The closing volume of the Hyperion series had a huge emotional impact on me. By now, I cared about the new characters, whose fates at the end of the series are serious and sometimes difficult to read. Simmons also brings his ideas to full fruition and posits some interesting observations about humanity and our place in the Universe. This is thoughtful, adventurous fiction. I will return to it for the rest of my life.

At the age of 19, I know that I will never read another novel like The Rise of Endymion. I cannot express how much I enjoyed this book. I have experienced nearly every emotion possible whilst reading it. I have to say that I even cried on more than one occasion. These books have connected with me like nothing else has, or ever will. As I have said in my other reviews of the previous books in the Cantos, the characters are one of the many highlights. Each character has their own personality, and I have been able to relate to each one in some way. Whilst reading 'Endymion' I did not consider Raul, Aenea and A. Bettik to be three separate individuals, but as one character. However, in 'The Rise of Endymion', one of these individuals stood out more than the others, and this was Aenea. I cannot say what connected me to Aenea (The Void Which Binds may have had something to do with it), but she is probably my favorite character of any book/film etc. Raul is also a fantastic character, as he is the narrator of the story you experience everything he does, which is another reason why this book is so incredible. Not only do the characters feel real, so do the worlds and the environments. I started and finished this whilst on holiday, but most of that holiday was actually spent in this universe.The Rise of Endymion is complex in places, as it is bringing together the whole story which started nearly 300 years ago. But this does not take anything away from the enjoyment of the story. I know I will never enjoy a story as much as the Hyperion Cantos, and I also know that I will reread this again in the future. I am already looking forward to this day, and envy anyone who is about to pick this up first time. I am glad to have had the pleasure of reading this book, and the others in the Cantos, but I am also sad to say goodbye to the characters and the worlds that I have visited throughout this wonderfully journey. I will be reading 'The Orphans of the Helix' which is set after the events of The Rise of Endymion shortly, and I hope that I will be returning to this universe again in the future with new stories from the brilliant Dan Simmons.

Simmons dropped the ball on this one. He contradicts himself where hes not blatantly spamming retcons in an attempt to steer his narrative onto a logical course before it concludes. He kills the wonderful momentum hes built about halfway through the book by indulging himself in an orgy of mountain-climbing minutiae and introducing sixty fucking new characters who have a questionable reason for existing and contribution to the plot. He wraps up loose ends and provides explanations that are, if not head-scratch-inducing, at the very least unsatisfying. So why did I give this book five stars, you ask? BECAUSE IT HAS A SCENE WHERE TWO CHARACTERS TOTALLY 69 IN ZERO G.Just kidding. I give it five stars because despite all of these problems and disappointments, this series is one of the most awe-and-terror-inspiring things Ive ever read. I will always cherish it and hold it close to my heart. The pure ambition and humanity the author poured into the pages are undeniable. This is clearly a man whos fucking just going for it and if in the end its a failure, its a glorious failure that deserves to stand next to brilliant successes. Theres not an interesting idea that you can explore in science fiction thats not examined here and in a way thats captivatingly entertaining, moving, and well-written.I cant recommend this series enough to people who havent tried it. This is glorious stuff. I really struggle to think of another one that was such an emotional roller coaster. I veered from being terrified to laughing out loud (this usually involved scenes with the wonderful Martin Silenus) to being completely awe-struck by the concepts and settings Simmons spins out at a ridiculous rate to feeling like I wanted to fucking cry like a baby. It combines heady, high-concept stuff like time travel and paradoxes or the possible fates and evolutions of humanity with just pure fun stuff like ridiculous potty-mouthed humor and pant-shittingly gnarly space battles. Its a cliche, but it really does have something for everyone and has cemented my idolization of Simmons as a writer.

