Shadow of Hyperion
Series: The Hybrid Helix, #4
Author: JCM Berne
Genre: Space Fantasy
Book Description:
Rohan once served the Empire. At great cost, he earned his freedom, and has since sought nothing more than to finish his shift in peace and figure out where his love life is going. Then he receives a message from Earth, calling in a favor. A plea for the kind of help only The Griffin can provide. Reluctantly, he recalls his mentor. The man who taught him how to live with his cursed Power. A man who had been the galaxy’s greatest hope, before the il’Drach sent him to his death. What would Hyperion do?
Review:
Shadow of Hyperion is a fun, relatively lighter read. It’s not without some heavier themes, relating to power and anger, or what it means to have relationships with people, but for all that it’s a fairly light read. But if you’ve read The Hybrid Helix so far, you kind of know what to expect in that department and what Rohan’s humor is like, and how readable it is. These books are easier to read, easy to fly through, and usually engaging and entertaining.
I will say, Shadow of Hyperion didn’t live up to the first three for me, in several different ways. I found the beginning to be a bit slow and boring, but that have just been my mood at the time. I don’t know. I just know that when I came back a bit later and pushed myself through, it soon got entertaining and engaging, and I kind of didn’t want to stop reading until I was done and I saw how everything fit together.
So, if you liked The Hybrid Helix so far for Rohan’s sense of humor, and how he copes with his past and present situations, and the fight scenes (which I have to say are some of the more entertaining fight scenes I know of), and the general aesthetic, and so forth, that’s all still there.
However, there were a few things that pushed me away from this book, despite the fact that it’s a really fun, entertaining read, and really easy to read. Some of that may be the genre of the book finally catching up to me: I do avoid anything set in the real world or an imaginative version of what the real world might be like for a reason. Anything where there’s real world religions, and the author gets to explaining them or their gods and speculating to their origins, in the context of their fantasy world, just gets to me eventually. This one includes the “gods are created from the thoughts and worship of people” trope, and … it can sometimes be interesting, but my relationship to that one is complicated at the best of times and it gets boring or annoying really easily.
I guess I didn’t really mind the stuff about the Greek Gods in Return of the Griffin because – well, to put it shortly, we have a lot of Greek stories that are kind of in that fantastical vein, and that’s all many of us (myself included) really know about them. But in this particular case, without spoiling too much, the implication is made that aliens are responsible for the worship of unseen gods, and some reasons for why are given. I don’t think the author meant any harm, and I want to emphasize that, in the current climate. This isn’t an attack on the author.
This is just letting you know, so if you likewise don’t enjoy these elements, you can stay away from them.
The other thing is – I just didn’t relate to Rohan in the same way in this book. It might be that I missed where the emphasis on him and his character and character growth is now, maybe it’s in one of those areas that are off my maps, but I feel like his emotions and responses kind of got glossed over and didn’t get the time that they did in the earlier books. He messes up with his power at one point, pretty badly, and yeah, I get he’s worked through some things so I may not expect the crisis of conscience that might have precipitated back in, say, Wistful Ascending or even Blood Reunion, but I still expected more. Instead, it just feels … done and gone.
Another thing I wondered, is this one introduces the idea that he’s definitely suffering some traumatic lash-back from some very unpleasant things that happened to him earlier in the series. And I’m wondering why I haven’t seen any of that or heard about it earlier?
Also, I’m not sure how I feel about the developments in his relationship with the girl, and her husband. Some of it felt a tad bit forced.
Anyway, yeah, it was fun and entertaining, but I just didn’t like the stuff about the gods, and where Rohan is now, I’m not connecting to him in the same way. I didn’t really relate to the themes in this book, but not so much it wasn’t entertaining or very readable.
If you’re one of those people who likes long, long series, personally I wouldn’t worry about this at all. Something I’m always concerned about when I pick up a long series is whether the freshness and depth of the character and the story will stay there throughout, or whether things’ll start to feel a little forced to keep things going or a little stale. And if long, long series are your thing, you’re probably not sensitive to the same things I am and this won’t be a problem for you!
Goodness, I know some people want to move on and stop hearing what they already know the characters are feeling and thinking, so if it was the way I liked it best, a lot of people might get bored of that, if not in Shadow of Hyperion, then at least by book six or seven.
And depending on what elements are getting the focus in the next book, whether it’s more god stuff or something completely different, I’ll likely pick it up, in case my inability to relate as well to Rohan in this book was a case of “currently something outside my perception is being explored, and maybe it’ll come back to the places I can actually see later.
Review for Book One (Wistful Ascending)
Enthralled By Love 