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.

Paperback:

Kindle:
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
These articles will always be free - but if you'd like to support my online work, consider buying a virtual coffee or taking out a membership:
Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here

Comments

Luna: Moon Rising (SF) - Ian McDonald ****

I'm not the natural audience for this book. Game of Thrones l eaves me cold - and it's hard not to feel the influence of GoT (and a whole lot of Dune ) underneath a veneer of science fiction and the trappings of a South American drug cartel in the cod-medieval family power battles and chivalric details. There are even dragons (of a sort). I'd be really sad if the future did involve this sort of throwback feudalism. However, remarkably, despite this I found Luna: Moon Rising kept me engaged. The fact is that Ian McDonald can put together a good plot with intricate machinations, which is enough to carry the reader through what can be a bewildering collection of characters. The two page scene-setter saying who did what to whom at the start was useful, but I could have done with family trees for the main family as I was constantly forgetting who was who - especially easy as McDonald endows many families with characters with the same first initial (e.g. Ariel and Al...

Adventures of a Computational Explorer - Stephen Wolfram ***

Stephen Wolfram, the man behind the scientist's mathematical tool of choice, Mathematica, plus a whole host of other software products, including the uncanny Wolfram Alpha knowledge engine, is undoubtedly a genius of the first order. In this book, we get an uncensored excursion into the mind of genius - which is, without doubt, a fascinating prospect. The book consists of a collection of essays and speeches that Wolfram has produced over the last ten to fifteen years, covering an eclectic range of topics. Like all such collections, the result is something that lacks the coherence of a book with a narrative that runs through it, inevitably introducing a degree of repetition and a mix of interesting and not-so-interesting topics - but there's likely to be something to catch the attention anyone who is into computing or mathematics. One of the most interesting pieces is the opening one, where Wolfram describes being a consultant on the SF movie Arrival. He seems to hav...

The AI Paradox - Virginia Dignum ****

This is a really important book in the way that Virginia Dignum highlights various ways we can misunderstand AI and its abilities using a series of paradoxes. However, I need to say up front that I'm giving it four stars for the ideas: unfortunately the writing is not great. It reads more like a government report than anything vaguely readable - it really should have co-authored with a professional writer to make it accessible. Even so, I'm recommending it: like some government reports it's significant enough to make it necessary to wade through the bureaucrat speak. Why paradoxes? Dignum identifies two ways we can think about paradoxes (oddly I wrote about paradoxes recently , but with three definitions): a logical paradox such as 'this statement is false', or a paradoxical truth such as 'less is more' - the second of which seems a better to fit to the use here. We are then presented with eight paradoxes, each of which gives some insights into aspects of t...

Search This Blog