I don’t read many old books. Well, old is a strong word, Hyperion was published in 1989. I don’t read many books that weren’t published this century. When I do, I often find they haven’t really stood up to the fiction I’m reading right now, presumably because they were produced for a different audience with a different context, inspired by the style of a different body of work. Hyperion, however, stood up. I finished the Cantos feeling like it had almost religious significance, and indeed religion or the lack of it is one of the main themes. The story is about a pilgrimage, and there’s enough characters introduced simultaneously that I found it very confusing for a while, but fear not! All characters are fully individual and we learn about each of them through flashbacks. The structure of the novel is one of its main strengths, using a combination of the pilgrimage and flashbacks to weave some fabulously rich themes and symbolism into a cohesive story. What’s interesting about the flashbacks is the tonal shift for each of them — one of them even switching genre entirely. This is less a space opera and more a sci-fi in the tradition of Asimov; Massive, imposing, and deeply meaningful.