The Rise of Endymion by Dan Simmons
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The Rise of Endymion
The fourth and final book of the Hyperion Cantos was more epic and more information latent than any of the first three books. It does bring many story lines to a close and the scale and scope of the story is huge.
The four books of this series are a thick, rich world and I find the beginning and ending volumes the most satisfying. I still think Hyperion stands head and shoulders above the others, but this is a very satisfying read. The story of Aenea and Raul comes to a full conclusion and begins to bring in some fantasy elements that enrich this literary science fiction tale.
The scope of this volume is huge but I think Dan Simmons does a better job in this work dealing with it than he did in Fall of Hyperion. I felt Fall of Hyperion became quality space opera but lost the uniqueness of Hyperion. I fell the opposite way about Rise of Endymion. The focus is really kept much tighter even though grand things are happening all around. I found that much more satisfying. Basically the characters caused the plot, the plot did not happen to the characters. I really feel like the plot is what overwhelmed books 2 and 3, but in books 1 and 4 the characters were the highlight. Their story was the plot.
Dan Simmons
There are a few times when there are massive “information dumps” that are done as dialogs that go on and on. Is the information all necessary or is it author-with-awesome-research powers showing off? Not sure I can answer that as thoroughly as I want. But I wish there were a few of these that were better integrated.
The performance by Victor Bevine was excellent – again. Really a treat to get the same actor to do the recording for all 4 volumes. I know they had to be good – I listened to all 4 of them in a row!
