Hyperion: Difference between revisions

It's eight hundred years into the future, and humanity has fled Earth's accidental destruction<ref>[[Apocalypse How/Class X|being sucked into]] an [[Freak Lab Accident|artificial black hole]]</ref> and established the WorldWeb, a society of many planets connected through the [[Portal Network|farcaster network]]. With the help of its allies in the TechnoCore (a group of emancipated [[A Is]]), mankind lives in peace...until the mysterious "Ousters", a splinter race of humanity adapated to living in deep space, attacks the WorldWeb. As the situation becomes desperate, a group of seven pilgrims is sent to the planet Hyperion, a colony world guarded by the inscrutable killing machine known as the Shrike. Their hope is that their desperate appeal to the Shrike will persuade it to give them some of its alien technology that can save humanity. During the journey, the pilgrims, each of whom [[Mysterious Past|has a personal link]] to Hyperion, begin to tell each other their stories, and realize that things are ''much'' more complicated than they thought...

 

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=== Provides Examples Of: ===

* [[Artificial Human]]: Androids are practically vat-grown humans, and cybrids are essentially biological terminals for the Core. Nemes might qualify as one as well.

* [[AI Is a Crapshoot]]: The TechnoCore.

* [[And I Must Scream]]: The Shrike's victims on the Tree of Pain.

** Also Father Duré. And Rachel Weintraub. And Martin Silenus, though in his case it taught him real poetry. Dan Simmons is good friends with Harlan Ellison.

* [[Author Appeal]]: Dan Simmons is a former public school English teacher, so it amuses him to stuff his genre fiction with as many literary references as he can get away with.

* [[Back-Alley Doctor]]: Brawne and Johnny visit one in one of Lusus' seedier Hives.

** It doesn't get much better in ''Endymion'' and ''The Rise of Endymion'', it makes you dependent on the Pax {{spoiler|and gives your mind over to the Core}}.

** Not to mention that it functions as built in shock collar.

* [[Colonel Badass]]: Kassad again.

* [[Corrupt Church]]: Very much so in the latter two books with the "Pax", a descendant of the Vatican that controls nearly all of mankind. While individual members (along with the occasional {{spoiler|pope}}) may be good, the church overall acts as one of the main villain organizations in ''Endymion'' and ''Rise of Endymion''.

** Aenea is a messiah, who trains as a architect and {{spoiler|shares her blood and lets herself be killed to liberate mankind.}}

* [[Drama-Preserving Handicap]]: In the fourth novel, when Raul takes on Nemes barehanded, it's worth noting that for the duration of the fight, the [[Powers That Be]] have taken away her ability to move in [[Bullet Time|Laser Time]], so that it's just slightly more of an even fight. Although she still has bones made of metal, has long claws, shark teeth, feels no pain, etc.

* [[Earth-That-Was]]: {{spoiler|it gets better.}}

* [[Hero of Another Story]]: {{spoiler|Rachel}}'s adventures are hinted at in a few tantalizing scenes in first, second and fourth books.

* [[Hidden Villain]]

* [[Human Popsicle]]: Used for interstellar travel. {{spoiler|Silenus uses this to extend his life, and the Core does this to bilions of humans in the second half of the series to use them as massive parallel processors.}}

* [[Hyperspace Is a Scary Place]]: The Gideon drive is described as being terrifying to use, and kills you incredibly painfully.

* [[Invisibility Flicker]]: The Shrike could (and sometimes does) fight without ever being seen but it's too sadistic to not make itself known most of the time. Being [[Nigh Invulnerable]] means that it doesn't come as much of a risk.

* {{spoiler|[[Kill'Em All]]}}: Book Two. Well, almost.

* {{spoiler|[[Pregnant Badass]]}}: {{spoiler|Brawne Lamia.}}

* [[Reformed but Rejected]]: No one ever remembers that Col. Kassad resigned his commission and became an anti-war activist; once you earn a nickname like "[[The Butcher|The Butcher of South Bressia]]", you're not going to get remembered for anything else

* [[Retro Rocket]]: The Consul's starship is designed to look like one. His intent was to make it fit the Platonic ideal of "space ship".

* [[River of Insanity]] : Father Duré's expedition to the mysterious Bikura tribe on Hyperion, retold by Hoyt in the Priest's Tale.

* [[Seven Dirty Words]]: Brain damage reduces Martin Silenus' vocabulary to these, for a time.

* [[Shout-Out]]: Jack Vance's 'The Dying Earth' shares a title with Martin Silenus' monster best-seller.

** The opening paragraph is basically a long version of the quintessential line, {{spoiler|"It was a dark and stormy night."}}

** It also has an absolutely hysterical reference to [[Mad Magazine]] in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it line about 43-Man Squamish.

* [[Unreliable Narrator]]: Raul lies several times, like when he claims to not know Aenea's fate. He admits it later, and proceeds to dump us, the readers with {{spoiler|a torture scene, followed by Aenea burning to death. She almost has her eyelids and nose chewed off by a Nemes clone. Slowly.}} Who knows what else he hid from us?

* [[Universal Driver's License]]: Raul contemplates this in ''Endymion'' as he considers stealing an ornithopter. He realizes he can't fly one, and [[Lampshade Hanging|muses that the fictional heroes who]] ''[[Lampshade Hanging|could]]'' [[Lampshade Hanging|pilot any vehicle]].

* [[Whole-Plot Reference]]: Most of the first volume, to ''The Canterbury Tales''.

* [[Who Wants to Live Forever?]]: The cruciform keeps you from dying no matter how much you might want to--and also keeps you from leaving a small geographic area. In the second duology, the technology has been harnessed to keep humanity virtually immortal, but at a spiritual price.