Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dan Simmons, author of Hyperion, has died

dignitymemorial.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 218 posts

Re: Dan Simmons, author of Hyperion, has died

#81

Post by clarkmoody »

Simmons opened new frontiers of thought for me with his Hyperion Cantos. A house with each room on a different planet. A heartbreaking tale of a daughter aging in reverse. A romance playing out over space and time. A grand piano on the pop-out balcony of a starship. The cruciform parasite. The Shrike.

Branches of humanity torn between decadent stagnation and radical evolution. The artificial intelligence civilization with its own agenda. The All Thing (Internet) as the third branch of government.

So much good stuff, published in 1989 no less.

Rest in Peace to a true legend.

Re: Dan Simmons, author of Hyperion, has died

#82

Post by dtj1123 »

I have to admit that I found the Hyperion Cantos to be a bit of a disappointment. There were some decent bits and pieces scattered throughout, but overall the story never seemed to resolve into something I could find engaging.

Can someone who liked it share why?

Re: Dan Simmons, author of Hyperion, has died

#83

Post by globular-toast »

teeray wrote: post #15

Enjoyed the first Hyperion, but Fall of Hyperion was a bit of a slog for me. If Fall of Hyperion were compressed into the conclusion of Hyperion and other stories left as novellas (in the way James S.A. Corey has done), I think I would have enjoyed the story more.

I did find the transition from Hyperion to Fall a little jarring. It has a completely different narrative structure for a start, but more importantly the scope goes from a single group of people doing a pilgrimage to a huge interstellar conspiracy. I think it works best if you read each book slightly separately rather than as one huge work.

Re: Dan Simmons, author of Hyperion, has died

#84

Post by avazhi »

ceejayoz wrote: post #51
Sebguer wrote: post #40

The type of person the concept 'death of the author' was invented for, because whoo were some of his other books ideological garbage.

9/11 kinda broke his brain, as I recall. (The book Flashback is… ooof. Hyperion includes a major Muslim character and it’s just a wild shift between the two.)

Almost like he updated his view of the world, which isn't a bad thing.

Re: Dan Simmons, author of Hyperion, has died

#85

Post by virgil_disgr4ce »

plasma_beam wrote: post #49

I see everyone talking about Hyperion, so I will play up The Terror as one of my favorites. The TV series did NOT do it justice.

THANK YOU!!! The Terror—the book—absolutely blew me away. I still am in awe of that book. Just everything about it.

And yeah the adaptation was so, so weak. But it faced the same problem many horror movies do, which is that if you're forced to show the Thing™ it loses all its power.

Re: Dan Simmons, author of Hyperion, has died

#86

Post by bee_rider »

perardi wrote: post #37
MikeTheGreat wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw a YouTube video where they said this was more-or-less the original backstory but then they changed it. I think it said that the People In Charge thought the 'living power source' would be easier for the audience to understand? I don't have the link handy, and don't trust everything I read on the Internet, etc, etc. But yeah - this makes so much more sense than breeding, raising, and feeding humans just to harve…

According to Reddit…so, grain of salt…that is an urban legend, related to a Neil Gaiman short story that appeared on the Matrix promo website. https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1amree7/theres_a_wi...

I think we the urban legend really sticks around because the compute explanation just makes much more sense and we all want this beloved movies not to have a sill (albeit inconsequential) plot hole.

Re: Dan Simmons, author of Hyperion, has died

#90

Post by perardi »

bee_rider wrote: post #86
perardi wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to Reddit…so, grain of salt…that is an urban legend, related to a Neil Gaiman short story that appeared on the Matrix promo website. https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1amree7/theres_a_wi...

I think we the urban legend really sticks around because the compute explanation just makes much more sense and we all want this beloved movies not to have a sill (albeit inconsequential) plot hole.

Oh, totally, it’s my head canon as well.
Post reply on HN