It's pretty rare that I give a book a full five stars, especially with my skepticism of "great" genre reading, but Hyperion is a gem. The Canterbury Tales structure is brilliantly executed and thoughtfully woven together. The pervasive literary allusion is delicious. Simmons takes a love of scifi and a love of literature and writes this beautiful mixture of the two. The book is wrenching, it's funny, it's compelling, elegantly styled and written, dipping into different genres and voices. Hyperion is fantastic.

My only gripe was the cliff hanger ending. Now I need the next book!