HT reviewer Suhit Bombaywala picks his favourite read of 2024

Featuring intergalactic pilgrims, time tombs, and a monstrous Shrike, this is a mighty work of science fiction that’s relentlessly entertaining

My standout book of 2024 is a mighty work of science fiction. The gorgeous Hyperion by Dan Simmons fits snugly on a bookshelf alongside works by Asimov, Clarke, le Guin, Philip K Dick and Ben Bova. Set in an imagined future, the book is about a three-cornered interplanetary tussle for power between the human Hegemony, the Technocore entity of artificial intelligences, and the Ousters, humans who genetically modified themselves to live in the various atmospheres they settled in instead of remaking planets to be Earth-like. Really a set of linked novellas, and as many have noted, a kind of Canterbury Tales in SF, Hyperion is a series of life stories told by seven pilgrims – a diplomat, a soldier, a poet, a mercenary, a priest, a scholar and a knight. All of them are heading to the planet Hyperion where lie the Time Tombs, relics that stop their customary journey into the past. The tombs are opening, making vulnerable the interplanetary empire, linked by instantaneous teleportation portals, to a monster named the Shrike, which can manipulate the direction and speed of Time and annihilate platoons at a go. But it is also rumoured to grant a wish to visitors, which draws the pilgrims. This isn’t a sunny, blithe imagination, but stark and broody as it is, it has a redemptive core – a compassionate, tragic ambiance leavened by a richly detailed universe, mythological resonance, and sheer delight of a literary kind. It is also engagingly written. Except for the dialogue, which, in the frame story, runs on or spews exposition. But then the pilgrims begin to share their stories. Here, each beautiful and distinct voice sucks the reader into its lambent world.

“This isn’t a sunny, blithe imagination, but stark and broody as it is, it has a redemptive core – a compassionate, tragic ambiance leavened by a richly detailed universe, mythological resonance, and sheer delight of a literary kind.” (Gollancz)

Reviewer Suhit Bombaywala (Courtesy the subject)

Each character is moving and memorable, their motivations being more or less relatable – revenge, scuttling interplanetary colonialism, love’s longing, seeking closure to a big question, finishing a book of poems. I rooted for them all, even the celibate priest, even the tipsy and salty poet, even the soldier nicknamed The Butcher, even the diplomat and double agent, and the mercenary aching for her dead lover. And even the blade-bristling Shrike with its godlike powers, its being so inhumane and alien, was terrifying and fascinating. Few books I’ve read this year have been so relentlessly entertaining as this one, the first of a quartet called the Hyperion Cantos. I look forward to reading them all.