Feb 17th 10
Posted by David in Audiobooks, Books
Tagged:audiobook, book review, Hyperion
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!
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Nov 4th 09
Posted by David in Audiobooks, Books
Tagged:audiobook, book, book review, buick 8, Dan Simmons, fall of hyperion, Hyperion, Victor Bevine
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!
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