Hyperion

Dan Simmons is an unusual writer. he earned the Hugo Award in 1989 for his novel Hyperion, which is one of the greatest Sci-fi sagas of all times (with Asimov's Robots, Foundation, Herbert's Dune, and Bradbury's Martian Chronicles). The Science Fiction Achievement Award is called "Hugo Award" as a hommage to its founder, Hugo Gernsback. The funny thing is that Hugo's parents called him Hugo in honor of the "father" of Science Fiction. You know, that French writer with a beard, in the 18th century... Yes, the Hugo Award owes its name to Jules Verne (only mistaken for Victor Hugo). 

Dan Simmons also received awards for his novels in crime, fantasy, and nonfiction. He is multitalented. He founded a school for gifted children, which served as the model for Charles Xavier's school in the movie X Men. 

Hyperion is a very complex collection of stories that eventually blend in together. As a rough guide, the plot is as follows:

a group of people who don't know each-other are sent on board a ship to planet Hyperion. They do not know why. They decide to try to understand, and each of them tells his story in turn. Soon, they discover they have all already gone to Hyperion, and have lived through very weird adventures. For instance, Colonel Kassav, a soldier quite obviously, took virtual training (as in virtual reality games today, only better) on that planet. During his first mission there, he met a girl who was happy to see him "again", but he had never seen her before. Then they meet again, and on their fifth meeting, Kassav is happy to see her again, but she does not know him... That is weird, but it is one piece of the puzzle that is the novel. 

Among the passenger, Sol Weintraub is the only one who never set foot on Hyperion, but he has a baby with him, Rachel, and that baby has been on Hyperion... He tells her story, and the passage below gives an explanation of what happened. 

Rachel was an archaeologist and explored Hyperion with her boss/boyfriend, Melio (a friend of her father's). She was 25 when she fell asleep in an artefact (the Sphinx) and since then she is "aging backward". Everyday, she forgets what happened between the first time she was her age and the second time she is that age. For instance, on her (second) twentieth birthday, she thinks "yesterday" was when she was 19 years, 11 months and 29 days, when in fact 10 years have elapsed since that day. 

Notice Simmons' choice of words: the lexical field of pain (loss, hit...). She decided to record herself because every day, poor Sol had to explain this all to her again, and every day it took her hours to actually believe him. Seeing herself helps gain time. She calls herself "kid" or "girl", because the Rachel who speaks (the older Rachel) knows things that the younger Rachel does not. It reassures her somehow, because it gives her a grasp on things, an impression that she can control something. 

Obviously, she is scared. In the short term, her worst concern is that she is going to forget Melio. But then two problems will occur: what will happen when she reaches zero? And how will her parents deal with it? Indeed, as she grows younger and becomes a child, Sol has to make her understand all these things, and, to add insult to injury, soon he needs to announce to her every morning that her mother is dead. 

Thanks to the other stories, they eventually weave the threads together and understand what is going on. The Sphinx is a "Time Tomb", a sort of Terminator sent back in time by machines in the future to destroy mankind before it even starts. But on her last night, Saul puts Rachel in the Sphinx again, and she now starts aging forward again, but back in time. Her yesterday is our tomorrow. She cannot interact with other beings in the real world. But in virtual reality, she is the woman Kassav met five times. When she is trained enough by the soldier, she will destroy the Sphinx and save mankind. 

The names of the characters tell much: Rachel in the Bible is the wife of Jacob, who gives birth to the "chosen people". And Sol is short for Solomon, the wise king who was ready to cleave a baby in two to know the truth. 

Try to translate from "when you sleep" to "last entry". 

Quand tu dors... quand nous dormons... tu oublies. Tu perds un autre jour de tes souvenirs d'avant l'accident, et tu perds tout ce qui s'est passé depuis. Ne me demande pas pourquoi. Les docteurs ne savent pas. Les experts ne savent pas. Si tu veux une anlaogie, pense à un virus qui efface la mémoire magnétique... comme sur les vieux appareils... qui mangerait les données de ton intog... en commençant par la dernière entrée et en remontant dans le temps. 

Comlog, c'est "computer log", le journal intime de l'an 2739. La technologie n'existe pas encore. Je combine intime et blog pour faire intog.