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Hyperion (SF) - Dan Simmons ***

There are some big gaps in my SF reading, particularly between mid 80s and the early 2000s - this novel from 1990 is hailed as a masterpiece, but I'm afraid it largely left me cold. I can see why it was well received - it's very clever, but for me it tries much too hard to show just how clever it is.

Our central characters are pilgrims, being sent to the planet Hyperion where a monstrous and supernaturally powerful creature (or possibly lots of them) called the Shrike is killing many of the population, who are also due to be attacked by reiver-like characters called Ousters, on the way to devastate the planet. Most pilgrims in a group are killed but one is granted their desire. 

Simmons is great at piling on the SF tropes, with lots of exotic-sounding names and genuinely weird flora and fauna (notably tesla trees, that blast everything around them with lightning). And there's no doubt he's a good writer. But one of the particularly clever-clever aspects (alongside the literary references to everything from Beowulf to Huckleberry Finn, so the reader can chuckle smugly) I found very irritating: in a form-pastiche of Canterbury Tales, each of the pilgrims has a back story they relate to the others in lengthy sections of the book. Bits of these were genuinely interesting, notably an interaction with a strange religious-like group, but a lot of the material was tedious and makes the storytelling of the main arc very fragmented. I'm afraid I had to skip parts of most of the 'tales'.

One of the cover quotes likens Simmons to Asimov and Blish - both authors I widely read when younger. I was particularly interested in the Blish reference, as he has sadly been largely forgotten. I can see why this reference is made, as one of Blish's best-known books, A Case of Conscience features a jesuit experiencing an alien race that challenges his faith, much as was the case in the pilgrim's tale mentioned above. Unfortunately, though, it's only the power of the idea that is Blish-like - the writing here is much more heavy going. 

I'm not unhappy to have read this book - Simmons definitely has some interesting ideas (if some dodgy science  - anti-entropic force fields making time run backwards? Really?) - but I don't think I'll be bothering with the rest of his output if this is the best of it.

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