I'm about seventy pages into my next book: Hyperion, by Dan Simmons. It's the chunky first volume of a four-book sci-fi cycle, which is a delicious prospect. Simmons is one of my favorite science-fiction/fantasy authors. His Ilium/Olympos duology is a truly mind-blowing piece of nutty speculative fiction. It doesn't get any weirder than the battle of Troy being staged on Mars by resurrected twentieth-century scholars. Simmons is really good at incorporating real scientific concepts (and tons of literary references, both obvious and obscure) into action-packed storytelling. Drood, his trippy, alt-history version of Charles Dickens's final years, is another favorite of mine. It's a really affecting mixture of the bizarre and the intensely personal. And you'll never look at a scarab beetle the same way again.
Anyway, Hyperion's concept is essentially The Canterbury Tales in space, which seems can't-miss in Simmons's hands. I'm still at that point in the book where I don't understand most of the offhanded references to technology, societal structure and back-story, but figuring out what the hell's going on is part of the fun; it's like a puzzle.
Earth appears to be gone, and humans seem to be living on some kind of World Web, which I assume is a chain of civilized planets. All of the characters are headed to a planet called Hyperion, which seems to be kind of a craphole except for something called the Valley of the Time Tombs where the Shrike lives. Not idea what any of it means, but it certainly sounds cool. I take it that the Shrike is some kind of monster that receives sacrifices from its devotees, not unlike Joel Osteen (just kidding). The humans appear to be at war with a group called the Ousters-- not sure if they're aliens or not, and knowing Simmons, he'll probably play that one close to the chest. The whole premise is pretty interesting and the main characters are certainly an unusual bunch, so I'm looking forward to where it's going.
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