Hyperion

A stunning tour de force filled with transcendent awe and wonder, Hyperion is a masterwork of science fiction that resonates with excitement and invention, the first volume in a remarkable epic by the multiple-award-winning author of The Hollow Man . On the world called Hyperion, beyond the reach of galactic law, waits a creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all. On the eve of Armageddon, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set forth on a final voyage to Hyperion seeking the answers to the unsolved riddles of their lives. Each carries a desperate hope--and a terrible secret. And one may hold the fate of humanity in his hands. Praise for Dan Simmons and Hyperion “Dan Simmons has brilliantly conceptualized a future 700 years distant. In sheer scope and complexity it matches, and perhaps even surpasses, those of Isaac Asimov and James Blish.” -- The Washington Post Book World “An unfailingly inventive narrative . . . generously conceived and stylistically sure-handed.” -- The New York Times Book Review “Simmons’s own genius transforms space opera into a new kind of poetry.” -- The Denver Post “An essential part of any science fiction collection.” -- Booklist

Praise for Dan Simmons and Hyperion

“Dan Simmons has brilliantly conceptualized a future 700 years distant. In sheer scope and complexity it matches, and perhaps even surpasses, those of Isaac Asimov and James Blish.”—The Washington Post Book World 

“An unfailingly inventive narrative . . . generously conceived and stylistically sure-handed.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Simmons’s own genius transforms space opera into a new kind of poetry.”—The Denver Post

“An essential part of any science fiction collection.”—Booklist

Auteur

Dan Simmons

Résumé
A stunning tour de force filled with transcendent awe and wonder, Hyperion is a masterwork of science fiction that resonates with excitement and invention, the first volume in a remarkable epic by the multiple-award-winning author of The Hollow Man.

On the world called Hyperion, beyond the reach of galactic law, waits a creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all.

On the eve of Armageddon, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set forth on a final voyage to Hyperion seeking the answers to the unsolved riddles of their lives. Each carries a desperate hope—and a terrible secret. And one may hold the fate of humanity in his hands.

Praise for Dan Simmons and Hyperion

“Dan Simmons has brilliantly conceptualized a future 700 years distant. In sheer scope and complexity it matches, and perhaps even surpasses, those of Isaac Asimov and James Blish.”—The Washington Post Book World

“An unfailingly inventive narrative . . . generously conceived and stylistically sure-handed.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Simmons’s own genius transforms space opera into a new kind of poetry.”—The Denver Post

“An essential part of any science fiction collection.”—Booklist

Échantillon de lecture
PROLOGUE

The Hegemony Consul sat on the balcony of his ebony spaceship and played Rachmaninoff's
Prelude in C-sharp Minor on an ancient but well-maintained Steinway while great, green,
saurian things surged and bellowed in the swamps below. A thunderstorm was brewing to the
north. Bruise-black clouds silhouetted a forest 0f giant gymnosperms while stratocumulus
towered nine kilometers high in a violent sky. Lightning rippled along the horizon. Closer to the
ship, occasional vague, reptilian shapes would blunder into the interdiction field, cry out, and
then brash away through indigo mists. The Consul concentrated on a difficult section of the
Prelude and ignored the approach of storm and nightfall.

The fatline receiver chimed.

The Consul stopped, fingers hovering above the keyboard, and listened. Thunder rumbled
through the heavy air. From the direction of the gymnosperm forest there came the mournful
ululation of a carrion-breed pack. Somewhere in the darkness below, a smallbrained beast
trumpeted its answering challenge and fell quiet. The interdiction field added its sonic
undertones to the sudden silence. The fatline chimed again.

"Damn," said the Consul and went in to answer it.

While the computer took a few seconds to convert and decode the burst of decaying tachyons, the
Consul poured himself a glass of Scotch. He settled into the cushions of the projection pit just as
the diskey blinked green. "Play," he said.

'You have been chosen to return to Hyperion," came a woman's husky voice. Full visuals had not
yet formed; the air remained empty except for the pulse of transmission codes which told the
Consul that this fatline squirt had originated on the Hegemony administralive world of Tau Ceti Center.
The Consul did not need the transmission coordinates to know this. The aged but still beautiful
voice of Meina Gladstone was unmistakable. "You have been chosen to return to Hyperion as a
member of the Shrike Pilgrimage," contin-ued the voice.

The hell you say, thought the Consul and rose to leave the pit.

"You and six others have been selected by the Church of the Shrike and confirmed by the All
Thing," said Meina Gladstone. "It is in the interest of the Hegemony that you accept."

The consul stood motionless in the pit, his back to the flickering transmission codes. Without
turning, he raised his glass and drained the last of the Scotch.

"The situation is very confused," said Meina Gladstone. Her voice was weary. "The consulate and
Home Rule Council fàtlined us three standard weeks ago with the news that the Time Tombs
showed signs of opening. The anti-entropic fields around them were expanding rapidly and the
Shrike has begun ranging as far south as the Bridle Range."

The Consul turned and dropped into the cushions. A holo had formed of Meina Gladstone's ancient
face. Her eyes looked as tired as her voice sounded.

"A FORCE:space task force was immediately dispatched from Parvati to evacuate the Hegemony
citizens on Hyperion before the Time Tombs open. Their time-debt will be a lithe more than
three 1-lyperion years." Meina Gladstone paused. The Consul thought he had never seen the
Senate CEO look so grim. "We do not know if the evacuation fleet will arrive in time," she said,
"but the situation is even more complicated. An Ouster migration cluster of at least four
thousand . . . units ... has been detected approaching the Hyperion system. Our evacuation task
force should arrive only a short while before the Ousters."

The Consul understood Gladstone's hesitation. An Ouster migration cluster might consist of ships ranging in size from single-person ramscouts to can cities and comet forts holding tens of thousands of the interstellar barbarians.

"The FORCE joint chiefs believe that this is the Ousters' big push," said Meina Gladstone. The
ship's computer had positioned the holo so that the woman's sad brown eyes seemed to be staring
directly at the Consul. "Whether they seek to control just I-Iyperion for the Time Tombs or
whether this is an all-out attack on the Woridweb …