Storyline: 3/5 
 Characters: 2/5 
 Writing Style: 3/5 
 World: 4/5 
 Essentially six short stories intermittently interspersed into a meta-narrative, Hyperion packs a lot into its 483 pages. One of the most likely failings for an approach like this (in my opinion) is that in telling the back stories of six disconnected and wildly different individuals, each will be too limited to adequately convey their story. As it turns out, however, Simmons does a great job of squeezing in history, world-building, culture, and subplots into each of these backstories. What suffered, I was surprised to find, was the main plot. It crawled - inched - along. Not in that it was slow-moving; it was adequately paced, and I was intrigued. It simply did not get very far. So much of the book is comprised of the backstories that you actually get little of the Hyperion adventure about which the storyline revolves. Many first books in a series stop with a to-be-continued-ending that leaves matters unsatisfactorily wrapped up. In Hyperion the main story is just beginning. I'm pleased to have started this some time after it was originally published. It would have been immensely frustrating to have to wait a year for the story to make substantive progress. 
 The highly engaging writing is stilted by the use of bizarre adjectives to modify futuristically technical nouns. The opening chapter is perhaps the most egregious in the regard, and I encourage those who are put off by the lingo to read further. I was also disappointed in the character development. The backstories are used primarily to develop the world (beautifully and convincingly) and the drama (exciting), but the characters themselves are somewhat hollow. In many ways this deserves far more than the three stars I gave it here. Its value was diminished in large part because it wasn't complete. It would have been more satisfying as a single 1000 page novel.