The Fall of Hyperion

The Fall of Hyperion
Dan Simmons
Hyperion Cantos #2

The Fall of Hyperion #2

Our new main POV is Joseph Severn, an AI cybrid who is the recreation of the previous cybrid incarnation of John Keats (Brawne Lamia’s lover from book 1). He is summoned by Hegemony CEO Meina Gladstone to a war council to provide “an artists view”. In reality Gladstone keeps him around because he has a strange connection to Lamia and the other pilgrims due to the old Keat’s persona having an implant in Lamia’s head. When he dreams he gets visions and glimpses into what is happening on Hyperion.

The pilgrims on Hyperion (Brawne Lamia, Sol Weintraub + Rachel, the Consul, Martin Silenus, Father Hoyt, and Colonel Kassad) have had no luck finding the Shrike. They have been wandering around the time tombs for several days without anything happening except them running out of food and drink. Hoyt disappears during the night, and Lamia and Kassad go looking for him in the tombs. Lamia finds him in immense pain, seeming to be bleeding a lot, then she sees something she thinks is the Shrike. Lamia unloads her pistol clip into it, but when Kassad shows up right after nothing is there. They take the dying Hoyt back to camp, and try to call the Consul’s ship to save him and maybe baby Rachel (Who is like 2 days from anti-birth due to the backwards aging Merlin Sickness). They discover CEO Gladstone put the ship in lockdown since she is dependent on the pilgrims success. Hoyt dies and they are not sure how his double cruciform (His and Father Paul Dure’s) will work. Kassad disappears.

Gladstone is trying to prepare the Hegemony for attack from the Ousters, and it seems like some of the generals are fairly incompetent. As the story goes on we see more and more that Gladstone wants a war of some sort, in order to confuse the AI prediction models. Brawne Lamia’s father and Gladstone worked together in the past to try to get humans and the hegemony out from under the AI/Technocore thumb. Hyperion seems to be the only way since no one can predict what happens there due to time not working. Joseph Severns is against most of the actions and decisions made by the Hegemony council and goes to get drunk. He ends up sleeping with a rich woman, who then kidnaps him and puts truth telling ring thing on him. Her and some compatriots interrogate him about Gladstone and the council’s decisions, but since he is being tracked by the Hegemony security (in the form of Gladstones aide Leigh Hunt), show up and save him.

Severn and Hunt meet many people, including Theo Lane on Hyperion. Severn also meets with Rachel’s ex-boyfriend, Dr. Melio Arundez, who asks Severn to convince Lane to lets him return to the tombs for research. Many people are afraid of an Ouster invasion. Severn goes to a rich famous person dinner, which includes Councilor Albedo, a simulated person representing the Technocore. Albedo does manipulating stuff.

We see Kassad’s POV. He got shot at and went to confront his attacker and found Moneta, his lover from the first book. They fight then make love and he learns she is travelling back in time with the Shrike. She also says she can give him the opportunity to fight the Shrike, which is what he wants. She lets him jump around through time and he sees a soon to happen Ouster full invasion of Hyperion.

Gladstone goes on a trip to visit the homeworlds of all the pilgrims on Hyperion. When she returns to the senate she learns that the Ousters are fulling invading, and are way more prepared, closer, and numerous than anyone thought. They most likely will trounce the Hegemony in the coming war. She asks the AI for help and they say they are preparing a “death bomb” that will kills everyone. Normal people everywhere are unhappy and mobs and riots begin breaking out. Gladstone keeps asking Severn for any updates he has on progress on Hyperion.

Lamia and Silenus leave to get extra supplies for the group. Shortly after they leave Father Hoyt resurrects as Father Paul Dure. Dure gets along well with the Consul and Sol, but is very weak. Soon they find Het Masteen, the templar, staggering into the valley. They learn from him he was supposed to make the Shrike’s famed Tree of Thorns/Pain into a ship and fly it but he refused. He dies shortly after. Meanwhile, Martin Silenus splits off from Lamia to visit the ruins of the City of Poets, where he once lived. While there he almost finished his Cantos, but then the Shrike shows up and puts him on the Tree of Thorns. Lamia retrieves the supplies but when returning to the group gets knocked out by the Shrike. The Consul and Sol find her with a tube sticking out of her head leading into the tombs. They try to care for her as best they can. The Consul leaves on a flying carpet to go retrieve his ship and try to save the others.

