I reviewed the boardgame Orleans for Paste this week, and my latest Insider post breaks down the Aroldis Chapman trade, including my disdain for the Yankees’ decision to trade for someone with an unresolved domestic assault accusation attached to him.
I decided last year to start working my way through the list of winners of the Hugo Award for Best Novel (there are now 64 winners, and I’m through 27) because I’m obsessed with lists, but more importantly, because it seemed like a good way to find the kind of big, immersive, ambitious novels I enjoy most, works that stick with me long after they’re done. The Left Hand of Darkness was one such discovery; To Say Nothing of the Dog was another; Among Others totally blew me away. There are duds, like Red Mars, but I’ll take a couple of those along the way when some of the winners are as amazing as Dan Simmons’ 1989 novel Hyperion
Hyperion is one of the most remarkable sci-fi books I’ve ever read – a highly literate, ambitious novel with an unusual structure and a delightful habit of defying reader expectations at multiple turns. Modeled after Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and presaging the very similar structure used by David Mitchell in his nested novel Cloud Atlas, Hyperion follows seven pilgrims on a journey to the planet of the book’s title, where they go to meet the mysterious creature known as the Shrike, a trek from which most pilgrims do not return. The fate of their requests of the Shrike may connect to the fate of humanity, which has spread itself around the galaxy and spun off a splinter group of violent rebels called the Ousters as well as an independent entity powered by artificial intelligences that became sentient and seceded from man.
Simmons has also created, in one book, a literary universe the size and scope of that in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, one that Simmons revisited in three subsequent novels (about which I’ve gotten mixed reviews from all of you over the last ten days). His vision of a distant future is bleak in spots, but he hasn’t given up on humanity entirely, while his incorporation of unrealistic or impossible scientific advances (such as interstellar travel using “farcasters”) at least brings the veneer of realism – and many of these technologies are critical to the book’s stories. Simmons created a mind-boggling world, then put his characters through grueling life tests within it, showing us their reactions and their development in response to these trials.
However, Hyperion doesn’t deliver what I expected most from it: an ending. The journey is the story; the pilgrims do not reach the Shrike at the end of the book, and the resolutions of their various stories come in the sequel, Fall of Hyperion, which I understand departs from this book’s narrative technique. Simmons leaves so many questions unanswered, from Rachel’s fate to Hoyt’s real purpose to the Consul’s ability to achieve his goal, that even though Hyperion is an immensely satisfying work on its own, the ending felt too much like a cliffhanger to think of it as a completely self-contained work. “All Prologue” is fine and good up to a point, but giving us all back story and virtually no present works against the power of the book as a whole.
Next up: I’ve finished Michio Kaku’s Beyond Einstein
Keith,
I don’t know if you have already read it, but you should read The Curse of Chalion before you read Paladin of Souls. Both are great and both stand alone; but I think Chalion helps you appreciate Paladin more deeply. Thanks for these posts. I am also reading through the Hugo winners. I am reading Way Station by Simak right now and enjoying both the book and the list of winners as a whole.
Have you tried going through the Man Booker list?
I’ve read nine of the MB winners, but there’s some awful stuff on there – authors I don’t like or works I know I won’t like – so I haven’t considered a full read of the list.
I’m glad you enjoyed. I find it easier to admire than to love because there are so many unanswered questions, but it’s a remarkable work and I’ve never read anything like it.
You’d probably enjoy Dan Simmons’s Ilium as well (and it’s sequel Olympos). He’s just a really interesting writer in general.
Klaw,
First off, I really enjoy your writing – thank you for sharing!
I’ve been a baseball fan my entire life, have a degree in analytics – from back before it was cool – so I am highly interested in your content. But it took a book review to get me to comment.
I have been looking forward to your Hyperion review since you announced the series.
It is an amazing work. Hell, it’s 7 amazing books!
As for the ending, I was glad I got to spend another 500 or so pages in that universe.
You can’t just leave the pilgrims out there – go read – and enjoy!
You may even learn how farcaster’s work.
BTW, Fall is, of course, a bit of a drop off from the first; but IMO, so is every other sci/fantasy novel.
I still think you’ll enjoy it more than many of the other Hugo winners you will review.
Makes me wish I had time to read things more involved than sports and Dr Suess.
Greg
Hyperion was pretty good. But it’s one of those books that has stayed on my shelf without a re-read. But it’s, stylistically, too much “Canterbury Tales in Space’ and that convention just wears me out…
I much prefer just about anything by Alastair Reynolds or CJ Cherryh (her sci-fi, not a fan of her fantasy) to name just two of my favorite authors.
Keith,
How many times do you play a game before you review it? In your Orleans review, one of your criticisms is about the length. I haven’t really found this to be a problem, especially on subsequent plays so I’m wondering if your point is based on one play with a group of players new to the game.
Thanks
Usually at least three plays, but that was not an option with Orleans given its time length and complexity.
Keith,
I am a big fan of your work and a longtime reader of your chats and baseball articles. I also enjoyed looking over your top 100 books and top 100 old-school hip-hop lists. AN avid reader myself, I was pleased to see most of my favorites in your list. Have you read “The Picture of Dorian Gray”? That’s one of my favorites and the only notable absence from your list (in my relatively limited experience with literature). I haven’t yet read many of the classics because I find them very much hit or miss, with some of the misses quite excruciating to get through.
I mostly read science-fiction, and like you, I am slowly working my way through the Hugo Award winners. I am pleased to see that you would be reviewing “Hyperion,” about which I share your enthusiasm. I relished every page of this brilliant work, and was thrilled when I discovered there were three sequels. As you noted, reviews of the subsequent novels are mixed. I thought “Fall of Hyperion” was excellent – perhaps just a notch short of the greatness of “Hyperion.” I was highly disappointed in the final 2 books in the series, especially the last one, which was often a chore to finish.
Do you plan to read and review the sequels? Or will this take a backseat to completing the remaining Hugo award winners?
Also, do you have a ranking or list of your favorite science-fiction novels? Having read quite a few of the Hugo winners myself, I am curious to see if my views match yours on the ones we have both read.
I am also an avid player of board games, though I am not familiar with any of the games on your list, probably because I am mostly interested in abstract strategy games or word games (Boggle, Taboo, Scattergories, etc.). A friend recently got me into a theme-based strategy game called “Level 7 Omega Protocol.” I was hesitant, at first, but quickly became hooked. I am wondering if you have heard of this game, and if you have, whether any games on your list are similar. I do not think the game is suitable for someone your daughter’s age, so I wouldn’t be surprised if you are unfamiliar with it.
Keep up the great work.
-Dmitri