Dan Simmons is the author of Hyperion, which you may or may not know. He was born April 4th in 1948, Peoria Illinois (which is by the Illnois river). He is best known for his writting of the Hyperion series which includes four of the following novels; "Hyperion" "Fall of Hyperion" "Endymion" "Rise of Endymion". Hyperion recieved the Hugo award in 1989 the year that it was published, this novel spread Simmons name out like a wild fire and quickly became a best seller of several genres of Sci-fi, Horror and fantasy. However he does add a haunting touch of horror in his Hyperion series. Before his success in writing novels Simmons recieved a masters degree at Washingto University in Missouri, he began writting short stories in the eighties but did not have much success. His first big step forward in his writting career was when he wrote a short story "The River Styx Runs Up Stream" which won some awards in short story compitions.

Today Dan Simmons contennues to write stories but sometimes teaches at writting workshops at college campuses. Several of his novels are possibly soon to be made into movies (hopefully) which would include the four novels in his Hyperion series. "Many of Dan's books and stories have been optioned for film, and current discussions include plans for such books as THE CROOK FACTORY, DARWIN'S BLADE, the four Hyperion novels, his story "The River Styx Runs Upstream," and his original screenplay for "THE END OF GRAVITY." He also has written two teleplays which were produced for the low-budget syndicated TV series "MONSTERS" and a screenplay adaptation of "CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT" in collaboration with European film director, Robert Sigl, with whom he hopes to adapt his 2002 novel, A WINTER HAUNTING." (Dan)

 The novel Is A must read, I could leave it at that but for those of you who have never heard of Hyperion or of Dan Simmons I shall try my best to convince you that reading this novel is more than just worth your time. The novel uses a creative style that I cannot say has not been done before because that would be presumptous of me but I have not read any that is like Hyperion. Hyperion is a science fiction/ horror that is filled with futuristic super tech that the author makes you believe is possible and is quite smooth to understand. The charecters in Hyperion are not like you would expect them to be for a future based novel, they have instramental attachments to their bodies and minds but their personalities and the way that they interact reminds me of the classical and ancient periods in history. There are many references to greek mythology of which are sometimes more obvious than not. You learn about the universe of the story and the people themselfs at the same time thanks to the style of story telling Dan Simmons uses that wraps nearly everything up by the end of the book. The story does not end at the end of the novel of course! Hyperion does have a sequel, for lack of better words, which is Fall of Hyperion which does answer all of you final questions. However I found that Fall of Hyperion was not as neat and well stitched as Hyperion, in the first novel everything fit together and was antirely relevent. In the second novel you find quite a few chapters or parts of chapters which is not really relevent as far as the plot goes.

The Plot

The plot of the story is that seven hundred years after the 21st century mankind has colonated several hundred planets thanks to advance traveling technowlegy. Mankind had moved to the stars after the destruction of earth and ever since they had conntenued to spread out throughout the universe. Keeping connected with the rest of the human race spread out amoung the colonies proves to hard for the human race to do for themselfs, fortunately they are aided through this challenge thanks to their "Datasphere" which is opperated by a race of artificially Intelegent programs that have gained an independance from humanity. Not every one in the human race chose to be apart of the government of the colonies which is called the hedgemony, some chose to travel farther out away beyond any possibly colinatable planets. They are called the ousters, they had not been heard of for several centuries after their self exile until one day when they attack a colony world, Officially the hedgemony does not declaire war. However it eventually comes to be that years after that they begin to advance their ouster space fleets toward a small back woods colony that most no one had ever heard of called Hyperion. In response several groups with thier own interests agrees to evacuate the planet while also sending in seven people to make the planet's Pilgrimage of the shrike. This pilgrimage is a coordinated event in which seven pilgrims are approved by the Church of the Shrike to visit the time tombs. Two things of importance here; The Time Tombs and the Shrike. First of all is the Shrike, on the planet colony of Hyperion there exists a church that worships a creature found on a remote part of one of three contenants called the Time Tombs. Both the Shrike and the Time Tombs are believed to have the ability to move backwards in time. The Time Tombs themselfs were built in the future and move back wards through time, as the Ousters approach the colony of Hyperion the Time Tombs are getting closer to a time inwhich the other wise empty tombs, were filled. Filled with what no one knows, The seven chosen pilgrims all are unaware of why it is that they were chosen to complete this task on the eve of Armageddon. As the Ousters threat to conqure the Hedgemony the pilgrims also make way to the Time Tombs, telling their stories along the way, as they tell their stories it becomes more and more clear to as exactly why it is that they are on the pilgramige.

The Pilgrims and their stories are called such:

The Priest's Tale: "The Man who Cried God"

The Soldier's Tale: "The War Lovers"

The Poet's Tale: "Hyperion Cantos"

The Scholar's Tale: "The River Lethe's Taste is Bitter"

The Detective's Tale: "The Long Good-bye"

The Consul's Tale: "Remembering Siri"

You should read this book if you have not, this book is a work of science fiction, thriller and horror perfectly wrapped up into one novel. Its possible that you will not be able to put this book down once you start to read it.

CITATION

Dan Simmons - Author's Official Web Site. 18 Aug. 2009. 18 Aug. 2009 http://www.dansimmons.com/about/bio.htm