Hyperion

Some eight hundred years will pass, and a strange delegation of a strange cult that worships an inexorable monster will set off for the mysterious Tombs of Time, which violate Newton's laws and the general theory of relativity, to the absolutely provincial planet Hyperion. A Catholic priest, a colonel of the military space forces, a brilliant poet-slanderer, a Templar who drives a starship-tree, a quiet philosopher, a private detective and a nameless diplomat - each of them has a cherished desire and a secret goal, on which the future of not only several dozen billion people on two hundred planets, but also artificial intelligences and the mysterious posthuman race of Exiles may depend.
At the epicenter of passions and political intrigues is Hyperion.
At the epicenter of attention are the stories of pilgrims (about war, about love, about the environment, about carnal love and about Literature-with-a-Capital-Letter).
At the epicenter of the journey is an incomprehensible creature that punishes, beheads, and impales victims on the spikes of the (non)virtual Tree of Pain, but also bestows: blesses with immortality, goes against the clock and calendar pages, and exists in the status of a Mystery that cannot be solved...
Fantastic Hugo and Locus awards for 1990, the title of the best translated novel in Japan in 1995, and an apt, concise description from the respected Clute-Nichols encyclopedia: "The most ambitious epic in the space opera genre." All this is about the cycle of "Hyperion Songs" by Dan Simmons. And about "Hyperion" itself - its bright start, honored by dozens of critics and thousands of readers.