Has anyone here read one or both of the books - Hyperion and the Fall of Hyperion in the Hyperion series? Dan Simmons is a great author when he's on song - and the writing is spectacular at times throughout both books - the intricate plotlines of both novels prove it, and it is a testament to the cohesiveness of the first and three-quarters of the second book that it all tied together, seeing as how I had read Hyperion about a year previously and only recently picked and finished the fall of hyperion. I won't ruin it for anyone who hasn't read it and wants to - but to anyone who has, what did you think of the ending of the second novel? To me it felt not so much like Deus Ex Machina, but a scrambled piece of mystical gobblygook that is a really disappointing end to the duology - It leaves a ton of unanswered questions and more really fudged pseudo-resolved questions. I felt that the quality and effort Simmons put into both books deserved more than what seems like a hasty conclusion. I'm aware that there is an accompanying Endymion duology - but unfortunately currently don't have the time required to leaf through another 1500-2000 pages or so, especially with the drastically lower reviews both books received. An insight from anyone who has read all four books would be appreciated. The ending shouldn't substantially detract from the spectacular scale of the original two novels though and the way that Simmons manages such a complex storyline, and it still has my highest recommendation for anyone with [i]a lot[/i] of time on their hands looking for a science fiction novel that really stands out from all this modern mediocrity.