Endymion

Endymion is a 1996 science fiction novel by American author Dan Simmons. The third novel in his Hyperion Cantos series, it takes place in the fictional universe of the same name, introducing the protagonists Raul and Aenea Endymion. The story takes place 274 years after an event called “The Fall,” caused by the destruction of an artificial intelligence that evolved out of control, leaving Hyperion in ruin. Raul Endymion is tapped by Martin Silenus, one of the few people surviving from the fall, to locate Aenea, who is allegedly his niece. The novel, like its two predecessors, reached an enthusiastic popular audience; it was also shortlisted for the Locus Award in 1997.

At the beginning of the novel, Raul Endymion is working in Hyperion as a hunting guide. When a hunter inexplicably attacks him, he kills him to protect himself. Though the hunter resurrects himself using futuristic technology, Endymion is framed for his murder and receives a death sentence. When he wakes up on the day of his public execution, he is not in jail, but in the home of an old man, Martin Silenus. Silenus tells him that he saved him from being executed so that he could help him find Aenea, who is about to appear in the present day at a time-traveling portal called the Time Tomb. Once Endymion finds Aenea, Silenus hopes that they will locate the lost planet Earth and destroy the army of the fascist, all-powerful Church, called the Pax. Endymion thinks Silenus is mentally ill, but he takes the assignment. He is joined by Silenus’s robot servant A. Bettik; together, they ride on an old Consul starship.

The Pax anticipates Aenea’s arrival at the Time Tomb on Hyperion; Father-Captain Federico de Soya waits there to capture her. When she appears, an opposing army called The Shrike appears along with her and kills most of the Pax forces. Endymion finds Aenea and they flee to the starship, making their escape to Parvati before the Pax catches up. Though Aenea is only twelve, Endymion senses that she is capable of great things. Father de Soya pilots a famous ship, the Raphael, to fly to Parvati before Endymion and Aenea. They intercept them, but Aenea forces them to let her escape by threatening to commit suicide. Aenea steers the ship into a farcaster, a portal that teleports them to an unknown planet situated in a cosmic river called the River Tethys. Their ship is damaged, so they take flight via a makeshift raft as de Soya closes in.



The raft takes Endymion and Aenea to another farcaster, which teleports them to a new planet called Mare Infinitus. They search the flooded planet for another farcaster, and then travel to a desolate Jewish planet, Hebron. Meanwhile, de Soya predicts that his targets will end up in a region controlled by the Ousters, a civilization hostile to the Pax. He and his men travel there to wait, but die due to technical difficulties; they are forced to resurrect on their base planet, Pacem. The Pax government adds Rhadamanth Nemes, a brutal soldier of an engineered race, to de Soya’s crew, and sends them back out. Raul, Aenea, and Bettik travel through several more planets, reaching one called God’s Grove. De Soya gets word that the Pope, through divine revelation, has located Aenea in Sol Draconi Septem. They rush to the planet and Nemes brutally kills many members of a friendly race of creatures called the Chitchatuk, and a blind priest, Father Glaucus. Startled by her single-minded ruthlessness, Soya begins to distrust Nemes.

Nemes takes a small ship out of the Raphael and waits to ambush Aenea in God’s Grove. Meanwhile, Aenea explains the true fate of Earth: its location was moved by a mysterious power called the UI, or human-made Ultimate Intelligence. Aenea blames an older technology, the Technocore, for supplying power to the Church. Not long after, they fall into Nemes’ ambush. A. Bettik loses an arm, but Aenea and Raul escape to the river. Nemes tries to kill Aenea but is stopped by the planet’s guardian, the Shrike. They battle until they reach a deadlock, but then Nemes thwarts her adversary by transporting him five minutes into the future, then takes aim for Aenea. Father de Soya enters the atmosphere via the Raphael and kills Nemes with a large energy cannon. Nemes falls into a lake of lava.

De Soya realizes that he has been made a pawn of corrupt agents who have infiltrated the Pax. He helps Aenea to her ship and sets her free, then travels to Pacem to figure out what is happening. Endymion, Aenea and A. Bettik find another farcaster and finally make it to Old Earth. The planet now orbits a new star in a nebula called the Magellanic Cloud and is flourishing again. Aenea lands the ship in Fallingwater, Pennsylvania. At the novel’s end, she becomes the protégé of an architect, though she intends to one day continue the battle against the sinister forces of the universe.