"Hyperion" by Dan Simmons

This is the third time I am reading Hyperion, and it gets better every time, just like Neuromancer. Simmons is a former English professor who specialized in Keats, thus it is no wonder the novel is titled by the Keats' last and unfinished poem, before his untimely demise at 26.  Simmons uses the Hyperian Cantos as a literary device for one of his characters, the centuries-old poet Martin Silenius. 

Hyperion is a planet in the Dan Simmons universe which is dominated by the self-conscious AIs of the TechnoCore, the unimaginable All-Thing that advises all governments of the known universe, the FTL Spinships and Dropships, the FarCaster technology for instantaneous transfer and by humans who seem too pampered and too lost.

The Shrike is a time-traveling monster on Hyperion, with 4 hands and teeth and spikes made of razor.  There's a Church of the Shrike, after old religions disappeared, like Catholicism, Judaism and Islam, sentenced to small communities on backwater planets.  The Church of the Shrike organizes 7 pilgrims to go to Hyperion and be sacrificed.  Or will they?

Then there are the Ousters.  Early human space explorers who never bought into the idea of AI and never had anything to do with the TechnoCore.  They develop on their own, choosing to augment their own bodies with prosthetic and implants, instead of relying on external suits, equipment and AI. 

And there's much more in the expansive vision of Simmons continuing into the next book The Fall of Hyperion, then Endymion and the Rise of Endymion (with a short story as a fifth piece to round up the vision).