Hyperion is essentially six works of short fiction that tell the stories of characters who share a commonality and have been brought together for a pilgrimage. The frame story provides the reason for why they're telling their life stories. This isn't a self-contained novel, so if not having any resolution at all bothers you, you may not want to read it, but you may enjoy it anyway. The purpose of their stories is more about connecting with each other than affecting the outcome, which they believe to be their collective deaths. Some books are about the journey, rather than the destination. This takes that idea a step further by having the individual journeys already taken be what matter. The initial destination of those journeys have been arrived at by all. The frame story is a collective journey, and the destination isn't quite reached. I found it to be slow to start, but it didn't take long for me to be engaged. Slow starts are the most common cause for me initially missing out on great books.

Each character's story has its own voice and style, which may be based on the works of other authors. This inconsistency may bother some, but I really enjoyed it. I like the every character's story, but I have my preferences, which are as follows: Scholar, Priest, Poet, Consul, Detective, Soldier. The greatest strength of the book is its characterizations, especially its superb emotionality. Harsh and pessimistic assessments of humanity, religion, technology, and AI are presented through the characters.

Hyperion frequently and consistently references literary works and pop culture media. I was surprised by how many I recognized, though there were surely far more. There's an abundance of ideas, but their exploration isn't matters. A few ideas haven't aged well, but overall Simmons was surprisingly accurate in terms of extrapolating from the contemporary trends of the time. There's also considerable worldbuilding and depictions of life and society, but again, that's not the central concern. This is a story about connection of all kinds, not only the interpersonal. The in-universe author of Hyperion says it's about loneliness.

I didn't expect there to be so many descriptions of the female body, let alone the frequency of briefly described sex scenes. The ejaculation scene is horrific and hilarious. I didn't mind their inclusion, but oftentimes they seemed to be there because Simmons wanted them to be rather than having any narrative purpose. They certainly didn't have much build-up.

The self-referential statements and inclusion of pop culture prepared me for the comic farce of an ending. Hyperion is only as serious as it feels like being at the time. I'm somewhat trepidatious about continuing after considering the /sffg/ ratings and what seems to be the consensus narrative. Ignoring such warnings hasn't gone well for me before, but I'll do so anyway.