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PaperclipPerfector  14hr ago (text post)   465 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 13, 2026

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I finished my re-read of Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion. I first read them 20ish years ago and didn't remember much about them aside from the Shrike and big group of travelers. Overall I was disappointed and perhaps there's a reason I didn't remember much about them. The writing style was far clunkier than I expected and Fall suffered from the problem where chapters from different characters' POVs slows a novel to a halt. Fall also felt like he was being paid by the word, such as paragraphs describing something in detail that had already been described in detail. I was invested in some of the characters, but once it became a galactic struggle of humanity against the AIs, I mostly lost interest. Like most books involving some time travel, I'm fairly certain it's not internally consistent, but I don't care enough to reread it again and find the contradictions.

Now reading some silly vampire books. First was Coffin Moon by Rosson, which sold me with its badass cover. Solidly B grade but that's all I expected. Now working on The Dracula Tape from 1975, which retells the Dracula story from his point of view and came out a year before Anne Rice's famous vampire POV novel. It's well-written and captures a good "I'm the poor misunderstood victim" tone without much whining. Next will be Stainless by Grimson, which is a noir vampire book from 1996 that was hard to find for a while until McNally Editions issued a reprint.

The writing style was far clunkier than I expected

It's been a few years, but I recall thinking that the prose in Hyperion was pretty good. It's not something most (many?) science fiction authors are very strong in, though, and it may have been a relative observation.

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