The Fall of Hyperion
Review
The Fall of Hyperion, by , is the second book in the Hyperion Cantos, but really it’s the second half of Hyperion. It brings the seven pilgrims’ story to an end and depicts the war between the TechnoCore, the Ousters, and the Hegemony.
I loved The Fall of Hyperion when I first read it, even more so than Hyperion, because it tells a much simpler story. It has space battles, the Soldier fighting the Shrike, and answers to every mystery. It doesn’t require the kind of close reading that the first one does to really enjoy it.
On this second read-through, I recognized Hyperion for the epic masterpiece it is, on the same level as ’s The Book of the New Sun, ’s Dune, or ’s The Lord of the Rings. But my opinion of The Fall of Hyperion didn’t change. It’s still great, but it didn’t reveal the same level of hidden depth.
Themes
The Fall of Hyperion follows the themes and structure of its namesake, ’s The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream. Just as the narrator of the poem falls asleep and dreams of the aftermath of the Titanomachy, the cybrid Joseph Severn dreams of the fall of the Hegemony from a distance.
The character Moneta takes her role directly from the poem. In ’s poem, she is the living archive of the war and the guardian of the altar. In ’s book, she is the survivor of a war in the far future who brings the memory of it back in time. In the poem, she points out the difference between a dreamer and a poet: the dreamer observes the world but does not act, while the poet uses empathy to provide meaning and heal the world.
The central thesis of The Fall of Hyperion, that suffering is necessary for enlightenment, comes directly from ’s poem:
“None can usurp this height,” returned that shade,
“But those to whom the miseries of the world
Are misery, and will not let them rest.
All else who find a heaven in the world,
Where they may thoughtless sleep away their days,
If by a chance into this fane they come,
Rot on the pavement where thou rottedst half.”
applies this idea to civilization itself. The Hegemony is stagnant because the TechnoCore has made life too easy. This is juxtaposed against the Ousters, who rejected the TechnoCore’s gifts and have flourished as the true heirs of humanity.
This requirement for suffering determines the outcome of the war in heaven as well. Through Father Paul Duré, casts the war as a race to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s Omega Point—the final evolution of an evolving god. The machines try to reach this point by creating a god that is all intellect. But because it cannot suffer, it is destined to lose to the human god, which unites intellect with empathy via the Void Which Binds. Severn transitions from dreamer to poet only when he suffers through the same death as , allowing him to finally act by joining the empathy aspect of the triune human god.
Ultimately, the book follows ’s theme of “dying into life.” The narrator in The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream feels his death and rebirth as he climbs to the altar; similarly, the novel’s narrator, Joseph Severn, must physically die to be reborn within the Void. Apollo in ’s Hyperion is granted godhood through “knowledge enormous”, taking in the agonies and triumphs of the universe, just as the human god is born from uniting intellect and empathy. We see this cycle everywhere: with Father Duré and Father Hoyt dying and being reborn through the cruciform parasite, and finally with CEO Meina Gladstone’s choice to destroy the Hegemony.
Gladstone’s choice resolves the theme of Abrahamic sacrifice introduced in the first book. In The Fall of Hyperion, Sol Weintraub realizes that Abraham’s test was not really a test of Abraham, but a test of God, and that blind obedience is immoral. By reclaiming his own will, he resolves the dilemma. Weintraub sacrifices Rachel only when she asks for it. Gladstone arrives at the same solution: she sacrifices the Hegemony not because it is demanded, but because she chooses to take the sin upon herself, freeing humanity and allowing them to die into life.
Story
Hyperion’s structure is so compelling, with each pilgrim’s story as a pastiche of a different genre. When you layer in the themes and references to ’s work, it becomes a masterpiece. The Fall of Hyperion feels like a pale imitation. It’s still great, but not transcendental.
It also suffers in the way ’s The Urth of the New Sun does: it explains every mystery. The cruciform parasites were intended to do this, the Tree of Thorns was created to do that, etc., etc. It leaves the impression that the world is a little too neat, too planned out.
That said, the plotting and pacing are on point. There are two twists that both hit hard. The first is when the other Ouster swarms attack the Web, indicating they must have been launched hundreds of years ago. The second comes when the swarms are revealed to be TechnoCore false-flag operations, and the Ousters are revealed to be humanity’s true descendants rather than barbarians.
The Fall of Hyperion reminded me of a few other works in its darker themes. The Shrike’s Tree of Pain being imaginary, with torture fed into the victims’ heads via a shunt, is the same idea as in ’s Surface Detail, where civilizations use simulated hells to punish sinners. The planet-wide inferno on God’s Grove was like the tsunamis of flame in The Player of Games. Gladstone sacrificing billions to save humanity reminds me of the choice Ozymandias makes in and ’s Watchmen, although Ozymandias builds a lie whereas Gladstone exposes the truth. The struggles of the Catholic Church during civilizations collapse is like ’s A Canticle for Leibowitz. Both this book and and ’s This Is How You Lose the Time War deal with a war being fought over possible futures.
Some of the details were similar to other books as well. The Core references ’s Three Laws of Robotics from I, Robot. The navy’s use of a star system in the farcaster network as a DMZ is an idea later used by in Not Till We Are Lost, and is similar to how Basilisk is used in ’s On Basilisk Station. Finally, the cruciform glowing on the labyrinth walls reminded me of the glowing Harmonium aliens in the caves of Mercury in ’s The Sirens of Titan.
The last time I read this book, I stopped here and didn’t finish the rest of the the Hyperion Cantos. This time I intend to continue on through Endymion and The Rise of Endymion, even though I hear each one is worse than the last. I’m hoping I’ve heard incorrectly!