Hyperion by Dan Simmons
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I have been working through audiobooks on my trek to and from work and after the success of Drood as an auidobook, I decided to stay with Dan Simmons and revisit Hyperion. My initial reasoning was that I wanted to read The Fall of Hyperion but it had been some time since I read the first and wanted to refresh myself.
The book is still good. The characters are still compelling. The performances were fantastic!
What is interesting about this audiobook is that it is performed by 6 performers, once for each of the pilgrims. ALL of them do a great job. What is interesting is that the producers of the audiobook do not just have the narrators change for the tales of each pilgrim but even have each piece of dialogue that is stated between tales spoken by the actors. In this way it is much more like a staged production verses an audiobook. The voices chosen are great and well suited to the parts. All of them seem to match the tons I had in my head while reading it.
Another interesting fact is that the audiobook was produced nearly 20 years after the original book. Hyperion was originally released in 1989 and the audiobook is from 2008. Very cool that the book has such legs. I may also be a result of Simmons’s newer releases and attempting to piggy back on them. Either way, it is a very well done version.
Since I have done so many audiobooks, this reminds me of From a Buick 8 audiobook. The construct of that book is similar with multiple narrators and tales and the use of a different reader for each part. The difference is that the in between part of From a Buick 8 are all read by the same narrator.
I am almost done The Fall of Hyperion as an audiobook. It is read by Victor Bevine who is the primary reader (the narrator) of Hyperion. He also does the Priest’s tale (both of them). He also has read the Endymion cycle as well – which I may check out!
Tagged: audiobook, book, book review, buick 8, Dan Simmons, fall of hyperion, Hyperion, Victor Bevine