The Rise Of Endymion A science fiction written by Dan Simmons in 1997 Reviewed edition by Bantam from 1998 A paperback has 710 pages ISBN 0-553-57298-9 Click to rate this book from worst 1 2 3 4 5 to best.

A sequel to Endymion, the book picks up the flight of Aenea four years after she and her companions have reached the Old Earth and settled there to study with a cybrid of a 20th century architect. The architect dies and the group prepares to move on through the farcaster portals much in the same way it did before - only this time, Raul Endymion is not to accompany Aenea on her journey. For a while, the book follows Raul Endymion getting back to the spaceship the group has left behind. After a short (but far from uneventful) journey, Raul is reunited with Aenea, who is directing a reconstruction of a Buddhist temple. It is there that they are finally discovered by Pax and where the final showdown starts ...

have already touched the issue of fiction writers describing nonsensical contraptions in my short review of Endymion. The Rise Of Endymion does not improve in this area too much I'm afraid (just one example - when the Nemes killer machine phase-shifts, the author goes to great pains explaining the impossibility of communication with the external world that appears to stop in its tracks, the muting of sounds et cetera - only to let Nemes use sonar a few pages later).

Unfortunately, this is not the only weakness of the book. It looks as if Dan Simmons suddenly became unable to express himself through the events in the book - instead of hinting at things, the characters simply get together and explain their situation, their opinions, their actions - as if talking to a child. To add to the damage, this is done in what I would call a rather clumsy way - apart from simply preaching to masses, the characters indulge in long dialogues where one side explains its world views and the other keeps nodding in comprehension (or something else to that effect). Some of the statements feel almost arrogant in their absoluteness and still the other side does not object, even though in my experience absolute statements bring the fiercest of arguments. And taking into account occasional references to "naive 20th century", I cannot help but feel Dan Simmons simply turned the ending of the book into a crude soapbox to preach from.

Given the contrast with its predecessor, I would rate the book as an average one.

Rated as average by Ceres on 1998-09-26

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