The Fall of Hyperion
Overview
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel by Dan Simmons
Dan Simmons
Dan Simmons is an American author most widely known for his Hugo Award-winning science fiction series, known as the Hyperion Cantos, and for his Locus-winning Ilium/Olympos cycle....
in his Hyperion Cantos
Hyperion Cantos
The Hyperion Cantos is a series of science fiction novels by Dan Simmons. Set in the far future, and focusing more on plot and story development than technical detail, it falls into the soft science fiction category...
fictional universe
Fictional universe
A fictional universe is a self-consistent fictional setting with elements that differ from the real world. It may also be called an imagined, constructed or fictional realm ....
. The novel was written in 1990, and won both the British Science Fiction and a Locus Awards in 1991. It was also nominated for the Hugo Award
Hugo Award
The Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...
that same year, and the Nebula Award
Nebula Award
The Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America , for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year...
in 1990.
In 45 chapters and an epilogue, The Fall of Hyperion records the fall of the Hegemony of Man. Like the previous novel Hyperion, it follows a frame structure
Frame story
A frame story is a literary technique that sometimes serves as a companion piece to a story within a story, whereby an introductory or main narrative is presented, at least in part, for the purpose of setting the stage either for a more emphasized second narrative or for a set of shorter stories...
of sorts, although it is far less explicit: instead of a number of pilgrims telling each other their tales a la The Canterbury Tales
The Canterbury Tales
The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the 14th century. The tales are told as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together on a journey from Southwark to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at...
, the perspective is that of the reactivated cybrid of John Keats
John Keats
John Keats was an English Romantic poet. Along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, he was one of the key figures in the second generation of the Romantic movement, despite the fact that his work had been in publication for only four years before his death.Although his poems were not...
(the poet to whom the novel is dedicated "To John Keats, Whose Name Was Writ in Eternity"), who dreams the adventures of the pilgrims via his twin.
The Hyperion Series of novels takes place some hundreds of years in our future.
