In fact, when I first started writing Hyperion, I knew I'd have to deal with Keats' long poems, "Hyperion" and "The Fall of Hyperion." I really appreciated his theme of life evolving from one race of gods to another, with one power having to give way to another, as Hyperion must. But it's not just a game of finding literary references. Is it important to you that your readers make those connections? Would you like your books to send readers back to those sources?ĭS: I think the readers who know that literature can enjoy pursuing those references, and that can deepen their Hyperion experience - it certainly did for me. It's not hard to recognize the models for many of the things you write: The Canterbury Tales, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and of course, John Keats' poetry. Later, I incorporated that experience into my story, "The Death of The Centaur" (from Prayers to Broken Stones, Bantam paperback).īP: There is a deep strain of great literature running through the four novels. I first created the Hyperion universe for my students during storytelling hour, little by little, day after day. What was its genesis?ĭan Simmons: It started 25 years ago, when I was teaching elementary school in a small town in Missouri. ("If only Herbert and Asimov were still with us," says Simmons, wistfully.) But for now, with the culmination of the preceding novels Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion and Endymion (all Bantam paperbacks) in the current volume, Dan Simmons takes time out to introduce the entire series to new readers and to share some thoughts with his avid fans about The Rise of Endymion.īookPage: The universe of your four-novel epic is so vast and so fully realized. Simmons will return to his Hyperion universe once more in an upcoming novella, part of a set of stories by a select group of science fiction authors who have been asked to revisit their now-classic worlds just one more time. A miracle of invention and economy, played out on a dozen and more meticulously created worlds, the tetralogy is surely one of science fiction's grandest visions of humanity's shared fate with its technology - not least because of the unforgettable character of Aenea, the young girl (and later, woman) in whose hands lies the future of humankind. Spanning four novels and many centuries of real and imagined galactic history, the Hyperion saga is an astonishing achievement, overbrimming with adventure, lyricism and insight. In The Rise of Endymion, Dan Simmons brings the epic tale of his Hyperion universe to its powerful conclusion.
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