Hyperion by Dan Simmons

This one is on me because I didn’t do my research beforehand. But I’m about 300 pages in and probably going to give up unless there’s some gold to be dug out of this misogynistic muck.

I mean, what a stellar opening. From the bold imagery of his planets and space travel to the setup of this Canterbury-esque delivery, and of course the iconic Shrike which was my impetus for picking this up in the first place. For the first couple hundred pages I saw myself reading all four novels.

Then came Kassad’s story. Already, the descriptions of women leading up to this point (namely Lamia) were making my head tilt. But the hypersexualization and frankly juvenile, horny descriptions of the Shrike’s female manifestation had me skipping paragraphs and rolling my eyes. Eventually I asked myself aloud “this won the Hugo?? Hardly two decades after Le Guin introduced LHOD to the world??”

And I’m just so disappointed. The setup was cool. The Shrike is instantly memorable.

But I’ve been ripped out of this story completely and needed to share, mostly to get it off my chest, but also with the slightest bit of tension remaining if anyone has a good explanation for why I should finish the novel instead of moving on through my reading list.