I have read, and it isn't one that I'd really recommend. I just found it to be completely lacking of any of the qualities I admire in works like Hyperion, or The Terror.
Pretty much any random piece of tech was ultimately some kind of soul-raping cosmic horror, which was fine in Hyperion because it was a surprise, but after reading 5 books you pretty much knew anything remotely powerful was going to have some horrible secret.
By the end I was expecting someone to use a toaster oven, but then find out that while the oven does in fact toast bread it does it by setting fire to the bodies of dead children or something.
Having just finished the first two, I'm really confused by this part
1) I don't know about Endymion, but as one other person mentioned, the Shrike was one of many, and it was not a time-traveling god in the first one, but actually a robot that was sent back in time to cause sufficient pain and suffering (on the Tree of Thorns) to force the hidden part of the Christian trinity out of hiding.
2) I thought the AI was pretty clear to Gladstone that her choices wouldn't "end" anything, but rather avoid a definitive ending altogether. It was more of a "immediate crisis averted" type of thing.
I have had Hyperion sitting on my bookshelf for several months now and I've tried picking it up twice and I don't get more then 10 pages in before I put it back down. I would like to assume once the story gets going I'll enjoy it, but (and maybe this is part of sci-fi) it feels like every other word is a name for something alien. It's too abstract to enjoy, the page is overflowing with made up words and names for things that I can't pictures or relate to. Great, I get that it's alien but the flow of the story is hindered when I can't quickly read through the passage and know what's what. Sure most of that crap in the first couple pages, like the animals and the landscape, are not important, but it grates on me anyways.
I can handle info dumps, I love Malazan. Weird names and heavy descriptions don't bother me, I read fantasy.
I get the dialog and I understand what going on, but it just feels disjointed for the sake of being foriegn.
I'm determined to sit down and read it, but right now I'm in the middle of the 2nd omibus of the Black Company series so it'll have to wait.
This bothered me at first too. It felt like it really slowed down my reading. But then I came to appreciate how exotic it makes the setting, and I just came to accept the words and things I didn't recognize as if I were some foreign traveler taking in the sights of his world.
I would recommend trying to force yourself through this as I had the same problem and it got better once I gave it a good chance.
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I think everyone has that feeling at first.
however it does get better. also, you could just look for some kind of dictionary for the book as I'm sure one exists.
The Shrike is the Terminator. In the first movie it's the bad guy, but in the second one gets reprogrammed by the humans and becomes the good guy, and has to fight a newer better version of itself. I don't see how anyone could be confused by this. It is literally almost the exact same plot twist.
yes and the first one had no christian themes at all.....
you have a skewed view of what religious tones are it seems.
I personally liked Endymion better than Hyperion solely for the fact that Hyperion itself was a non story full of background that presented itself in a unique framework which gave it appeal and the fall of hyperion which was the actual story but the ending was written by a drunk crazy guy who wanted to top each crazy idea with a newer and better one and mold it into a story that had no real meaning aside from: tada! its a galskndlawpi.
Olympos had a lot going on but was far less interesting than Ilium. So many sub-plots just ran into a concrete wall at the end, Harman's odyssey was the only one that felt like it was fully fleshed out.
It really felt like it needed to be stretched out into two books.
Don't get me wrong, it was a thoroughly enjoyable read, but both times through the series I was considerably more impressed by the depth and pacing of Ilium. Olympos left me vaguely dissatisfied.