Evolving Humanity and Mystical Empathy in Dan Simmons’s Hyperion Cantos

Completed more than two decades ago, Dan Simmons’s Hyperion Cantos quartet of novels—Hyperion (1989), The Fall of Hyperion (1990), Endymion (1995), and The Rise of End­ymion (1997)—offers timely perspective on contemporary geopolitics by juxtaposing cruel excesses of self-serving powers with the life-giving value of human love. His imagining of a universal force of empathy, mystically experienced across the reaches of space, offers a welcome counterweight to current claims that “empathy is a sin,” while his elevation of environmental concerns speaks to cultural clashes over the nature of value and the value of nature. His vision of still-evolving humanity draws on Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in projecting the potential transcendence of human limits, including through human and AI convergence. Humanity’s future, Simmons argues, depends on embracing forms of freedom that acknowledge the power of human connection while rejecting those that divide and oppress.