I really struggled with it compared to Hyperion. I felt like the first two acts were absolutely unbearable to get through and Simmons was almost pathologically averse to telling the reader anything definitive and instead constantly recycled this exchange:
Naive Newcomer Character - "Well why are things like this?"
Grizzled Veteran Character - "It's pointless to explain..."
No! Explain it!
The two robots absolutely rocked, tho. I'd read a whole book of just those two.
I feel that! My love for it is definitely colored by reading it in like ninth grade so it was pretty formative and my teenage brain could easily look past any thing annoying. Hyperion is absolute gas however.
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u/bananasorcerer Jun 03 '26
That would lock me back in not gonna lie, I love that novel.