Rise of Endymion

From LeoWiki

Score	Title	Author	Genre
6.4	Rise of Endymion	Dan Simmons	Space Opera

Technophilia	4
Secularity	7
Quality	6
Xenophilia	9
Personal Tilt	6

I'd like to congratulate M. Simmons on achieving something M. Asimov and M. Herbert could not -- finishing an epic space opera.

This last volume sees the thwarting of the AI Technocore schemes, the collapse of the Christian Pax, the completion of Martin Silenus' "Hyperion Cantos", and the death of Aenea the Messiah for our sins.

Now, the beef. Okay, so teleportation is environmentally unfriendly. Oh, wow, magically teleportation is now environmentally friendly. Why is there no new environmentally friendly form of resurrection?

Simmons failed to convince me that mortality is a good idea. I don't see billions of people choosing to die just because some tortured telepath tells them they are helping the Evil Technocore by being resurrected. Meh.

Speaking of the Technocore, I didn't follow that subplot at all. Apparently, there are lots of warring factions, but there is only one and it lives in the cruciforms. Say what?

Most importantly, I think that Raul Endymion is a Mary Sue character. As you all well know, a Mary Sue is a common fanfic creation that out-thinks Spock, out-jerryrigs Scotty, and out-fucks Kirk. They'd out-do Bones too, but Bones was never actually good at anything, so that a bit like me defeating my friend Bianca's brother at darts.:P Let's say that Mary Sue would also out-doctor Bashir. I like Bashir.:)

Anyways, the point is that Mary Sue is the idealised avatar of the fanfic author. IMHO, Rise of Endymion is merely a Hyperion fanfic that just happens to be written by the same author as Hyperion and Raul Endymion is a Mary Sue.

Large parts of the book were written in hand-waved bullet form similar to, for example, the third Martian Revolution in Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars 'Twas a bit irritating, though understandable. At least we were spared two more sequels of the bullets being fleshed out.^-^

I think that neither Aenea's decision to die nor the form of death administered make much sense in the context of the story. If she could use her converts as a megaphone, she should have done that from a more comfortable perch.

I absolutely love the Reaver-bot explanation for the Shrike, but Simmons doesn't capitalise on that at all.

A bit irritating is Simmons' unbalanced use of "female" as an adjective. The book is full of "female archbishops" and so one, but "male archbishops" are noticeably absent. Unadjectived "archbishops" are quite plentiful though. The division between normal and female is annoying.

Oh, well. At least Simmons finished the series.^-^

See Also

• Hyperion
• Fall of Hyperion
• Endymion
• Rise of Endymion