The Sword and Laser discussion

I see a fair bit of disillusion with Hyperion around here, but I have also been recommended this book several times in the past, by people who absolutely love it. Personally, I’m thinking of making a shirt to sum up how I felt after finishing: “I lemmed Hyperion after the last page”.

Half way through The Priest's Tale, I started to write a post entitled "Since when did I start hating world building?"; shortly thereafter I realised, it was getting tiresome, because the entire book is world building. Simmons' clearly loves poetry, and is enamoured with his lapis universe; as a result, the prose in Hyperion, seems to be simply an excuse to compile a dossier written in long form (read: winded) poetry. After, a near-Lem experience, I decided to try and take Hyperion on its own terms; I ought to be able to appreciate meticulous world building - I'm a card-carrying nerd after all - I like RPGs. Also, I don't mind flowery prose; poetry even.

But, whither character? The related tale structure leads to gobs of telling and very little showing. Despite the individual stories being in first-person, the telling completely lacks intimacy, and rarely allows glimpses of a character's inner thoughts or motivations. Instead, I'm told that there exists such a thing as a farcaster, to travel amongst the Worldweb. I'm told about deathwands, treeships, grass seas, ultramorph, fibreplastic, binary stars, clefts, Dracula tics, the “megadatasphere dataumplane of the TechnoCore”, and cybrids; oh my! I'm also told about everyone’s face in great detail, and at least twice, that: "the hazel eyes looked sad". Even when I'm able to enjoy the world building for its nerdy merits (wearing 1989 goggles can help with that), the story turns and asks me to care if a character survives a (picturesque) leap, and I'm completely bored.

It contrast with the dearth of compelling character insight, descriptions of the inconsequential all too frequently move beyond meticulous and into parody. As if it mattered to the story, I'm told with the utmost sincerity, that "Two nuclear devices were actually detonated against Ouster staging areas: the first was deflected by energy fields and the second destroyed a single scoutship which may have been a decoy." I'm subjected to an analysis of all nine words available to the poet; which are nouns, which are verbs and which share meaning. And who can forget the enthralling enumeration of all nine cotes each character has donned against the cold - complete with a mention of the "forgotten" etymology of the Trench Coat? And All this becomes tedious when you add in the penchant for certain words and metaphors. Confusing or scrambled things tend to be Escher-esque, and there are a lot of blisters, tails and breasts throughout; and did I mention lapis already? Also, I get that people in this universe are proper about names (à la M. Le Comte de Monte Cristo), but the narrator/s could throw us a bone occasionally, and go with a first or surname more often, if only to thin the word count!

Apart from the building of worlds, the book does have a pleasing dose of mystery; the frame story not least of all. I suspect the aforementioned Hyperion fans respond to these interesting mysteries as much as the intricate universe, and the poetry (or allusions to poetry).

Maybe the second book will pay all this off; maybe I should have read that first? Perhaps if I'd been convinced to care about these characters beforehand, I would be thrilled to read their diaries and police records. The last portion of the story was certainly more compelling than the earlier parts (even though that interest was obliterated by the end itself). I devoured books like The World of The Wheel of Time after all, but I certainly wouldn't have read it first.

Someone on another thread suggested "Backstoryion" might be a more appropriate title. I think "Worldbuildion" might be more appropriate, if less poetic.

P.S. Was there really a (physically as well as mentally) strong female character called Brawn Labia; or did I just miss-hear while listening to my audio book at 2x?

P.P.S. The art of irony: a 700+ word post, in which I complain about verbosity.

LMAO! This is why this forum is so much fun. It's full of smart people who are opionated. And they express it passionately.

Jora wrote: "Was there really a (physically as well as mentally) strong female character called Brawn Labia; or did I just miss-hear while listening to my audio book at 2x?"

Brawne Lamia

Brawn Labia

I'm so glad I wasn't drinking anything while I read this, it would have been a spit take! I will never be able to hear this character's name correctly again.

Unfortunately for some - The brilliance of the first book unfolds in the subsequent books. You can't really cheat and read the last book 1st because it comes off in layers.
You may notice in Hyperion and even the next book that there are a quite a few "blind" spots ie Het Masteen, even Kassad and of course the Shrike - where you think, "did I just miss something." The answer is yes. You weren't exactly lied to, just not told the whole truth.
Hyperion is NOT a stand alone book and parts can be hard to read but I can tell you after reading book 4 - the payoff is huge. BUT - if a book doesn't grab you after 500 or 600 pages then it probably overdue for lemming.

Wait, you played the audiobook at 2x speed? I don't think you have any right to complain about not getting into the characters or the settings, since the subtle things probably flew past you at Mach 7

Brawne Lamia's name is a palimpsest of the name of the real John Keats' paramour, and his mythical name for his personal poetic muse.

Jora wrote: "As if it mattered to the story, I'm told with the utmost sincerity, that "Two nuclear devices were actually detonated against Ouster staging areas: the first was deflected by energy fields and the second destroyed a single scoutship which may have been a decoy." I'm subjected to an analysis of all nine words available to the poet; which are nouns, which are verbs and which share meaning."

I saw both of these as character. Kassad, the career military man, gives the military details so important to him; Silenus, who worships words (see the whole 'language is humankind's contribution to the universe' sermon) includes a detailed overanalysis of his profane vocabulary - to comedic effect, imo.

It's a lot of tell, I agree, but the character development comes from the way it's told.

