Read Hyperion while backpacking in 2018. The action was pretty good but god damn did it treat woman as more disposable and subject to men's ambitions than a roll of toilet paper. Even Vonnegut was better and that's not praise for him either.

This was one of the first hard sci-fi books I ever tried to read. I think I was 15 at the time. I didn't make it on the first attempt, and had to put it down for a couple of years...but holy shit, was it ever good, once I picked it back up again. By far, still one of my favorite series of all time.

Dude was a right wing racist homophobic lunatic to the very end. "A real one" as in piece of shit

Well I didn't like the man or his work, so, meh.

That really sucks. Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion are some of my favorite sci-fi books.

Damn. That was one twisted man. He’ll be missed.

I loved especially Hyperion, but I said my final goodbye the day I opened Flashback… what an awful piece of rear end production that was.

The Hyperion series was awesome, original, well-thought out, spiced with a background of Enoch the Prophet, flying space trees … and I’ll cherish it forever.

Flashback not so much, what a hateful piece of right wing trash that was. And I’m not necessarily against a solid story that makes me think or even just learn to appreciate other’s viewpoints, but this was more like something Ben Shapiro would write. “leftie bad hur durr”, you probably know what I mean. On top of that, it was shattered, incoherent and relied insanely on Deus Ex Machina constructions throughout.

I never understood and I never ever will I. Sad.

Without Dan Simmons and Hyperion, sci-fi literature would've been still been regarded as disposable paperbacks. Simmons did away with the trappings of early pulp sci-fi that held a shadow over the genre for many decades. Instead, Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion took the shape of the Western Canon and could be discussed as serious literature. Without spoiling too much, I remember reading the story of Sol Weintraub and his daughter and almost being brought to tears; something that no other book, regardless of genre, has done.

Rest well, scribe. Asimov, Heinland, Clarke, Herbert and, of course, Keats. You'll be in good company

Well, I know what's going in my reading pile next then

Love that the author of the article jabbed Rothfus and Martin directly.

Hyperion is my favorite sci-fi next to Dune. It's inspired a lot of the features in my D&D homebrew world, including the Shrike, the river, a few deities, and other textures and layers to my realm.

Farewell, friend. You were one of the good ones. I wish you hadn't gone the wrong direction.

Most of the comments on social media about his passing are about his horrible politics rather than his writing. People are calling him a racist, a misogynist, and even a fascist.

Song of Kali confused me. It felt so hateful and so deeply racist that I assumed I missed something about it, like maybe it was satirical. Or maybe it was just about a character who hated India, which doesn't necessarily mean the author shares those views.

I loved Hyperion even with its misogynistic parts, I just sort of figured "boomers are gonna boom" and I was able to overlook it. Summer of Night was phenomenal, even if it did have the same "only one female character and she's a lot" problem that all his novels seem to have.

I don't see myself reading his other novels after reading about how racist he was. Quite a shame.

https://bookshop.org/beta-search?keywords=dan+simmons

He did a lot of other books.

"Drood" is a wild tale told by an opium addict, pretty much the ultimate unreliable narrator.

"The Crook Factory" has Ernest Hemingway chasing Nazi submarines lurking near Cuba.

Nooooooooo! That is horrible news 😢 Hyperion meant a lot to me when I started reading SF. He will be greatly missed

I finished the Fall of Hyperion last week. He was a fantastic writer. May he be remembered and honored the same way as Colonel Kassad

Noooooooo he was such a good author :(

This dude really did write multiple genres pretty well, even mashed together.

Absolutely fantastic world-building in Hyperion Cantos.

I also enjoyed Terror, the world descriptions are just situationally (like in a 3D space) pleasing for me, adjusted historical & mythological facts work really well, and even the story was rounded into a satisfactory end.

Rip.

The Terror is my favorite book! I picked it up based on the cover art and texture and it turned out to be a fantastic horror novel. I love how he integrated it with actual historical events. RIP.

I always hoped to see a Hyperion movie, now without his guidance it'll come out and suck.

Man I stroke once or twice a day. Didn't know it could be fatal!

:(

What a crazy coincidence that my newly formed book club chose this as our inaugural choice and then, literally just yesterday, finished Fall of Hyperion.

I appreciate you Dan Simmons. I’m sorry people no longer get to experience your imagination.

Well shit. I wish the best for his loved ones. 77 is too young for sure.

Hyperion is awesome... read all 4 and "told" them to my kids who loved them so much they read them as well (my "kids" are big, but I don't know what else to call them hahaha)

Rest in peace Simmons... may you Freecast in joy for all eternity

Barf. On my 2nd reading of Hyperion books as an adult this time and I really didn't pick up on the pedophehelia and grooming shit with Raul & Aenea the first time. Super gross and ruines it for me

WHAT THE FUCK NOOO!

Damn. Hyperion is like peak sci-fi. In my mind, I think of it as the LOTR of sci-fi, so this is like Tolkien dying, to put it into perspective. Some damn good books.

RIP Dan, and thanks for the stories.

I enjoyed "The Terror" miniseries, I am getting the book immediately!

Oh shit. He's my favorite author. Tragic. He'll be missed.

Hyperion Cantos was a great highlinght for me and my kids… we still have a lot of inside jokes based off those books

Thank you Dan, may you freecast peacefuly into the next life

Damn, he got to see the America he wanted.

I own Hyperion but I haven't read it yet, it's one of those ones that was just perpetually in the backlog. I might have to bump it to the front now.

I just read some of his horror last year! Summer of Night was ok but I didn’t like it enough to read the sequel.

Absolute loss, I loved his emotional and unhinged stories! If you like the Hyperion books but wanted even more chaos, you should check out Illuim, a retelling of the Greek classic but with nanobots, time travel, the actual Mons Olympus on Mars only visible with time portals, and dinosaurs.

Oh i've actually read his books

What a loss. Tremendous writer.

I first read him while working towards an English degree. The obvious Canterbury Tales plot was fun. I recently reread the series for the first time in 35 years or so and they still hold up. His books definitely stand out in the genre. A great author, and from what I've read about him personally, a good man.