Talk:Hyperion Cantos

Reality check

Hyperion Cantos is two books - Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion - not four. This is the Hyperion Cantos; it's right there on the cover. Endymion and the Rise of Endymion are in the same universe, but were written years later. Even the Spanish language edition, released in 2008, includes only the original two books.[1] If this article is intended to address the entire body of Simmons's work in the Hyperion universe, it should be at a title that reflects that. Hyperion Cantos is a specific part of that story. As far as I am aware, there is no published version of a book entitled Hyperion Cantos that includes all four novels. Am I wrong? Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 06:23, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

If HC refers just to the duology, why do so many people think it refers to the full tetralogy, or the Hyperion universe?

http://www.google.com/cse?cx=009114923999563836576%3A1eorkzz2gp4&q=%22hyperion+cantos%22+endymion --Gwern (contribs) 13:25 26 January 2010 (GMT)

I don't know. Lots of people think Sherlock Holmes said, "Elementary, my dear Watson", but that doesn't make them right, you know? It's not the sort of thing that popular opinion can change; Hyperion Cantos is just the two books. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 15:25, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Language is its use, nothing else.

And your evidence is an edition from 1990, 6 years before Endymion? That is very stupid - how can an edition published before the 2 books in question say anything one way or another about whether the 2 books are part of the Cantos? We already know E&RE were not originally part of Simmons's story and became part of the series partway through, but that doesn't show they weren't also made part of the Cantos.

I also deplore your lack of researching - if describing the Cantos as 4 volumes is good enough for DanSimmons.com (http://www.dansimmons.com/about/pub_hist.htm), it's good enough for us. A simple site search would have turned that up: http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=%22hyperion%20cantos%22%20site%3Adansimmons.com --Gwern (contribs) 15:46 26 January 2010 (GMT)

First of all, I'd appreciate it if you would avoid the name calling. There's no need to get so excited.

I referenced the 1990 edition because it's the one I have. I also pointed out a 2008 edition which hasn't changed. There are several other editions published in the 2000s that are the same. It really doesn't matter what Dan Simmons says, either; publishers name books. The book is the book. If there are no newer editions, then the book is still the book. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 16:14, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

By the way: I missed having you around. A much-belated welcome back. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 18:25, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

The 2008 edition and others seem to be blind copies of the original 1990 edition. If we are to vaunt publisher data so much, then what do you make of Amazon listing "(Hyperion Cantos)" for Endymion and Rise of Endymion?

Common sense tells us that all 4 books form a quartet; we have scads of links which say the Cantos is 4 books; we have the author's own website describing it as 4 books - and to oppose all this, you have some obscure omnibus editions? This isn't even something to argue about.

As for coming back - I vow to be the same old surly, combative, know-it-all eventuo-inclusionist I always was! --Gwern (contribs) 18:36 26 January 2010 (GMT)

Amazon lists two Endymion audiobooks under Cantos, as a search term (but you'll notice the word "Cantos" does not actually appear anywhere on them). Of course common sense tells us that four books form a quartet; but common sense does not tell us that the Hyperion Cantos is necessarily a quartet. In fact, it's quite plain to see that the Cantos is two books. I don't need to analyze search terms and google results to reach that conclusion; I'm holding the book in my hand and I can see what it is. Unless you're holding a version in your hand that includes four books, it doesn't matter.

In the same vein, the Hitchhiker's Guide has a long history of sequels and upgraded editions. "The Complete Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" is not, in fact, complete. To get all of the stories, you'd need "The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". More stories being published and included later doesn't change the fact that "The Complete Guide" is a specific set of books.

If fans of Hyperion (if those exist, it's news to me - I thought I was the only one, these long 20 years) refer to the entire storyline as the Hyperion Cantos, that's fine. It's similar to Star Wars fans referring to the entire storyline as Star Wars. But according to the intro, and the banner at the top of this talk page, this article is about the book, "Hyperion Cantos", not the overall universe. And the book, as it was originally published and is still published today, is a set of two. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 19:21, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

It's not just all the fans on Simmons's personal forum (strangely, he has yet to correct them that the Hypercion Cantos is a duology rather than a tetralogy), or Simmons's own description; it's all the reviews and whatnot.

As I said, it doesn't matter if a rare 1989 printing, and re-printings every couple years, claim to be the Hyperion Cantos or not. They are out-dated. Simmons has said that when he was writing Hyperion & Fall, he didn't have Endymion & Rise in mind. (He says this in the author notes to the Siri story in Prayers to Broken Stones, incidentally.) They came later. To use a Star Wars example, it'd be like asking George Lucas in 1977 whether Star Wars was 1 movie or 6 - he doesn't have a freaking clue whether A New Hope will be successful enough to merit 1 sequel, much less 5, and certainly he hasn't actually written or thought out what would go into them.

What matters is authorial intent, and Simmons's website gives his intent pretty darn clearly. Adams gave his intent about the Trilogy (rather than heptology or whatever) by things like joking about how he calls it a trilogy even though it has 4 or 5 books in it. Why privilege your random book over the author's description in the case of Simmons, but not Adams? --Gwern (contribs) 21:47 30 January 2010 (GMT)

What do you mean, my book? I didn't publish it.

Look - just show me the ISBN of a book called Hyperion Cantos that contains all four stories, and we're done here. Can you do that? Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 22:34, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

As soon as you show me a statement by Simmons post- Endymion that the Cantos is 2 books. --Gwern (contribs) 22:42 31 January 2010 (GMT)

Yeah, that's what I thought. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 23:46, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Kafziel, I have no idea where you got the idea that this article was about a 2 book compilation, or even about any single published work. Further evidence that the Cantos is 4 books long, see the covers to Endymion, and The Rise of Endymion. Endymion's cover calls it "The long-awaited sequel to Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion". And the cover of Rise of Endymion features the gem "The triumphant conclusion to the Hyperion Series". And, to further support the idea that the Cantos is all 4 books, the Cantos written in the books themselves contains the text of the entire second duology (as we read it), as written by Raul Endymion, and contain an account of the events of the first two books as recorded by Martin Silenus. So despite your bizarre objection to the second two books, they remain a part of the Hyperion Cantos.--DriftingLeaf (talk) 23:06, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Cutting out the chaff

I think that we should split this up into smaller articles, for example, "Planets of the Hyperion Cantos" should probably be its own article, for the sake of space, if nothing else. The summaries of each book should probably be removed, since all of the main articles for the books contain (overly) extensive summaries of each book. Does anyone have any ideas on how we could reduce the length of the character lists? (Perhaps we should remove that to a separate article as well?) —Preceding unsigned comment added by DriftingLeaf (talk • contribs) 06:25, 30 January 2010 (UTC)