The time tombs begin to open. Severn is wandering the rioting worlds when he is chased by a mob and ends up in a museum, talking to a John Keats scholar. He dreams more of Hyperion. He sees Brawne and the AI version of her lover Johnny enter the datasphere. They meet an old AI, Ummon. Ummon is a Stable, an AI who wants to coexist with man. Ummon explains how in one version of the future both the AI and humans make an Ultimate Intelligence, and those two have been battling for a long time. Eventually, part of the human UI, Empathy, broke off and retreated backwards in time. Ummon then crushes Johnny and forces Brawne out of the datasphere.

Joseph Severn leaves the museum and meets with Father Dure, who somehow wandered off the planet and time does not make sense. They discuss what happened and the other pilgrims, but when Severn tries to leave with Hunt, the farcaster does not work and they end up on a recreation of old Earth. The Technocore basically kidnapped them to prevent them warning Gladstone about the AI. Hunt freaks out and Severn starts dying from consumption, just like the real life John Keats.

The Consul crashed his flying carpet but is saved by Theo Lane, who helps bring him back to the capital. They run into Dr. Melio, who helps them reach the Consuls ship. Gladstone has asked the Consul to meet with the Ousters and negotiate. She and several others have realized it is not actually the Ousters attacking most places, it is the Technocore in disguise. The only planet the Ousters care about is Hyperion because of the time stuff and Shrike. Meanwhile, Brawne wakes up without the cable in her head and is totally fine. Sol gives Rachel to the Shrike right before she would have died and waits outside the tombs. Lamia goes to find the others, and sees Silenus and many others prisoners in a sort of lab setup.

Kassad goes into the future with Moneta and fights a bunch of Shrikes, he kills them but dies in the process. Moneta takes his body back in time to a tomb. Lamia barely frees Silenus from being connected to the Tree of Thorns, and then somehow flies up and breaks the Shrike into glass. She carries Silenus down into the valley and sees Moneta at Kassad’s tomb. The Consul meanwhile has finished negotiating with the Ousters, they are all on the same side now. He lands his ship with himself, Theo, and Dr. Melio in the valley at the same time. Father Dure met with the leaders of the Shrike Church and the Templars. The AI broke their word to both of them and he barely makes it back out a farcaster before a bomb kills him but is injured.

Joseph Severn dies, and Hunt is very sad. But this allows Severn (really Keats) to enter the datasphere in a new way. He learns he is the one who will prepare the path for the human UI component Empathy to enter the world. He goes to a lot of the pilgrims in dreams and speaks to them. Brawne’s child (She is pregnant from the first Keats cybrid), will be the host for Empathy. Severn learns that the Technocore resides between the Farcaster portals, and they use the human neurons for brainpower. He helps spread this knowledge. Gladstone organizes the military and they destroy all the farcaster portals at once, in the process destroying the “Death Bomb” the AI had made. Severn goes to Hyperion and sees the Shrike carrying infant Rachel. He releases the Erg that Masteen had brought to the planet and is able to save the baby, but the Shrike gets sucked forward in time.

All of the worlds of the web are now separate again, and must be traversed manually through space. Many people are angry about this and a mob kills Gladstone. Back on Hyperion, a 26 year old Rachel (Who is the same person as Moneta), carries out the infant Rachel to Sol, and says she must leave. Sol takes the infant and goes through the time portal to the future.

5 months later we see Brawne very pregnant, and her the Consul, Theo, Dr. Melio, and Martin Silenus are all friends on Hyperion, but the Consul is about to leave for a while. THE END.