Hyperion has a number of peculiar indigenous flora and fauna, notably Tesla trees, which are essentially large electricity-spewing trees. It is described as having one-fifth less gravity than Earth standard. Much of the action in the series takes place on the planet Hyperion. Simmons goes so far as to have two artificial reincarnations of John Keats (' cybrids': artificial intelligences in human bodies) play a major role in the series. Quotes from actual Keats poems and the fictional Cantos of Martin Silenus are interspersed throughout the novels. Similarly, the title of the third novel is from Keats' poem Endymion. The title of the first novel, 'Hyperion', is taken from one of Keats's poems, the unfinished epic Hyperion.

The Hyperion series has many echoes of Jack Vance, explicitly acknowledged in one of the later books. A large number of technological elements are acknowledged by Simmons to be inspired by elements of Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World. Much of the appeal of the series stems from its extensive use of references and allusions from a wide array of thinkers such as Teilhard de Chardin, John Muir, Norbert Wiener, and to the poetry of John Keats, the famous 19th-century English Romantic poet, Norse Mythology, and the monk Ummon. A perceptive subset of those readers-perhaps the majority-know that this so-called epic actually consists of two long and mutually dependent tales, the two Hyperion stories combined and the two Endymion stories combined, broken into four books because of the realities of publishing. Some readers may know that I've written four novels set in the 'Hyperion Universe'- Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion, Endymion, and The Rise of Endymion. In his introduction to 'Orphans of the Helix', Simmons elaborates: The original Hyperion Cantos has been described as a novel published in two volumes, published separately at first for reasons of length. 'Orphans' is currently the final work in the Cantos, both chronologically and internally.

After the quartet was published came the short story ' Orphans of the Helix'. It then inspired his short story 'Remembering Siri', which eventually became the nucleus around which Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion formed. The Hyperion universe originated when Simmons was an elementary school teacher, as an extended tale he told at intervals to his young students this is recorded in ' The Death of the Centaur', and its introduction. ' Remembering Siri' (1983, included almost verbatim in Hyperion).The series also includes three short stories: This final novel in the series finishes the story begun in Endymion, expanding on the themes in Endymion, as Raul and Aenea battle the Church and meet their respective destinies.

Endymion hyperion