Normally I'd have thrown a fit over this instead I placed an order at my local indy for the next three volumes in the series. Because of the intricacy and beauty of the story, I forgive it for violating my own personal pet peeve: it doesn't wrap up the end of the story. I somehow missed hearing of this author and this book in my long life as a science fiction reader. Each of the seven stories is a harrowing history of that person's past and experience with the planet Hyperion, each story filling in detail about the tragic and baffling history of this mysterious planet. generously conceived and stylistically sure-handed. In sheer scope and complexity it matches, and perhaps even surpasses, those of Isaac Asimov and James Blish.' - The Washington Post Book World 'An unfailingly inventive narrative. Their goal, alarmingly, is an ancient complex of caves where they expect to meet their deaths at the hands (figurative, see the cover art) of an all-powerful being that is reputed to be traveling backwards in time. Praise for Dan Simmons and Hyperion 'Dan Simmons has brilliantly conceptualized a future 700 years distant. It follows the classic format of a group of pilgrims each telling a story on the way to their goal. generously conceived and stylistically sure-handed.' - The New York Times Book Review 'Simmons's own genius transforms space opera into a new kind of poetry.' - The Denver Post 'An essential part of any science fiction collection.Strong, robust writing and a complex tale never let up through this book. In sheer scope and complexity it matches, and perhaps even surpasses, those of Isaac Asimov and James Blish.' - The Washington Post Book World 'An unfailingly inventive narrative. Praise for Dan Simmons and Hyperion 'Dan Simmons has brilliantly conceptualized a future 700 years distant. And one may hold the fate of humanity in his hands. Each carries a desperate hope-and a terrible secret. On the eve of Armageddon, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set forth on a final voyage to Hyperion seeking the answers to the unsolved riddles of their lives.

In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all.

And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. On the world called Hyperion, beyond the reach of galactic law, waits a creature called the Shrike. A stunning tour de force filled with transcendent awe and wonder, Hyperion is a masterwork of science fiction that resonates with excitement and invention, the first volume in a remarkable epic by the multiple-award-winning author of The Hollow Man.

The Hyperion Omnibus by Dan Simmons