Paul Stark, Rights and Digital Executive
In a typically studentish and pretentious move before my 21st birthday, I asked friends and family for a copy of their favourite book as a present with a note inside explaining why they like it so much. I received two and one of those was a copy of Dan Simmons’ Hyperion Omnibus with a very simple message:
Dear Paul
This is my favourite book.
From Ben
A week and a half later I’d finished it twice. I still don’t think I’ve ever read anything better, or smarter. Hyperion tells the stories of a group of ‘pilgrims’ as they travel to find an enigmatic half god/half metallic demon on a doomed planet. Its strength is a combination of the very, very big with the very, very small as each individual tale is intensely focused, very personal and full of moving and funny elements, but at the same time part of a mythology that drives an epic struggle involving the whole universe. It’s a thriller and a page-turner, a smouldering political drama, a work of religious enlightenment, a tender love story, effortlessly visionary, strikingly human and it’s giving me goose-bumps just thinking about it!
