I read Hyperion a few years back, and don't remember caring for it very much. Since it's one of those books that "everyone loves," though, I recently gave its sequel a try. I don't plan to give a full review because it's a popular book, not a new release, etc, but suffice to say that I loved about a tenth of the book. The story of the downfall of the Hegemony, the AI war, the UIs, the Ousters, the farcaster web. . .fascinating. One of the best and most realized worlds I've ever read about (though I'm not as well read as a lot of you), and everything related to that stuff was amazing.

So, Mr. Simmons, why all that other crap? I imagine I'm in the minority, but I didn't give a rat's hindquarters about anything happening on Hyperion (the planet). All the stories about the Pilgrims were stupid, (which is too bad, because I liked their background stories in Hyperion-the-book), Keats/Severn was incredibly boring, and nothing involving the time tombs made the least bit of sense. And to top it all off, Simmons spouts unnecessary prose like it's going out of style. Seriously, I don't mind some extraneous description and flowery language (I like both Jordan and Carey, for example) but Simmons takes things to another level entirely. 90% of that silly book was Simmons showing off his descriptive prowess while the folks on Hyperion did inane things like flying magic carpets into rivers, feeding a baby its umpteenth nursing pack, or just generally hanging out in the same spot they were in at the very beginning of the book, making their thoughts known to the reader.

/sigh. I really wanted to like this book, and for it to redeem Simmons for me, but I could not, and it did not. For those who enjoyed the parts of the story that I mentioned not caring for. . .WHY? What possible redeeming value was there in all that confusing mess? Also, what about the next two books? Is there any reason to bother with them? I don't mind Simmons' writing style in general, I just despise his abstract ramblings. When he's on plot and on target, he's great. Are the next two books any more straightforward than what I just read, or are they more of the same?

Thanks in advance for any responses given.