Wow. "The Fall of Hyperion" did not disappoint. After finishing "Hyperion" and being completely enamoured by Simmons' unique twist on a framed story ( à la "Canterbury Tales") that allowed for multiple genres within Sci-Fi to come through, I was anxious to see how he followed up what he started. It was interesting to see this time how he moved back and forth between different story lines, light-years apart, and yet he still managed to retain all the unique settings of the first book - the AI, the Tron-esque Technocore, fantasy settings and warfare.

Reading this it became more and more apparent to me that this was "Modern" Science Fiction. I didn't realize it at the time but coming from reading novels from the 50's -70's there was a certain style I was used to that most authors stuck to. There was always an emphasis on environment and conversations. In fact most old Hard Sci-Fi, particularly older Asimov, is just a long series of conversations. The worlds they were describing were designed to be similar to what the writers were experiencing at the time. Arthur C. Clarke put it well in his forward to "The Songs of Distant Earth". He wrote that, while he loved works such as Star Wars and Star Trek and appreciated them as works of fiction, he didn't think of them as Science Fiction. To him they were fantasy. Because all the environments and technology were not rooted in science and for all intents and purposes, could only best be described as "magic". He went on the say, Science Fiction has to be based in something current, something you can cling to. From there, it can be extrapolated by one or two instances of "magic". Just so you as a writer can ask the question at the heart of Sci-Fi, "What if?". Then the writing becomes like writing any other novel. As was Milan Kundera's philosophy, the point of a novel is an exploration of "the enigma of the self".

Modern Sci-Fi tackles this differently. While technology evolves, for us the line between "magic" and reality becomes finer. We, readers of the genre, have become more comfortable with common tropes of Sci-Fi. The fact that time dilation and FTL travel are so lightly explained but such a major part of driving the plot shows this. We became more comfortable with these notions and as such writers can take more liberties in how they choose to suspend our disbelief. I thought about how Orson Scott Card wrote like this in "Ender's Game" and "Speaker for the Dead" and to a certain extent how Isaac Asimov began to write this way in his later "Foundation" novels.

From the start of "Hyperion" Simmons adopted this style of writing. What's most interesting to me is that, almost counter intuitively, it allows for greater emphasis on character development and interaction. I guess it's because the characters aren't confined to a setting that needs to be explained to understand how they live. They are products of/produce their own environments/settings. It made it hard to put down because, like in a dream, I was creating an image and exploring/interacting with it at the same time. My mind was always working. When done right, this is an aspect I appreciate about modern Sci-Fi.

Another aspect that I enjoyed was that Simmons' love for classic literature and poetry was also super apparent throughout the novel. While it was hinted at in the first book, it actually drives the plot this time round. From what stemmed as just allegory in "Hyperion" became full on references and key plot points. The Keats persona's story (now Joseph Severn's) was modelled after the most interesting point in John Keats' life. Right down to his death from tuberculosis and the fact that the mighty AI presented his/its story in poetry.

It made me think of Keats a lot. When I was younger I went to the Spanish Steps in Rome and my mother took me to his home where I saw his deathbed. The images depicted in the book were so vivid to me. I could picture exactly what Simmon's was describing. Which is rare in Sci-Fi. I think it was one time in Sci-Fi where, because I didn't have to think about the setting, I was able to focus 100% on the character..and become pretty invested in him. Just after finishing I happened to be at home and my mother had a book of his collected works in chronological order. Going through it reading about his life you could easily see how much Simmons cared. Which in turn made me care.

Keats' life was unfortunate, but incredibly fascinating. When I think about romantic poets of that era the I think of posh, trouble free, weak, drug addled writers..which Keats was to a certain extent. But there was a lot more to him. He died at the age of 25. Died with a legacy of work that was arguably better than the work that his contemporaries managed to write in their entire lives. To think what he could have achieved.

I read that Simmons was a teacher, and the idea for "Hyperion" was from stories he used to tell his kids as a past time. What a way to pass the time.

Edit. updated age at which Keats died