The Shrike is a half-mechanical, half-organic creature from Dan Simmons' science fiction Hyperion Cantos.[1] The Shrike stands roughly three meters in height and is described as being composed of razorwire, thorns, blades, and cutting edges, having fingers like scalpels and long, curved toe blades. Though metallic in appearance ("quicksilver over chrome"), the Shrike is also described as an 'organic' machine, humanoid in a general way, but with four 'oddly jointed' arms and intense, multi-faceted ruby eyes. It has the ability to control the flow of time, and may thus appear to travel infinitely fast.
The Shrike appears in all four Hyperion Cantos books and is an enigma; its purpose isn't revealed until the second book, but even then left malleable. The explanation is changed significantly in the latter two books (The Endymion duology). The Shrike appears to act both autonomously and as a servant of some unknown force or entity, and in the first two Hyperion books, exists solely in the area around the Time Tombs on the planet Hyperion. In the latter two, it is effectively unfettered.