Customer Reviews
Over-rated - By: The Truth, 30 Dec 2008 
This work is hailed by many to have reinvigorated the sc-fi genre, mainly by the publisher, & is supposedly a work of the utmost quality bordering the works of Shakespeare, again the publishers are only to happy to tell you this.
I'm anything but sycophant, so I will tell you my honest opinion.
This book is not hard sci-fi, it contains stuff that would make the weakest of Star Trek writers wince. It feels more like a fantasy novel within a sci-fi setting.
The plot almost becomes interesting on a few occasions only to be pulled back into silliness again. A long dead poet is re-animated from nothing, a pseudo-Christ & then we have the glorious Shrike that belongsin a Troma film.
In short this work tries too hard to be an epic, but instead is an epic failure to impress.
If you want to read up on "how not to write sci-fi" then by all means buy it. Pay close attention to the AI conversations & try not to sigh too hard.
(I'd love to more carefully craft a review like so many of these amazon critic wannabes, but to do so would credit this authors work with an effort it doesn't deserve.)
Excellent - By: C. Heather, 19 Dec 2008 
Fantastically detailed & imaginative narrative. Glad I bought both at the same time as I immediately wanted to read the second after the first. Story progresses at breakneck speed & I was totally gripped. Not perfect, buy any means (wizard of Oz scenes made me cringe) but worth 5 stars nonethless. If you like sci-fi, you won't be disappointed.
Sci-Fi at its best - possibly better than Dune? - By: John Ferngrove, 31 Oct 2008 But that's only after second reading. I don't know how it happened but on the first reading I was left with a very mixed sense. There had been some superb action, amazing far out ideas, touching emotional aspects & some fairly deep moral philosophy, but somewhere I dropped the ball & lost the plot, which is about as complex as a plot can be, & I came to the end, having liked a lot of what I'd read, but feeling that I hadn't understood what it was all about.
The star of the book(s) rather than the ostensible cyber John Keats, who is a beautiful observer throughout, is the amazing Shrike. A terrifying bogeyman to beat all bogeymen. An invincible monstrous machine from the future who can manipulate time so as to be there at one moment & then instantly appear to be here, deadly & silent.
It was finding a meaty but creepy synth sound that made me think of writing a piece of music for the Shrike, whichin turn made me think let's read the book again. I've just finished it, & this time I've managed to hang on to the plot lines & see them all come back together, & I have closed the book with complete satisfaction.
While I was reading it I had the constant envious feeling of 'Cripes, this is the sci-fi book I wish I could have written'. Above all, I amin awe of the plot. The skill with which the multiple threads are all bought together to leave nothing untied is quite breathtaking.
Secondly, the characterisation is beautiful. We have a group of people all from very different backgrounds & very different outlooks on life, & each are imaginedin superb detail, as are the growing relationships between them. The cyber John Keats, who is one of the charactersin the first book & a primary, first-person observerin the second is written with great eloquence & grace. I don't think you would have to know Keats' poetry or life to get more from this book, but it might just make you want to go check him out afterwards. I intend to.
Add to that, amazing technologies, dense political intrigue, human & AI (I think that's where I got lost first time round), & time travel conundra as rival futures fight for the timeline & you have the very best Sci-Fi experience you could ask for.
Possibly better than Dune? I don't know. Dune I've read 4 or 5 times. The last time quite recently, & got a whole different experience out of it again. This I've now read twice. I won't try & decide. What I would say is that these two, along with Samuel Delany's Dhalgren (Vintage), are far & away the most literary works of SF I know of after years of reading, & stand above the rest of the genre as genuine literary art as opposed to mere entertainment.
the best sci fi novel ever written - By: Robert Hickling, 31 May 2008 ok if you like hard core space opera horror fantasy you wouldnt find a better novel.thisin my opion is the best sci fi book ever written.dont bother reading negative reviews this is fabulous.dont get me wrong pt2 is sometimes hard going but after finishing i guarantee you will go onto the 2 further books.a must read for any serious science fiction fan 10 out of ten nuff said
Hyperion & fall of Hyperion - By: A. Unsworth, 20 May 2008 
I just read these 2 after reading his latest book 'The Terror', about a doomed 19th century artic expedition, & after having read many of the reviews here. They are both very readable & interesting books, & if you liked the movie The Matrix then you'll probably love these. That said, i didn't have the epiphany that several other reviewers seem to have had. I haven't read sci-fi since i was a teenager, but the idea of a internet-mad future where the Servers have taken over the galaxy, worm-holes being used for everyday transport, & a chrome killing-machine sent from the future were enough to get me page-turning right until the end of both books. After near-enough a thousand pages though i think i'm ready to return back to the present, & i'll probably avoid sci-fi for a while now! I found it hard to connect emotionally to any of the main characters - the shrike pilgrims - & whilst the story fairly crackles along, dont expect to be engaged by the rather wooden protagonists, or the fairly odd imagery ('the spacecraft turned like a plate on a bed of marbles' - thats a misquote, but i'm not searching for the exact words!). So allin all, although not up to the standard of 'The Terror', enjoyable nonetheless.
