Much of the appeal of the series stems from its extensive use of references and allusions from a wide array of thinkers such as Teilhard de Chardin, John Muir, Norbert Wiener, and to the poetry of John Keats, the famous 19th-century English Romantic poet, Norse Mythology, and the monk Ummon.
The Hyperion series has many echoes of Jack Vance, explicitly acknowledged in one of the later books.