Hyperion

Seven pilgrims. Seven stories. Hyperion, Dan Simmons' 1989 Hugo award-winning novel, tells a tale of love, betrayal, stagnation, and redemption 700 years in the future.

Man conquers the stars first with the help of the Hawking drive (thanks, Stephen) and now travels place to place via "farcasters" -- gates that allow instantaneous travel between star systems, known as the WorldWeb.

The farcasters have changed civilization in almost all facets of life with travel across the galaxy only a step away and the super-rich owning mansions with rooms on different planets. However all is not well in the galaxy...

The main political entity in charge of humanity is the Hegemony of Man, a culture that relies on the WorldWeb to keep their civilization running. The ease of travel and the resulting economic prosperity have created a decadent, complacent culture that uses its FORCE military to keep the peace and protect its interests.

They are assisted by the Technocore, A.I. beings who supply the technology that drives the farcasters. While originally created and ruled over by the Hegemony of Man, they seceded in the past and now control their own destiny, working alongside the Hegemony as allies.

The counterpart and bogeymen to the Hegemony of Man and the Technocore is the Ousters, members of humanity who shun the Hegemony and their dependence on farcaster technology and live in the dark space between the stars.

The Technocore, through their collective processing power, are able to make strong predictions about future events. However, some enigmatic structures with a deeply disturbing caretaker on the colony world of Hyperion cause their predictions to break down.

These structures, called the Time Tombs, are traveling back through time through some unknown technology from the far future for reasons that elude everyone, even the Technocore. They are guarded over by a being known as the Shrike; a tall, four-armed walking nightmare covered in metal blades.

The Shrike is a focus for worship by those who believe that it can grant wishes...or if it decides to decline, shred the petitioner to pieces and place them on its hyper-dimensional tree of thorns.

It's the Shrike that our seven heroes are going to see for their own personal reasons, on the eve of an expected Ouster invasion of Hyperion. One of the pilgrims, a diplomat, has been sent on the pilgrimage by the president of the Hegemony of Man and has been told that one of the pilgrims is an Ouster agent.

The seven pilgrims congregate on the Consul's ship and begin to individually tell each other's story as they depart on their journey...

Anyone who loves to read knows the joy of finding a really good book. I don't mean just any engaging story that passes the time, but those books that completely draw you in and take command of your emotions. There were times during the pilgrim Sol's story when I had to put the book down and collect myself. I know that sounds silly, but it's true.

Because the novel is broken into seven stories, the book is amazingly easy to read. Each pilgrim's story is completely engrossing and could potentially stand on its own; however, the overarching plot brings them all together in a satisfying way -- with the only downfall being the enormous cliff-hangar at the end. And that's the only real downfall I can think of for this book which is nicely taken care of with the sequel, The Fall of Hyperion.

I think the main strength of the book is how Mr. Simmons manages to take normal human condition story devices (a man's struggle with faith, a parent's unconditional love for a child, forbidden romance, chasing the girl of your dreams) and supercharges them with a science-fiction bent.

How would parents deal with a child that starts to inexplicably grow younger everyday, who slowly forgets the years of shared experience?

What would a relationship be like between a man who travels at relative speeds on a spaceship and the woman who stays on her home planet?

What if you were in love with an artificial intelligence so real and so perfect that you just didn't care?

These questions and more are explored in Hyperion, and while they may seem silly to some people when taken out of context, the skill with which Mr. Simmons weaves his stories is undeniable and left me thinking on them long after I was done reading.

If someone suggested what book I would recommend to someone willing to try science fiction, this would be the one. Oh, and there's rumors of a possible movie...