I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do it, honestly. It's just that it was so glossy and it wasn't set in a science-fiction universe, and I knew that it was going to draw me in quickly. I figured one page wouldn't hurt. Just one page turned into ten, and so on.
I've cheated on Hyperion. And, aptly enough, with a book called The Affair. Lee Child's newest Jack Reacher thriller. And it was good, too. I read it in about three days, casting guilty glances at Hyperion, which lay untouched on the coffee table. Hyperion just isn't doing much for me. It's clever, and I enjoy the intricacy of Simmons's world-building, but there isn't much to hang your hat on. The characters are flat as heck, and there's no central mystery that's very compelling. Sure, I'm mildly curious about the Shrike and the Time Tombs or whatever, but there aren't any stakes since I don't care about any of the characters. Who all seem rather lethargically resigned to their fates, by the way, which doesn't do much to make them seem sympathetic.
The Affair, however, came out of the gate like a missile and, in classic Lee Child tradition, never slowed down. I happily gobbled it down in several long reading sessions. Like The Enemy, it's a prequel to most of the series, dealing with Reacher's last case as an MP. Like all of Child's books, it was a ton of fun, although not in the series' top tier. The plot held up okay (and there was one piece of really good misdirection towards the end), but it was kind of a garden-variety Reacher plot, and there was no massive explosion of insane action at the climax. The Obligatory Love Interest subplot was better than usual, though, and the origin story moments (like Reacher buying his first folding toothbrush) were PURE MOLTEN GOLD. Not total bottled-lightning amazingness like The Hard Way or Persuader, but definitely my favorite of the two prequel novels.
And now I must return to my poor forsaken Hyperion, which I hope gets more interesting fast.
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