The Rise of Endymion - Part 3

We start the new year with part three of The Rise of Endymion by Dan Simmons from 1997. We return with...exposition! In a very long scene on the popesteroid, Pope Hoyt brings in Councilor Albedo to explain to the various church leaders that Aenea is carrying a literal engineered virus that will spread through humanity, kill off the cruciforms, and then evolve humans into the Ousters. This is apparently a bad thing? So to combat that, they have been putting billions of people without cruciforms in stasis and stashing them in the labyrinth worlds in a plan that the TechnoCore promises totally isn't evil, swearsies. Anyway, remember all that stuff about the three warring factions in the TechnoCore? Yeah, apparently that's not really the case so just forget all that. This revelation just about breaks Fillip's spirit. Meanwhile, Raul spends an interminable amount of time floating through the atmosphere of a gas giant in his kayak looking at clouds. Eventually, he's eaten by a giant cuttlefish thing, but then we just join up with Raul after the cuttlefish flings him through the next Farcaster to end up back with the Consul's ship. The fact that we spend no time with Raul in the cuttlefish is the most baffling thing since the fact those things on that ice planet were called "wraiths". Anyway, Raul and the ship head off to find Aenea, but conveniently, meeting her will incur a five-year time debt, so she'll be an adult by the time Raul arrives. Those noises you here are Danielle gagging at the thought, and frankly, we're all on her side. So we enter part two of the book on a real downer, will Raul and Aenea finally meet up? Will it be as creepy as we fear? Probably! Special thanks to friend of the pod and honorary co-host Filip from Mind Duck Books for joining us! Find Mind Duck Books on Twitter @mindduckbooks, Instagram @mindduckbooks, and listen wherever you get your podcasts.