You can’t really go more epic than this finale of Hyperion that spans the entire universe and then more, has ancient poets and other significant historical persons resurrecting as AI, and covers a journey of some sort of space Jesus in her quest to overthrow a galaxy-wide religious order.

Unfortunately, while it is amazing on paper, The Rise of Endymion is plotted almost in the most boring way possible with hardly a single surprise in its thousand or so pages sometimes with entire chapters that feel like nothing but filler (seriously what was the point of that whole episode with the protagonist getting a kidney stone and then being swallowed by a giant space whale, lol). To make matters worse, the leading characters are some of the dullest people ever with most of their motivation coming down to “the plot says so” than anything actually human.

Still, the novel’s most definitely worth reading if for the sheer depth of the setting alone.

Positive:	Negative:
Memorable, complex, epic setting	Dull, forgettable characters
A cool story, at least on paper	Lethargic pace
Full of grandiose ideas regarding concepts of time and ultimate intelligence	Painfully predictable plot
Analogies to Jesus Christ, and other historical persons and literature are cool	Littered with awkward sex scenes
Thought-provoking on the nature of men, AIs, and gods	Entire chapters could have been removed with no real effect to the overall plot
	Some of the references to literature and history feel like random name dropping rather than anything consequential