From Newsgroup: alt.obituaries
https://arstechnica.com/culture/2026/02/hyperion-author-dan-simmons-dies-from-stroke-at-77/
Dan Simmons, the author of more than three dozen books, including
the famed Hyperion Cantos, has died from a stroke. He was 77.
Simmons, who worked in elementary education before becoming an
author in the 1980s, produced a broad portfolio of writing that
spanned several genres, including horror fiction, historical
fiction, and science fiction. Often, his books included elements
of all of these. This obituary will focus on what is generally
considered his greatest work, and what I believe is possibly
the greatest science fiction novel of all time, Hyperion.
Published in 1989, Hyperion is set in a far-flung future in
which human settlement spans hundreds of planets. The novel
feels both familiar, in that its structure follows Chaucer's
Canterbury Tales, and utterly unfamiliar in its strange,
far-flung setting.
Seven characters, seven stories
At its heart are the background stories of seven characters on
a pilgrimage to the Time Tombs, which move backward in time.
There, they may possibly confront a legendary, mythical,
terrifying, and time-bending creature known as the Shrike. Each
of the stories told by the seven characters is done so in a
different subgenre, from tragedy to political thriller to
military science fiction, and so on.
I went into Hyperion blind, decades ago, knowing almost nothing
about it. I was never the same after finishing it. For a book
that is, essentially, "hard" science fiction, Hyperion is also
one of the most emotional books I have ever read.
The first tale is that of a priest, Lenar Hoyt, and the dying
religion of Catholicism. By the end of this story of cruciforms,
isolated civilizations, tesla trees, and more, I was floored.
And that was just the first story of seven! Most powerful, for
me, was the Scholar's Tale, the story of Sol Weintraub and his
daughter, Rachel. The first of my two daughters had just been
born when I read this book, and for the first time ever, when
reading, I cried. Cried like a baby.
Anyway, the characters are all on a pilgrimage and tell their
stories along the way. It's a remarkable journey with a
satisfyingly climactic ending.
A worthy catalog of works
I have read a lot of science fiction over the years and have
really enjoyed everything from Isaac Asimov's Foundation series
to N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy. But I keep coming back
to the powerful stories within Simmons' Hyperion novel. It is
the novel that has stuck with me the longest, which I keep
coming back to, and has enduring ideas that have helped form
my worldview.
There are three sequels to the original book, making up the
"Cantos" of novels. Opinions vary on the quality of the sequels,
and some are better than others (the author is obsessed with
John Keats). But they all feature strong storytelling set
against an epic scale, and the series is brought to a recognizable
and, in my opinion, gratifying conclusion. In an era when major
science fiction and fantasy series start out strong, become a
little weaker over time, but then are never finished--I'm
talking to you, George and Patrick--Simmons does not let the
reader down. He was nothing if not prolific.
I have not read all of his other books, and those I have read
have been hit or miss. In particular, I found The Terror (a
fictional horror story about Franklin's lost expedition) to be
great fun.
In any case, fans of epic fiction have lost a giant, a great
writer and epic storyteller with a gift for dark twists and
colorful characters. We can only hope he has found a tree ship
to take him to a celestial paradise rather than become infected
with a cruciform.
--
Mark Shaw moc TOD liamg TA wahsnm ========================================================================
"Anyway, we delivered the bomb."
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