Endymion (1996)
Endymion is a 1996 science fiction book written by Dan Simmons.
Nearly three centuries after the Fall, the farcasters are dead and a resurgent Church called the Pax rules human space, offering the faithful literal resurrection. On backwater Hyperion, Raul Endymion, a young hunting guide facing execution, receives a stranger sentence: protect Aenea, a girl about to step out of the Time Tombs from a past age, and carry her across the old web of worlds. An android named A. Bettik and a very familiar starship come along; Father Captain de Soya, decent and relentless, hunts them from world to world. Simmons trades the Cantos' epic frame for a river-borne chase and a slow-growing bond.
Quick answers
What is Endymion about?
Nearly three centuries after the Fall, the farcasters are dead and a resurgent Church called the Pax rules human space, offering the faithful literal resurrection. On backwater Hyperion, Raul Endymion, a young hunting guide facing execution, receives a stranger sentence: protect Aenea, a girl about to step out of the Time Tombs from a past age, and carry her across the old web of worlds. An android named A. Bettik and a very familiar starship come along; Father Captain de Soya, decent and relentless, hunts them from world to world. Simmons trades the Cantos' epic frame for a river-borne chase and a slow-growing bond.
When was Endymion published?
Endymion was published on 14 December 1998.
Who made Endymion?
Endymion was written by Dan Simmons.
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Explore Endymion guides
Endymion in our writing
- Companion guide: Hyperion Cantos: The Complete Guide to Dan Simmons' Far-Future Epic
A few thoughts on Endymion
The Mandalorian runs on the same engine: a hired protector, a child who matters more than anyone around her understands, and a chase across half-ruined worlds. Children of Men shares the book's core image of one miraculous young person carried through a hostile world. Both trade Endymion's river of worlds for grit, but the devotion is the same.
One guardian, one extraordinary kid, and a galaxy giving chase
Endymion is one long chase: Raul protects a girl who matters more than he understands while an empire's warships hunt them across a dying network of worlds. The Mandalorian runs the same job with a different ship, and Children of Men turns it into a desperate dash across a collapsing country. Galaxy Express 999 sends its own boy across the stars with a companion who isn't quite what she seems.
Hunted by a church that promises eternal life
The Pax in Endymion offers resurrection to the faithful and hunts anyone who threatens that promise. The Matrix runs a controlling system of false comfort and a chosen figure it wants gone, and Phoenix centers its whole myth on the same kind of immortality worth killing over. Witch & Wizard and The Marrow Thieves follow young people hunted for what they are, and Swan Song sends a gifted young woman across a ruined country with danger closing in.