The Fall of Hyperion

I'd say it's some of best science (?) fiction written, so I'm biased, but yes books 3 & 4 are worth it. It gets very bizarre and the ending has stuck with me for a long time.

In my youth, my favorite book is The Count of Monte Cristo, in college it is The Mind's I by Hofstadter and Dennett. (Actually for both I read their Chinese translations as I was in China). My favorite English book is The Fall of Hyperion.

Well I'm definitely into sci-fi literature. There's simply nothing else nowadays (being in my early thirties) which can caught my attention and limited free time. It's hard to sum it up to a couple of favorites... If you prefer hardcore sci-fi over the rest - as I do, those are definitely first choices: - Iain M. Banks Culture books ("Excession" being the best of all to me) - Simmon's "Hyperion" and "Fall of Hyperion" Some authors managed to bring some good pieces of space-opera without being too much cheesy: - Hamilton and his Void books, - and, of course, Herbert and the Dune stuff. But I must warn the casual reader here: those kind of books can get really massive. Second choices - but still really good books, would be stuff written by great guys like Asimov ("Foundation"), OS Card ("Enders game") or RC Wilson ("Spin").

Dan Simmons Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion are two of the best novels I've read. I read a lot of scifi, and I think they have held up very well compared to some other works that came out in the 80s through the early 90s. They present a lot of challenges that mankind may face in the future as our technology exceeds us, but they are also very entertaining.

+1 for "Hyperion" + "Fall of Hyperion" – both are amazing books that I just finished. Also, "Glasshouse" by Charles Stross was pretty rad too.