Like Endymion, this is a solid 3.5 stars. The conclusion to the four-book Hyperion Cantos is quite epic, and I am still trying to figure out why it just didn't wow me. I liked it okay, but I know a lot of people who love this series and periodically reread it, and I have no desire to.As with the first duology, Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion, the second book is actually better than the first; Endymion set up the final confrontation between the Pax, the Ousters, and the TechnoCore, and the final book resolves it. We see worlds and civilizations fall, we see conspiracies hidden for centuries revealed. We learn the truth behind all the mysteries introduced since the first book: the origin of the Shrike, the goals of the TechnoCore, the meaning of the Cruciform.Raul Endymion and Aenea are the main characters, and as I predicted in Endymion, they become lovers. She plays the role of Christ-figure in this book, fated to suffer for all mankind, and the parallel is very deliberate and direct. She is a messiah for a new SF age. I have mixed feelings about the whole "Love is a physical force that can save the universe" theme, but I will say that Dan Simmons was consistent in his worldbuilding and his plotting. Indeed, perhaps that it what impresses people the most with this series: its epic scale spanning the rise and fall of several interstellar civilizations that nonetheless remains focused on individuals and reveals careful, meticulous planning, with groundwork laid all the way back in Hyperion. It's a masterful literary feat, and proves Simmons is a top-notch genre writer. He brings literary depth to this series, from Hyperion's riff on the Canterbury Tales to The Rise of Endymion's Biblical tribulations. But somehow, it just didn't quite stop reminding me that it was just another space opera. Perhaps because I thought Raul Endymion was kind of a schmuck, with all his whining about how Aenea had another lover before him while he was lost in time. (Simmons handles time travel really well in this book: the twists are forehead-slappingly obvious yet they take you by surprise.) And I am not all that fond of allegorical messiahs, even if Simmons does subvert it a little by making this Christ a girl. (He's not exactly the first author to have that idea, though.) This is one of the best-written space operas ever, but there are others that I enjoyed more.Still, it's an experience, vast in scale and with a grand finale. I would recommend that anyone read Hyperion, and if you like it, it is worth reading the rest of the series.

I survived!As Ive reported in my previous reviews of this series there were times where it seemed as if my gray matter was going to be permanently fried by this epic sci-fi story. I finally got through to the end with most of my marbles still in the bag they came in.Its almost impossible to give a summary of this without spoiling the previous book so Ill just say that Aenea and Raul Endymion continue their interstellar journey to fulfill her ultimate destiny as the powerful forces of a corrupted Catholic Church and the artificial intelligences of the TechnoCore try to stop them by increasingly desperate means. Oh, and the mysterious and deadly time-traveling Shrike continues to pop up.This isnt just your standard sci-fi space opera about a chosen one saving the galaxy from the Death Star. What Simmons has done here is create a tale that spans time and space in which even Jesus was a player and the ultimate stakes are the fate of evolution of life in the entire universe. As with the other books, hes done an incredible job of building multiple stories and fusing them all together into a rich and diverse whole. Any one of his concepts could have been the basis for an entire book or series like a planet where the cities have been built high onto the tops of mountain peaks due an acidic ocean at lower altitudes. Thats just one stop along the way for Aenea and Raul.So how did I live through it? Dan Simmons finally revealed himself to be human and somewhat fallible here in the last book. Dont get me wrong. Its still an excellent series and one of the most ambitious sci-fi stories Ive read. But there were a few things that irked me in this one that took it down from five stars to four and that probably kept my brain pan from overheating.First is that Simmons goes back and alters some of what were previously told in the earlier books. Im not sure if he originally planned to end it after two books but carried it to four and had to do some changing to fit an ending he came up with later, or if he just discarded some ideas late in the game, but I didnt like that what we thought happened in the first two books turned out to be untrue. Simmons didnt commit any crimes against his fans on a George Lucas scale, but it bothered me, particularly the revisions to the Shrikes origin and ultimate fate.I also dont think that Simmons knew when to turn off the creative mode and shift into resolution mode. He kept adding elaborate new settings and characters and events right up until the end game, and it started reminding me of how Lost just kept piling new characters and mysteries into its final season and didnt do nearly enough wrapping up. Simmons still managed to provide a mostly satisfy ending, but when he added yet another mind blowing new setting in the last quarter of the book, I found myself getting a little impatient. Still, these are minor quibbles about a sci-fi story that swung for the fences and managed to deliver on almost all of its potential.