Dan Simmons' Hyperion saga, one of the richest and most imaginative creations in contemporary science fiction, comes to a close with this, the fourth book in the cycle. As The Rise Of Endymion opens, the Pope has died and been resurrected; the interstellar Catholic Church is solidifying its secret pact with a race of world-sized artificial intelligences while preparing for the new Crusades and Inquisition; the planet Earth has been stolen by unseen outsiders; and human geniuses from Jesus to Frank Lloyd Wright to John Keats are reliving their lives for reasons unknown. In the midst of all this chaos, the new Messiah and her companions set out to counter the Pope's machinations. It's a complex story—a classic battle for galactic dominance in the tradition of Frank Herbert's Dune or Gene Wolfe's Book Of The New Sun—and it offers plenty of deep theological questions and majestic alien landscapes in Simmons' elegant, easy style. Few writers have his combination of raw talent and narrative refinement, and few sagas are as thoughtfully entertaining as this one. Read the whole series.