History Literature / HyperionCantos

* ItIsPronouncedTroPAY: Raul Endymion. Normally pronounced like the spanish "Raúl" (rhymes with "cool") but early on he specifies that it actually rhymes with "''Paul''".

Eight hundred years into the future, humanity has fled the Earth's accidental destruction at the hands of an [[FreakLabAccident artificial black hole]] and has established the [=WorldWeb=], a society of many planets connected through the [[PortalNetwork Farcaster network]]. With the help of its allies in the [=TechnoCore=] (a group of AIs), mankind lives in peace... until the mysterious "Ousters", a splinter race of humanity adapted to living in deep space, attack.

-->'''Technocore Representative''': ''Declaring war against the core would be like… like a fish declaring war on water. Like a driver attacking his EMV because of disturbing news of an accident elsewhere.''
-->'''Gladstone''': ''I once had a grandfather on Patawpha… who put six slugs from a pulse rifle into the family EMV when it did not start one morning. You are dismissed, Councilor.''

* FalloutShelterFail: In the second book, the leader of one religion builds a shelter for himself deep inside a mountain to live in comfort until the end of the world his church expects. He gets a massive Oh, Crap! moment when the end of the world doesn't come... but the collapse of the PortalNetwork does. To explain, the portals were the only way to get in or out of the shelter... or to let air ''in.''

* OhCrap: When Kassad is in a simulation of the [[UsefulNotes/TheHundredYearsWar Battle of Agincourt]] he notices that, while he may be trained with virtually every kind of weaponry there is, from futuristic guns to the longbow, he doesn't have ''any'' of those things on hand... and he's just unthinkingly charged alone after a heavily armed knight. His reaction: ''"Ah shit."''

* SapientCetaceans: There is mention of intelligent telepathic dolphins. Unfortunately they are noted to have been hunted nearly to extinction two hundred years prior... ''because'' they were sentient.

* SwissArmyGun: The multipurpose FORCE assault rifle. A [[EnergyWeapon laser-shooting]] [[SecondaryFire flechette-grenade-launching]] DisintegratorRay [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot particle cannon]] [[MoreDakka fully-automatic]] [[{{Troperiffic}} sniper rifle]]. It noted that the only thing it was ''not'' designed to do is cook the troops food... but with its energy output set to its lowest setting, it could probably do that too.

* ZeroGSpot: Raul and Aenea's weightless consummation of their relationship in the Ouster Startree is described in great... detail.

* SwissArmyGun: The multipurpose FORCE assault rifle. A [[EnergyWeapon laser-shooting]] [[SecondaryFire flechette-grenade-launching]] DisintegratorRay [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot particle cannon]] [[MoreDakka fully-automatic]] [[{{Troperiffic}} sniper rifle]]. It noted that the only thing it was ''not'' designed to do is cook the troops food...but with its energy output set to its lowest setting, it could probably do that too.

* TheWhitesOfTheirEyes: Averted and Lampshaded. Spacebattles in the series take places at ranges of millions of kilometers, and it's noted that modern infantry would find the ranges that most fictional starships engage at to be claustrophobic

* RiverOfInsanity : Father Duré's expedition to the mysterious Bikura tribe on Hyperion, retold by Hoyt in "The Priest's Tale".

* SapientCetaceans: There is mention of intelligent telepathic dolphins. Unfortunately they are noted to have been hunted nearly to extinction two hundred years prio...''because'' they were sentient.

** The Shrike can, and ''does'', kill thousands of people and destroys dozens of vehicles in less then a picosecond. ''Literally''.

* HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler:De Soya, and (most) the crew of both his ''Archangel'' ships.]]

* HeroOfAnotherStory: [[spoiler:Rachel]]'s adventures are hinted at in a few tantalizing scenes in first, second and fourth books.

** Father Duré, who was crucified on a "[[ElectricTorture Tesla Tree]]" but was not able to die due to parasitic "cruciform" that continually revived him.

* AuthorAppeal: Simmons is a former English teacher, so it amuses him to stuff his genre fiction with as many literary references as he can get away with. The first novel in the series, ''Hyperion'', is a WholePlotReference to Chaucer's ''Literature/TheCanterburyTales''. The works of Creator/JohnKeats also factors heavily into the series.

* AIIsACrapshoot: The [=TechnoCore=] is composed of artifical intelligences who seceded from human control several centuries ago and peacefully coexist with humanity. This looks like a subversion until we learn the inner politics of the core, with the [=AIs=] falling into three political factions. Of the three, one wants to continue peaceful coexistence with humanity, one wants to wipe humanity out, and the third wants to keep humanity around--at least until it finishes its goal of creating the Ultimate Intelligence, of which humanity ''could'' be a useful component, and then they can let the Ultimate Intelligence decide what to do with humanity.. This stalemate of "spare," "kill," and "don't kill right now," is what leads to the Core's nominally symbiotic relationship with the Hegemony. This trope is played ''much'' straighter in ''The Fall of Hyperion.''

* ArtificialHuman: Androids in the series are nearly identical to regular humans, and "cybrids" are androids that act as biological terminals for the [=TechnoCore=].

* UniversalDriversLicense: Raul contemplates this in ''Endymion'' as he considers stealing an "ornithopter". He realizes he can't fly one, and [[LampshadeHanging muses that a fictional hero should be able to pilot ''any'' vehicle]].

* FaunsAndSatyrs: Martin Silenus undergoes body modifications in order to turn himself into a satyric figure.

* DeathRay: The oft-mentioned Deathwand. Point it at something and turn it on and it dies. Cause of death, "They died."

* EndOfAnAge: In Fall of Hyperion, [[spoiler:the destruction of the farcaster network results in the immediate collapse of the [=WorldWeb=] and marks the end of the Hegemony.]]