Hyperion -- Dan Simmons

This atmospheric, occasionally lyrical, sci-fi is formatted around Boccacio’s 14^th century novel about seven character sharing stories as they shelter from the plague, The Decameron. The seven narrators must travel to the planet of Hyperion on the eve of interplanetary war to face the Shrike. Each traveler has a distinct voice and style: transcendent, violent, poetic, sad, mysterious, and romantic. With complex and layered world building, Simmons discreetly weaves together a civilizational epic of our ecological and philosophical decline through compelling personal stories.