Hyperion is a 1989 science fiction novel by American author Dan Simmons. The first book of his Hyperion Cantos series, it won the Hugo Award for best novel. The plot of the novel features multiple time-lines and is told from the points of view of many characters. It follows a similar structure to The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. A framing narrative serves as a means to present the tales of a group of pilgrims sent to Hyperion's Time Tombs, to make a request of the Shrike, a metallic creature that is said to grant one wish to each pilgrim. The story is continued in The Fall of Hyperion, published in 1990.
Plot
Background In c. 2732, the Hegemony of Man comprises hundreds of planets connected by farcaster portals. The Hegemony maintains an uneasy alliance with the TechnoCore, a civilization of AIs. Modified humans known as Ousters live in space stations between stars and are engaged in conflict with the Hegemony. Numerous "Outback" planets have no farcasters and cannot be accessed without incurring significant time dilation. One of these planets is Hyperion, home to structures known as the Time Tombs, which are moving backwards in time and guarded by a legendary creature known as the Shrike. On the eve of an Ouster invasion of Hyperion, a final pilgrimage to the Time Tombs has been organized. The pilgrims decide that they will each tell their tale of how they were chosen for the pilgrimage.
The Priest's Tale: "The Man Who Cried God" Paul Duré and Lenar Hoyt are Catholic priests. Father Hoyt tells the story, but prefaces it by reading from Duré's journals. In an earlier archeological dig on a colony world, Duré faked evidence that Christianity had reached that world before humanity did, hoping to spur a resurgence of the church. His ruse was uncovered, and Duré was exiled to Hyperion. He travels to a far part of Hyperion in search of a fabled civilization of isolated humans known as the Bikura. He discovers them and finds that they have an obsession with the "cross" or "cruciform". Thinking that this is the proof he was looking for previously, Duré follows the Bikura to their place of worship, but deduces that the "cross" the Bikura worship are actually cross-shaped parasites, visible underneath the skin, that have infected them. Upon death of the host, the cruciform rebuilds and resurrects the host—though as a copy of their previous body and mind. This has caused severe degradation of both the physical and mental capacities of the hosts after several centuries of being resurrected as a copy of a copy. From this, Duré realizes that the Bikura are actually the survivors of a group that had attempted to settle this remote region of Hyperion centuries earlier, but were thought lost and dead. They are now effectively immortal, though degraded into bald, sexless eunuchs with limited mental capabilities, and they kill any outsiders they deem to be "not of the cross" (i.e., infected with a cruciform), hence why they've never been "discovered". Seeing the cross necklace Duré is wearing and believing him to be "of the cross", the Bikura accept Duré and lead him to a cave where he encounters the Shrike and is infected with his own cruciform. The cruciforms cause increasing levels of pain to their hosts the farther away the hosts are from their parasites' source. Duré is prevented from either cutting out the cruciform or leaving the Bikura due to the severity of the pain; his journal entries end here, and Hoyt continues with his part of the tale. After contact with Duré is lost, the Church enlists Hoyt to find out what happened. Hoyt follows Duré's trail to the Bikura and discovers that, in order to prevent subsequent resurrections as a host for the cruciform, Duré crucified himself to a tesla tree (a tree on Hyperion that collects electric charge from the air and erupts with lightning constantly) in an attempt to kill himself and the parasite. For seven years, Father Duré had been continually electrocuted and resurrected on the tesla tree. As Hoyt touches Duré, the cruciform falls from his body and allows him finally to die. The Bikura are destroyed with nuclear weapons, but not before Hoyt infects himself with Duré's cruciform. Father Hoyt's motivation for returning to Hyperion is to be relieved from the constant pain the cruciform parasite inflicts on him for being so far from the colony.
The Soldier's Tale: "The War Lovers" Colonel Fedmahn Kassad's tale begins with a flashback to his early life as a gang member and part of the Palestinian diaspora through to his days training in the FORCE military academy on Mars. During a simulation battle, a mysterious woman saves Kassad and becomes his lover. Kassad has repeated encounters with this woman inside these simulated battles, and he spends his days in the academy and after searching for her, as he believes that she is real. After graduation, Kassad begins a prolific but controversial military career. When the Ousters attack a Hegemony colony world, Kassad uses brutal guerrilla warfare tactics to push them back. He is successful, but a scapegoat in the public's eye for the death and destruction that befell the world. As Kassad is recovering from injuries on his way back to the Web, Ousters attempt to raid the hospital ship that carries him. He hijacks an Ouster shuttle and crashes it onto Hyperion. There he is found by the woman, Moneta, whom he encountered in the simulations. Kassad sees the Tree of Pain, a gigantic steel tree on which the Shrike impales its victims. Ousters land on the surface of Hyperion in an attempt to capture or kill Kassad. Moneta provides him with armor and weapons, and teaches him to use time-altering abilities in combat. They easily kill the Ousters with unexpected help from the Shrike, whom Moneta seems to trust. While making love after the battle, Kassad realizes that Moneta is working with the Shrike and it has been manipulating him, using him to spark an interstellar war in which billions of people will die. After Kassad is rescued, he becomes an anti-war activist. This reveals Kassad's motivation for returning to Hyperion: he wishes to kill the Shrike in order to prevent the interstellar war it is planning.
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