Dan Simmons’s Hyperion is available on Audible as a 20 hrs 44 mins unabridged audiobook, narrated by Marc Vietor and Allyson Johnson and Kevin Pariseau and Jay Snyder and Victor Bevine.
Publisher’s Summary
On the world called Hyperion, beyond the law of the Hegemony of Man, there waits the 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.
Audiobook Details
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor and Allyson Johnson and Kevin Pariseau and Jay Snyder and Victor Bevine
- Length: 20 hrs 44 mins
- Publisher: Audible Studios
- Release year: 2008
- Audible category: Science Fiction & Fantasy / Fantasy / Science Fiction & Fantasy
Listener Ratings
Hyperion holds an average listener rating of 4.4/5 from 26020 Audible ratings.
On Audible, ratings for this title break down into narration performance and story separately:
- Performance (narration): 4.6/5
- Story: 4.4/5
- 5-star ratings: 61% of all ratings
What Audible Listeners Are Saying
5/5 stars — “Fantastic”
This is not only a great story, well performed and well written. It is also particularly interesting for stepping through 6 different contrasting genres of writing extremely well. I loved this and would highly recommend it.— Sam, Audible listener
3/5 stars — “compared to the shrike the terminator’s a wimp!”
hyperion has 6 narrators. all of them are great! the production is top notch! it’s the 28th century. humanity fled earth b/c of an incident. one group settled among the planets whereas another group took to space. the former, the hegemony, forming a group of worlds linked by faracasters, which allow instant transmission from one place to another. the latter group, the ousters, live in space and have modified their bodies to live in space.the hegemony is aided by the techno core, 3 factions of ais (artificial intelligences) that ceded from humanity 300 years ago. the ais help the help the hegemony run the farcasters and advise the hegemony.
hyperion is a backwater world. it doesn’t have a farcaster so people have to travel there in ftl (faster than light) spaceships and travel in fugues- where they sleep the time away. ftl ships are fast, but space travel sill can take months and years b/ween the planets.
on hyperion, there are the time tombs. pilgrims travel there hoping to have a request granted by the shrike. the shrike is a 3 meter tall "thing" covered in spikes. it has 4 arms and 2 legs covered with scalpel-like spikes. it has menacing red eyes and rows of pointy metal teeth. the shrike has a tree of spikes where the shrikes victims are impaled alive, suffer, and cannot die.
there’s tension b/ween the hegemony, the ousters, and the techno core. a group of 7 people are on what is possibly the last pilgrimage of the shrike church, whose followers believe the shrike will impale all humanity on his tree of spikes.
the story is comprised of each group member’s story of why and how they’re on this pilgrimage. each story reveals more about why they’re on the brink of war and about the varying sides (the hegemony, the ousters, the techno core, and the shrike).
each story is unique and interesting, but i found the 1st one, the priest’s tale a little too long. however, what is revealed has implications later in the series. this story is long! it’s 4 hours, but the ending is freaky, creepy, scary, and well worth it!
the 2nd story, the soldier’s tale, was my favorite. it tells colonel kassad’s story of a mysterious girl he initially meets as a cadet while in the force academy’s training simulation. kassad’s story starts at the academy and takes his listeners through the time when he is named the "butcher of bressia."
the 3rd story, the hyperion cantos, is told by the poet, martin silenius, starts on earth. yes, he’s old, but time passes for him b/c in his early years he sleeps the years away travelling b/ween the stars. martin’s story is one of boom, bust, boom, bust. he’s born rich, loses it all, works as a farmer, writes about his time on old earth, becomes rich, loses his money, writes a trashy series, loses his muse, moves to hyperion, finds his muse again but…oh what a muse he finds!
the 4th story is the scholars tale. it’s ok. we learn why sol is traveling with a baby.
the 5th story is the detective’s story. this was my 2nd favorite story. brawne lamia is a private detective who hired by a cybrid named john keats to discover who killed him. keats is an experiment of the techno core. his brain mostly resides in cyberspace and his body is mostly human with some enhancements. in this story, we get a peek into the techno core, the different factions, and their motivations.
the 6th story is the consul’s story. his story is the story of his grandparents- how they met, fell in love, and died. the consul’s story relates that even though technology is beneficial, there are a lot of downsides and things that get lost.
whew! i wrote more than i planned! so if you’re still reading this, then know that this is a pretty good scifi book. i have read all 4. the 2nd book, the fall of hyperion, is awesome! it propelled me into book 3 and 4.
the technology is still cool and not at all outdated. the shrike imho is one of my favorite and most memorable scifi characters. you’ll measure all other baddies against him, it, whatever. lol philosophically, you’ll wonder how the human race should evolve, and you’ll wonder how far we should develop ai.
p.s. after reading/listening about the shrike, you’ll think the terminator’s a wimp!!!
— Mike Naka, Audible listener
5/5 stars — “A future filled with peril and possibility…”
The presentation of this book by the various narrators is outstanding. The novel is a classic which earned a Hugo and many other awards as well. Among the best 25 SF novels ever.— Joseph L. Breckenridge, Audible listener
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