David Sven wrote: "Unfortunately for some - The brilliance of the first book unfolds in the subsequent books. You can't really cheat and read the last book 1st because it comes off in layers.
You may notice in Hyperi..."

Well, I wouldn't ever seriously considering "cheating, I was just making a point. Thanks for confirming what I suspected was the case though. What I'm opining, is that it's a shame the structure, language and style of the book were not enjoyable enough for me (or annoyed me enough), that the likelihood of me ever experiencing that pay off is very low indeed. I'm certainly no stranger to character investment. I, like most people who take fiction far too seriously, have fielded many questions from well meaning folk asking where it might be ideal to jump in to a story mid stream.
<spoilers>
How can you explain to them then, that Lan's brooding would just annoy them if you hadn't experienced the disappearance of Moiraine? That Wash's death simply doesn't hurt if you'd never experienced his pain when he was tortured next to Mal? That "The Gap into Conflict: The Real Story" might be a little dull, but how would you ever appreciate the rare and exhilarating challenge of rooting for bad (the utter foulness of Angus) over good (Nick) if you never knew the real story?
</spoilers>
Which makes another point. I can write a post (essay or diatribe if you'd prefer) on Hyperion, and not once have to worry once about spoiling anything. You can't really spoil world-building!

Also, I feel compelled to mention to you Hyperion 4 and 5 starers, that I was joking about M. Lamia (and yes, P. Aaron, I even spent plenty of time Wikiing Keats and Canterbury tales et al.) . Thanks for the civil replies correcting me though!

P.S. I understand there is constant debate around here about audiobooks e.t.c., and I want to go on the record saying that I will defend all forms of reading, from dead-tree and braille to ebook; even 2x audio, and especially having someone else (real and present) read to you. My previous read was the 1200+ page half-a-tree edition of The Count of Monte Cristo. I will argue the specific merits of 2x elsewhere, but in case my verbatim quoting and nauseating circumlocution didn’t make it clear, I didn’t miss much of Hyperion.

Darin wrote: ...to comedic effect, imo..."

I agree. That passage had me chuckling out loud on the train. In fact, it's where I got the title of my post from: "My early poetry was execrable." Semi-autobiographical perchance? I also agree with your assessment that "character development comes from the way it's told. " Spot on. Again I lament that this structure meant that I had to struggle to stay interested.

I think my feelings are much the same as yours. I ended the book not caring about the characters.

And while it may only be half a book, it just shouldn't take that long to make me care.

Totally agree. I usually love world building, but mostly because it provides interesting ways to develop characters. With this book I felt like it worked the other way around and the characters only existed so they could explain the world around them

Alyse wrote: "I usually love world building, but mostly because it provides interesting ways to develop characters. With this book I felt like it worked the other way around and the characters only existed so they could explain the world around them"

Damn. My sentiments with 1/20th of the word count. Can I hire you to edit my posts?

David Sven wrote: "Unfortunately for some - The brilliance of the first book unfolds in the subsequent books...BUT - if a book doesn't grab you after 500 or 600 pages then it probably overdue for lemming. "

I didn't "hate" the book, nor did I lem it, but I'd have to agree with the sort of sentiment that you just expressed, David, and that I have found in other places in these forums. Despite M. Simmons' reputation for having written a modern classic of SF in the Hyperion Cantos, a truly great author does not drag his readers through several hundred pages of exposition and world-building before getting to the payoff that makes the whole thing worthwhile.

I appreciated what he was trying to do with the Canterbury Tales redux; it's a novel idea for a SF tale. Unfortunately, the execution of that just didn't work out very well. Perhaps the resulting structure trapped him into this exposition-heavy format. But regardless of the concept, truly great writers do more showing than telling. As it is, after 481 pages, there are only 1 or 2 characters for whom I can honestly say that I care what ends up happening to them. Though I bought Fall of Hyperion at the same time I bought Hyperion, I am really struggling with whether I will continue on. M. Simmons just didn't give me enough "skin in the game" by this point.

Scott wrote: "a truly great author does not drag his readers through several hundred pages of exposition and world-building before getting to the payoff that makes the whole thing worthwhile. "

For me I found the world building and exploration of various concepts a payoff in itself. I also approached the book as being a compendium of six short stories with the main story being like intermission in between(as opposed to an over developed main story) That is I was more interested in hearing the next story than in getting the over arching story resolved
by the end of the book (knowing of course in advance there would be a resolution in the next book and books as it turns out).
Then as it turns out in the following books, the six back stories are actually more than character development but the beginnings of separate story arcs that continue to varying degrees throughout the rest of the series - and what I thought was the MAIN story is actually only there to service these story arcs.

Anyway, for me each of the "short stories" (which elongate after book 1) qualified as a good short story in its own right in that they were "complete enough" to go into a compendium with other non related stories. The priests tale for instance could have been an episode of "Tales from the Crypt."

I think this is mostly just Simmons' style. I remember reading Ilium, a huge doorstopper of the book, with an equally huge sequel, Olympos. I was halfway through Illium and I still had no idea what was going on - something about Troy and Mars and post-humans and a hapless Iliad scholar and the Greek pantheon. But I felt it was okay, and I trusted that Simmons would eventually reveal everything. And he did, and it was great. But it did require a huge amount of patience and trust on my part, and I realize that not everyone appreciates that.

I think Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion need to be regarded as one book (especially because, as I understand it, that's how Simmons originally wrote it, and then had his publishers split it into two for better marketing).