The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons (3.5 stars)

Stupendous beginning. Time for the tough second album. I'm not going to be careful about spoilers so you might want to bail out now.

The plot arc is great, fantastic ideas brought to a stunning finish. The idea of the Core leeching brain power from humanity to create a giant biological supercomputer during farcaster transport is inspired. Gladstone's play against the Core and destruction of the farcaster network was thrilling. Simmons describes the implications of unplugging such a connected society in fascinating detail: imagine families torn apart and people dying because Dad happened to be in the toilet on Mare Infinitus when the network was torn down. Entire city-worlds collapsing because there's no locally produced food. People trapped in penthouse apartments in skyscrapers with no way to get out apart from a now-dead farcaster.

But if you had asked me what I thought during the first half of the novel I would have said GET ON WITH IT ALREADY. I was sick of the pilgrims stumbling around the Time Tombs, sick of hearing about Joseph Severn who I cared nothing about, and sick of the dream-style narration that was cut off whenever anything interesting was about to happen so Severn could go sit in a meeting with Gladstone or hang out at a party.  And you know what would be great?  If the Consul could go on a boring quest to retrieve the ship over exactly the same territory we covered in the first book.

There are some poignant moments, quite a few actually.  Like this one, where Dure describes the effect on his faith of years of continuous death and resurrection while nailed to a Tesla tree:

"And that made you lose your faith?"
Dure looked at Sol. "On the contrary, it made me feel that faith is all the more essential. Pain and darkness have been our lot since the Fall of Man. But there must be some hope that we can rise to a higher level...that consciousness can evolve to a plane more benevolent than its counterpoint of a universe hardwired to indifference.

In fact, Dure's experience of a future where the Labyrinthine worlds have been crammed with all of humanity is one of the most chilling passages I've ever read. In this future, humans were convinced to shelter in the Labyrinths while the doomsday deathwand device created by the Core was detonated, ostensibly to defeat the Ousters. Dure sees the reality of this Core plot that would kill humans en masse, with the Shrike tending to a graveyard of billions lit with the eerie glow of millions of cruciforms.

Hair remained as tendrils of dusty tar, stiff as varnished fiberplastic. Blackness stared out from under opened eyelids, between teeth...If there were tens of thousands of corpses in this small stretch of tunnel, Hyperion's labyrinth must contain billions. More. The nine labyrinthine worlds together must be a crypt for trillions.

There's some cuteness that comes from being able to write the future. Apparently Japan is the first to Mars and claims it:

...unchanged from the time the first human set foot on that world, proclaimed it for a nation called Japan, and snapped a photograph.

I also thought the AI Ummon was really well conceived. Contemptuous of Severn, speaking in koans, super-annoying to read, but brilliant. It just went on a tad too long.

- Why Ummon? Why did you Stables wish to preserve Old Earth?
[Sansho once said
If someone comes
I go out to meet him
but not for his sake
Koke said
If someone comes
I don't go out
If I do go out
I go out for his sake]

Great ideas, with some aggressive editing I would have given it almost 5 stars.

3.5 stars.