#the fall of Hyperion

[anathemafiction]

"... she had been prepared to open the front door of the house to the wolf while most of the family hid upstairs, safe behind locked doors. Only now the day had arrived, and wolves were coming in through every door and window. She almost smiled at the justice of it, at her ultimate foolishness in thinking that she could uncage chaos and then control it."

— Dan Simmons, The Fall of Hyperion

[justthekai]

The books I've read 2024 edition,, total of 18 books, 7,292 pages and 2,003,250 words!!

[fantasyarcanum]

The Shrike emerged. The thing had to bend to allow its three-meter bulk and steel blades to clear the top of the doorway. It stepped onto the top porch of the Sphinx and moved forward, part creature, part sculpture, walking with the terrible deliberation of nightmare.

— Dan Simmons, The Fall of Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos).

[that-dinopunk-guy]

I bought more paperbacks.

(Also I got the Peter F. Hamilton books entirely based on enjoying Pandora's Star like twenty years ago and completely managed to not realize there's another book between The Dreaming Void and The Evolutionary Void.)

[billlaotian]

[infinitaregna]

Thrift store finds

[thisworldisablackhole]

The Fall of Hyperion, by Dan Simmons - 5/5

Wow wow wow. Finally finished up The Fall of Hyperion. These books have been taking me a while to get through, but now that I'm done, I almost wish I had read it slower. I straight up didn't want it to end.

I'm really glad that the first book in this series got all of the world building and character introductions out of the way, because this one was just cooking the entire way through. I was stunned by the amount of insane shit happening before even hitting the half way point of the book. There are just so many different elements at play here; you have the pilgrims on the ground of Hyperion, dealing directly with the trials and terror of the Shrike and his Tree of Thorns, the intergalactic war being waged between the Hegemony and the Ousters, the Keats persona acting as an information relay and flying through the datasphere to communicate directly with AI gods, the Templars and the Shrike Cult with their prophecies, and then the three factions of the TechnoCore being shady and pulling strings in the background the whole time. It's insane how Simmons' managed to hold all of these elements and vessels of storytelling together in a cohesive manner that never felt overwhelming or too confusing. The whole concept of timelines intersecting as things pertaining to the tombs ether traveled forward or backward in time kind of went over my head a bit, but it wasn't too much of an issue.

I'll admit the ending was a little corny/sloppy, for lack of a better word. It seemed like Simmons' was grasping at straws a bit in the final chapter just to tie up loose ends, and he also went a little off the rails with the philosophy of "God" and the "Power of Love" and the "Human Spirit" or whatever. I feel like he was trying to add deeper meaning where it wasn't really necessary, and it came across as a tad pretentious. There are two themes that really stuck out to me while reading this, and neither of them had anything to do with God or love or the human spirit. The first is sacrifice. Without giving away too many spoilers, almost every Pilgrim had their wish granted by the Shrike, albeit in a roundabout way with a caveat that caused them to sacrifice something great, even if that was their own life. The second was the theme of opening our arms to convenience and becoming it's captive. I think Simmons' take on how an over reliance on technology can have terrible consequences for the fate of humanity was actually quite nuanced and ahead of it's time considering this book was published in 1990. There are some very valuable lessons to be gained from this story.

Overall this book really went so far above and beyond the scope of the first, and I'm so glad I decided to take the plunge and see it through. It will probably be hard for any other sci fi novel to beat. I've heard that Endymion and The Rise of Endymion are not as good, but I just have to read them now. There were still so many questions left over at the end. Are there still more Shrikes lying in wait? What is really behind the door in the Shrike Palace?? I must know.

[akiraofthefour]

"If we can't go back and we can't go forward, we'll just wait here. for a moment. Perhaps someone will come along."

Dan Simmons, The Fall of Hyperion

[trashboatdax]

Raining hard. Good book. Video game music playing. Life is good. 📖❤️

[hkthatgffan]

I can't believe this is a REAL official Disney illustration for Gravity Falls! 😂

Shared on Instagram by Disney Book. Artist is unknown but I'd bet it's Joe Pitt as it looks like his style.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Disney Publishing Worldwide (@disneybooks)

[disneytva]

"Gravity Falls: The Book Of Bill" Panel Brings Insight In The Nightmares.

