Ilium (Paperback: Reprint: 731 pages)

Homer Only Got Part of the Story

By Anne of Aramink  Sep 19, 2006

Pros: Intricate plot, complex characters, lots of literary references, great plot

Cons: None

The "Iliad" told the story of the Trojan War, the Trojan War that happened three thousand years ago, give or take a few centuries, here on our own planet. Dan Simmons' remarkable duology, Ilium and its sequel, Olympos, tell the story of the Trojan War that will happen on Mars two thousand years in the future, give or take a century or two. In Ilium we are introduced to two story lines: what is happening in the Trojan War of the future, and what is happening on Earth in the future. The only nexus between the two seems to be the presence of a character named Odysseus. But is he the same person? He barely plays a part in the Trojan War that we observe, but he quickly becomes a main character on the future Earth as the few surviving "old-style" humans come to learn that the existence of their race is threatened by voynix, hybrid animal-machines, that used to serve the humans but are now killing them. Added to this mix are the living manifestations of Caliban and Setebos, Prospero and Ariel. Two of our favorite characters are living robots from Jupiter who have studied the old-style human culture and quote Shakespeare and Proust. Achilles, Big and Little Ajax, Patroclus, Hector, Agamemnon, Paris, and all the other Greek and Trojan heroes are alive and well and fighting with heroic brutality. Helen of Troy, Cassandra, Andromache, and the other Trojan women have marvelously devious personalities. And the gods - yes the entire Greek pantheon - are present in mind-boggling egotistic avarice and deviousness. instead of merely god-like powers, though, they have quantum science at their disposal. Dan Simmons has once again created worlds worthy of book awards. Like his Hyperion and Endymion books, Ilium and Olympos are certain to be science fiction classics.