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Endymion Book Review

Endymion is a 1996 science fiction novel by Dan Simmons. It is a very strong sequel that has a different approach mostly for the better.

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“The shortest route to courage is absolute ignorance“

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Two hundred and seventy-four years after the fall of the WorldWeb in the previous entry, Raoul Endymion is sent on a quest to retrieve Aenea from the Sphinx before the Church troops reach her. They travel through many systems and planets while pursued by the church and its military whereas Shrike himself also makes an appearance. This is the basic premise behind this installment in the Hyperion Cantos series that functions as a tonally totally different story.

The first book is very much a hard science fiction story that is also an anthology in its structure. Its sequel is more epic in scope while delivering in heady SF themes and action too. Endymion, however, is more of an adventure set in space more than anything else, functioning pretty much as Simmons’ take on a space opera. This is what Star Wars and Star Trek should have been like, but never quite managed to be.

There is one fatal flaw with this entry that made it inferior in that regard to its predecessors and that is its lack of big SF themes and ideas. Well, we do get ideas and excellent world building, but thematically speaking we only get once again a critique of the dangers of organized religion and that’s pretty much it. In trying to be epic and adventurous, Dan Simmons forsake the sophisticated themes and explorations that made ‘Hyperion’ such a classic to begin with.

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With that being said, there is no denying the sheer entertainment factor of this novel. It is so spirited in its adventure, so thrilling in its action and so genuinely memorable in some of its characters that it was a joy to read through. We get here a dual structure where we follow the three protagonists as well as the antagonists chasing them. This worked pretty well with both parts of the book being engaging and effective. The River Tethys section was especially intrepid in its atmosphere while the epic action that happened in God’s Grove was unforgettable and so intense. The ending was also striking and it opened some intriguing prospects for the sequel.

Much has been said about Raul Endymion and how boring he is, but I actually quite liked the hero of this story as I found him to be pretty likable. His relationship with Aenea is creepy in its sexual overtones, but at least the girl was also quite interesting and solidly developed. Bettik is their android friend and through him Simmons explored artificial intelligence and how androids fit in society in this particular world.

Father de Soya is by far the most fascinating and layered character of the bunch. He is this man who is so loyal to his church and its military that he would stop at nothing to obey their orders, but his eventual change of heart was a very good twist that fully worked and it led to such a great arc for him. Nemes is this overpowered killing machine that made that final battle so incredibly thrilling, but hopefully we get to see this character’s origins explained in the sequel. As for Shrike, he did not get to appear much this time around, but he was fantastic in the aforementioned fight and there is this disturbing scene in the first half of the novel where he pretty much committed a massacre against hundreds of soldiers, reminding us just how powerful of a villain he really is.

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Simmons’ writing style is still one that is very engaging to readers and straightforward without being too simplistic. The dialogue is excellent, but again lacking in sophisticated themes. His storytelling is superb and so was his world building as he continued to elaborate on the concepts, ideas and details within this world and its many planets in the most extensive way yet. Some of the imagery here was quite striking. I just wished that the pacing was better and that all characters got their proper due. Simmons tends to overcomplicate things with way too many plot points, characters and exposition, which made the middle of this novel a bit problematic, but thankfully the rest of it was thrillingly engaging.