The Fall of Hyperion

The Fall of Hyperion - Dan Simmons Masterwork is right. God alive, where do you even begin to start conceiving of a project like this? Huge pay-offs at the end, full on invasion and destruction of multiple worlds, the obliteration of the "Farcaster" network and depiction of all the ramifications and then its tears ahoy as Sol's daughter Rachel finally counts down the last seconds to the start - yes, start - of her life. All this and John Keats is a major character. There are two more novels in this sequence, but a detour to Artificial Intelligence-free waters beforehand I think.