The tone of the work is erudite without becoming overbearing about its literary qualities at its heart, it is still science fiction. Still, Simmons establishes a literary mood that I, as a reader, enjoy. By way I've disclaimer, I haven't actually read Keats' Hyperion, nor am I anywhere close to familiar with most of his work. One of the things I enjoyed about the book were the overt allusions to John Keats' poem of the same name. I liked Hyperion (after re-reading my review, more than I recalled, apparently). I don't know what the artist was thinking-the cover version does look menacing and cool, but the discrepancy bothers my inner consistency monitor. (I don't pay a lot of attention to physical descriptions, because I don't visualize characters.) I clued into it in this book, however, so seeing the all-too-humanoid Shrike on the covers is irking me. In reading the first book, I missed the fact that the Shrike has four arms. One thing I need to mention: I really like the cover art for both this book and Hyperion, with the exception of the depiction of the Shrike. The Fall of Hyperion preserves the flavour of its predecessor, and to its credit, it is also much more complete than Hyperion.

Crazy mind-bending temporal logic? Sadly, oh so much. Wormhole-connected human civilization? Oh yes. Ineffable, almost omnipotent artificial intelligences? Got it. Introspective, existentially-minded main character? Check. The Hyperion Cantos hits an impressive number of tropes that appeal to me in my science fiction. Any ill will I bore Simmons for the books I didn't like has dissipated thanks to his masterful presentation of this epic science-fiction series. So I went into The Fall of Hyperion feeling pretty good, and if anything my opinion of this series has only improved.

We've also had some good times, namely with Hyperion. We've had bad times and even worse times. My relationship with Dan Simmons has been ambivalent.

The fall of hyperion