A selection of fictional works read in the period from January-ish through April 2020.
Hyperion by Dan Simmons [4/5, for now]
Hyperion, winner of the Hugo award in 1990, is considered one of modern science fiction’s classics. I recently made my way through the same paperback I first read over twenty years ago to see how it held up (as an aside, my favorite reading medium is surely the mass-market paperback, perhaps a nostalgic reaction to the most common format in my childhood and one that is no longer as prevalent as it should be). This is a complex novel, as much a literary fiction exercise as a popular science fiction, with several plot threads deftly managed across intertwined stories with a common element: the planet Hyperion, home to a mysterious being called the Shrike, which seems to be a vengeful and murderous deity, and the equally mysterious Time Tombs, where time flows backward. The structure of the book is based on the Canterbury Tales: six travelers tell their tales while on a pilgrimage to the Time Tombs. The novel is ambitious and Simmons creates a universe of complex personalities, politics, and science. His prose struck me as somewhat muscular, reflective of the time when it was written, but there was nothing that felt dated about the overall experience and his talent as a writer is obvious. I’m unsure of my final feelings: it should be admired for its accomplishment but whether or not I enjoyed the experience of reading it is still out for verdict. I probably won’t have a final conclusion for some months yet and perhaps that in and of itself validates the reading. It’s a must for serious science fiction readers.
The Subtle Knife/The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman [5/5 and 4/5]
I’d read the full His Dark Materials trilogy not too long ago but my interest in revisiting it was rekindled after recently reading Pullman’s La Belle Sauvage and watching HBO’s serialization of the first novel. Having enough familiarity with its plot and characters, I skipped that first novel – The Golden Compass – and started my re-read with The Subtle Knife. It’s a wonderful book that seamlessly expands the story’s scope to our and other worlds while retaining focus on the journeys and growth of the main characters, Lyra and Will. The third book loses some of that focus as it takes on a full-scale universal conflict, spends more time with other characters, and develops related tangents (such as an imaginative diversion into xenobiology) though ultimately all the threads satisfyingly come back together with Lyra and Will at their center. It’s tempting to classify the trilogy as young adult fiction, given that the protagonists are adolescents, but that is to deny it due justice as a member of fantasy fiction’s pantheon and its wide appeal to readers of all ages. Pullman’s prose is excellent, the action and flow inexorable, and the characters memorable.