by Parallax
We’re nerds.
It’s really not any kind of revelation. If you’re reading this, you’re a nerd. If you’re on this website, you’re a nerd. Just own that for a bit. It’s important for this.
Part of that, stereotypically, is that we’re deeply influenced by the media that we take in. A lot of times, that’s the story about the first time you saw Star Wars, how Captain Picard was your TV dad, or how you love/hate the Emperor of Mankind. Whether we acknowledge things or not, it influences us.
For me—and I’m sure I’m not alone—it goes deeper than that.
There are a number of books, series, etc., that I can say have shaped the way that I view the world I live in. Sometimes it’s not very interesting. Sometimes it’s the strong sense of right and wrong instilled in us by superhero stories. Green Lantern was an anchor for me, an organization of peacekeepers that gave credence to the idea of a quantifiable and knowable universe. If you can split the universe into sections to be policed, then you can measure it.
Star Trek, especially to the now middle-aged millennial group, gives us a universe where we can believe that conflict can be overcome with compassion and understanding, where Vulcan reason is an ideal to be admired.
With all that said, I think the one piece of media that has shaped me throughout my life has been a book called Hyperion. It was written by a former K-12 teacher that got his real start at a writing retreat at which, as the author recounted, his work was judged by Harlan Ellison. In a collection of short stories, the author and Ellison both give their perspectives: in one, Ellison tells a story about how good the story he judged was and how he gave this young author the advice to pursue his passion; in the other Ellison told him to fuck right off with his good writing bullshit.
That author was Dan Simmons. The book is Hyperion.
I don’t expect you to know that name, really. I hold this book in tremendously high regard, as I do with the rest of his science fiction writings. Genuinely, I put it on par with Dune. It’s very different and deals with a different subject, but it feels that important to me.
I have not found that this has been broadly the case but I maintain that it really ought to be. Hyperion and its immediate sequel, Fall of Hyperion, are epic works of the writing craft that should be seen as a cornerstone of modern science fiction.
I will stop glazing it and actually tell you why it matters to me. I’ll even try to do it without spoiling anything.
The story of the first book is really a collection of inter-related short stories that set the stage for the events of the second book to bring everything to culmination. That isn’t too revelational, but the manner it’s done in is the more interesting part of it.
Hyperion uses a literary method called a “frame narrative.” You might be familiar with this style from Geoffery Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. Each character tells a story about why they’re going off to pursue the task the group is collectively after. It is a tool that gave Simmons, a writer renowned across several writing genres, including thrillers, horror, sci-fi, and historical fiction, the chance to use all of those skills and tropes to assemble a coherent story that breaks the very idea of genre.
I won’t get into it except to say that the first story in the book, “The Priest’s Story,” is the weakest part of it. It can absolutely drag you down before you get too far. It’s a travelogue and journal of an evangelizing trip into the far-flung periphery of human space. Muscle past it; it gets better fast.
The second book, Fall of Hyperion, shows how it’s all related. How the warrior and the scholar are intertwined, how the Consul and the nigh alien humans that left civilization to be free relate, and how the Detective and Poet come to a mutual understanding while absolutely loathing each other.
On their own, they are good books. They are good stories that should be read on that merit alone. But that’s not why they have stuck with me over most of the thirty years. The themes of these books, the underlying meaning and messages of them, matter to me. With the development of modern technology, they matter more to me now than they ever had.
At their very core, these books are about the meaning of being human. In an effective paradise, right at the edge of a Star Trek, post-scarcity utopia, what is it to be human? I’ll tell you the book communicates that being human is to experience. To be human is to struggle. To fail. And to get back up regardless.
One of the key conflicts in the story is about the human dependence on an outrageously advanced, independent, artificial intelligence created by humanity but which quickly outgrew servitude. They’re not hostile. The AI Core has given humanity gifts it could never have achieved on its own. But they are cagey and maybe hard to trust.
And, to top it all off, Hyperion has a really fucking cool monster in there. He’s on the cover; it’s not a mystery or a spoiler. The Shrike is cool, and I’ll hear no arguments.
Dan Simmons passed on February 21, 2026. He was a complicated guy who drew some controversy in the latter half of his career. I found out he died about two weeks later.
I am devastated.
Over time, we lose the authors that help define us. I’ve lost several. Robert Jordan passed in 2007. The Wheel of Time is a series I cherish.
Arthur C. Clarke died in 2008. He was an unparalleled visionary of science fiction and just legit fucking science.
In 2026, we lost Dan Simmons.
Simmons’ books taught me that a book could be good, but it could be better if you challenge yourself to understand more of it. Over the course of his six, full length sci-fi novels, I pushed myself to learn more about John Keats, five feet high as he referred to himself. About how the namesake of the book isn’t just a cool sounding name or named after a Saturnine moon, but about the last, unfinished epic poem that Keats was writing at the time of his death. The Greek Titan struggles with the decision of joining the Olympians against his brother and sister Titans or allowing himself to fade away and allow a new generation to take over.
It made me struggle with the concepts of creativity, especially in the face of adversity. How meaning could only be truly drawn from human passions and emotions.
His second sci-fi setting, Ilium and its sequel Olympos were even more of a struggle, asking its readers to accept concepts derived from Proust and memory, about quantum realities, Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and again the degradation of humanity in the face of unchallenged plenty and ease.
I’m telling you this for a few reasons:
One: read Simmons’ books, especially the first two books in the Hyperion Cantos.
Two: revisit the stories that shaped you. You might find more in them now than you did before.
Three: read things that challenge you. Sometimes, if you meet that challenge, you will come out better for it.
Or you’ll end up on an ethereal tree of giant metal thorns. Honestly, it’s a 50/50 shot.
Books like these can make you better. Not just smarter but more thoughtful, more considerate, more understanding. A truly purposeful story that’s well written can make you more purposeful. Engaging with media on the level that Simmons encouraged will cause you to look at everything you consume in a new light. You’ll want to find the underlying influences, you’ll try to find the themes of the overarching stories, and you’ll find the messages in them that are hidden to a casual glance.
Everyone is different and we all have different perspectives and taste. Maybe this isn’t yours; that’s fine. Something in your life, though, probably is. Go back to it. Engage with it. Try to understand it on a deeper level. It can open your eyes to a new level of art and appreciation thereof. That kind of experience is a gift that never leaves you.
Really, I just want to say that Dan Simmons deserves your attention. His work deserves your investigation. He was an absolute master of the writing craft.
Re-reading this, I recognize that I don’t feel like I’ve really said enough about how much these works mean to me. I don’t know if I’m capable of really explaining how deep of a hole I feel in my soul over this loss. In some ways, that’s its own gift, I suppose. I love these books enough to feel this level of grief over the passing of a man I never met.
And to the family of Mr. Simmons who will never read this, Dan is a man whose name will never be writ in water.
Parallax hosts the New Marik Workshop Thursday evenings on WBPL-76.