Gravity Falls fans went trought behind the secrets of The Book Of Bill who took the internet by storm, the panel also had the book artists Ian Worrel ("Gravity Falls", "Amphibia") and Joe Pitt ("Gravity Falls", Disney TVA pilot "Park Poppers")

Photos by Karla Garcia and Disney Publishing Worldwide

-Ian Worrel, Joe Pitt and Alex Hirsch all met in an Animation summer camp in High School

-Adrian Molina (Pixar Animation Studios "Coco", "Elio") was also one of the fellow classmates of Alex, Ian and Pitt at CalArts

-One of the reasons to make The Book of Bill was to work again with the former Gravity Falls crew

-Bill started as an inside joke in the Gravity Falls production as Alex wanted him to be a foil and to make Dipper crazy with his conspiracy theories and the crew decided to put it on every episode and the opening credits sequence

-Bill was almost a meme before it was a character, the zodiac was made up at last minute

-The Book Of Bill has been a New York Times Seller for 3 months in a row

-One fan who owns a book store told Alex, Pitt and Worrel that The Book Of Bill sold out on his book store

-Alex Hirsch reaction to the reception of The Book Of Bill has been terryfing and surprising as he thanks the fans for still loving Gravity Falls after all these years

-Ian Worrel's favorite pages where the "Dream Statues" page and the Pines Family group photo who didn't knew it was going to be burned at the end

-Alex Hirsch favorite joke was Bill playing the Xylophone apologizing for Weirdmaggedon

-Ian Worrel's process for the statue page was made all in VR

-Joe Pitt's favorite page was the bad end alternate universes of Dipper and Mabel

-Alex being asked about an Alternate Reality we’re Dipper was trapped in a Bubble rather than Mabel with the awnser being Dipper's Bubble being him and Ford having an X-Files show and Mabel saving him by the same way he saved her.

-Alex being asked if Bill loves The Duchess Approves with Alex awnsering that he loves it and likes fan-art on his alt-account

-Alex being asked what were Bill and the Axolotls’ prior relationship? Alex awnsers that he dosn't want to give lore for free

-Alex being asked for some more information on Bill’s Home Dimension? Alex had two pages with many information on Bill's Dimension but he kept it secret and decided to release them as of yet.

-Alex being asked before creating the Book of Bill did he ever consider creating something on his own or continuing Gravity Falls? Alex is very open to make more Gravity Falls books after the explosive sucess of The Book Of Bill that surprised Disney Press, Ian Worrel, Alex and Joe Pitt.

-Alex being asked about the process of editing and adding all the Ciphers and Codes into Gravity Falls? The codes and ciphers where added at last minute on the episodes for Alex the codes where so much fun.

-Alex being asked if he could tell us any additional canon about the secrets of Dipper and Mabel and anything beyond the Book of Bill? As of yet Alex cannot speak on Mabel and Dipper's backstory

-Alex being asked to elaborate more on Stan’s Nightmare? Alex talks about a story of Bill entering Stan’s mind to try and strike a deal with him with Stan not being fooled by Bill's tricks.

-Alex being asked since originally The Book of Bill was meant to be more of a “Bible of Bill” did he at one point want to lean more into the idea of “Ciphertology”? There's more and maybe one day he will reveal it.

-Alex on Billford relationship on The Book Of Bill: If anyone in your life is like Bill Cipher RUN AWAY FROM IT!

[vizuart]

Cy Twombly - The Fall of Hyperion or Second Voyage to Italy (1962)

[pluurankeli]

Cover art for Finnish edition of Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons, made by Ilkka Juopperi

[fantasyarcanum]

It was a dramatization of total chaos, a functional definition of confusion, an unchoreographed dance of sad violence. It was war.

— Dan Simmons, The Fall of Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos).

[the-cpu-system]

I heart unconventional angst art

[mindduckbookspodcast]

It was an honor to have a Hyperion expert on the podcast with us for this one. Sam and Danielle from

@bookretorts joined us to talk The Fall of Hyperion. Check out ep. 52, it was a blast!