Dan Simmons - The Fall of Hyperion

PRAISE FOR
HYPERION
and THE FALL OF HYPERION

Generously conceived and stylistically sure-handed an unfailingly inventive narrative that bears comparison with such classics as Isaac Asimovs Foundation series, Frank Herberts Dune and Gene Wolfes Book of the New Sun.

The New York Times Book Review

Dan Simmons has brilliantly conceptualized a future 700 years distant. In sheer scope and complexity it matches, and perhaps even surpasses, those of Isaac Asimov and James Blish.

The Washington Post Book World

An essential part of any science fiction collection this one is sure to be read.

Booklist

One of the finest SF novels published in the past few years.

Science Fiction Eye

A magnificently original blend of themes and styles.

The Denver Post

Highly literate examples of what science-fiction can do; the presence of these booksof this writerwill undoubtedly have great impact on a genre that too often confines itself to narrow hackwork.

St. Petersburg Times

Hyperion (including The Fall of Hyperion) is state of the art science fiction. For me, I know that this work will be that against which all future works will have to be measured, in the same way, in their time, that Asimovs Foundation series and Le Guins The Left Hand of Darkness set new standards. In short, its a landmark novel.

Isaac Asimovs Science Fiction Magazine

Simmons masterfully employs SFs potential.

Locus

Among the most literate of science-fiction novels, this one replicates Canterbury Tales in a far-future universe on a planet called Hyperion after John Keats poem.

Rocky Mountain News

BOOKS BY DAN SIMMONS

Carrion Comfort
Children of the Night
The Fall of Hyperion
Fires of Eden
The Hollow Man
Hyperion
Lovedeath
Phases of Gravity
Prayers to Broken Stones
Song of Kali
Summer of Night

All of the characters in this book
are fictitous, and any resemblance
to actual persons, living or dead,
is purely coincidental.

NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED .

THE FALL OF HYPERION
A Bantam Spectra Book / published by arrangement with Doubleday

PUBLISHING HISTORY
Doubleday edition published March 1990
Bantam edition /March 1991
Bantam reissue / December 1995

SPECTRA and the portrayal of a boxed s are trademarks of Bantam
Books, a division of Random House, Inc.

All rights reserved.
Copyright 1990 by Dan Simmons.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 89-37438.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information address: Doubleday,
1540 Broadway, New York, NY 10036.

eISBN: 978-0-307-78189-5

Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words Bantam Books and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.

v3.1

To John Keats
Whose Name Was Writ
in Eternity

Can God play a significant game with his own creature? Can any creator, even a limited one, play a significant game with his own creature?

N ORBERT W IENER , God and Golem, Inc.

May there not be superior beings amused with any graceful, though instinctive attitude my mind may fall into, as I am entertained with the alertness of a Stoat or the anxiety of a Deer? Though a quarrel in the streets is a thing to be hated, the energies displayed in it are fine By a superior being our reasonings may take the same tonethough erroneous they may be fineThis is the very thing in which consists poetry

J OHN K EATS , in a letter to his brother

The Imagination may be compared to Adams dreamhe awoke and found it truth.

J OHN K EATS , in a letter to a friend

PART ONE

ONE

O n the day the armada went off to war, on the last day of life as we knew it, I was invited to a party. There were parties everywhere that evening, on more than a hundred and fifty worlds in the Web, but this was the only party that mattered.

I signified acceptance via the datasphere, checked to make sure that my finest formal jacket was clean, took my time bathing and shaving, dressed with meticulous care, and used the one-time diskey in the invitation chip to farcast from Esperance to Tau Ceti Center at the appointed time.

It was evening in this hemisphere of TC2, and a low, rich light illuminated the hills and vales of Deer Park, the gray towers of the Administration complex far to the south, the weeping willows and radiant fernfire which lined the banks of River Tethys, and the white colonnades of Government House itself. Thousands of guests were arriving, but security personnel greeted each of us, checked our invitation codes against DNA patterns, and showed the way to bar and buffet with a graceful gesture of arm and hand.

M. Joseph Severn? the guide confirmed politely.

Yes, I lied. It was now my name but never my identity.

CEO Gladstone still wishes to see you later in the evening. You will be notified when she is free for the appointment.

Very good.

If you desire anything in the way of refreshment or entertainment that is not set out, merely speak your wish aloud and the grounds monitors will seek to provide it.

I nodded, smiled, and left the guide behind. Before I had strolled a dozen steps, he had turned to the next guests alighting from the terminex platform.

From my vantage point on a low knoll, I could see several thousand guests milling across several hundred acres of manicured lawn, many of them wandering among forests of topiary. Above the stretch of grass where I stood, its broad sweep already shaded by the line of trees along the river, lay the formal gardens, and beyond them rose the imposing bulk of Government House. A band was playing on the distant patio, and hidden speakers carried the sound to the farthest reaches of Deer Park. A constant line of EMVs spiraled down from a farcaster portal far above. For a few seconds I watched their brightly clad passengers disembark at the platform near the pedestrian terminex. I was fascinated by the variety of aircraft; evening light glinted not only on the shells of the standard Vikkens and Altz and Sumatsos, but also on the rococo decks of levitation barges and the metal hulls of antique skimmers which had been quaint when Old Earth still existed.