I have just been reading some old Nemesis the Warlock stories (one of my favourite 2000 AD characters when I was a kid), and I’m also reading Dan Simmons’ Endymion at the same time. I suddenly had a moment of clarity and readlised that I had been picturing the Shrike as looking a lot like Nemesis the Warlock ever since I started reading the Hyperion Cantos. Without the sword and the cape though!

It’s funny isn’t it how you can use visual cultural references to visualize characters from text-based fiction. Another way of seeing the Shrike might also be the alien from the Alien films. Although for me the Shrike is a bit more spikey and less slobbery than Ridley Scott‘s alien, so perhaps Nemesis works better?

Someone has actually created an image of the Shrike. This is from Wikipedia, and was created by Nojhan: