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Ilium (Ilium #1)

3.97 of 5 stars 3.97 · rating details · 10,549 ratings · 492 reviews

The Trojan War rages at the foot of Olympos Mons on Mars—observed and influenced from on high by Zeus and his immortal family—and twenty-first-century professor Thomas Hockenberry is there to play a role in the insidious private wars of vengeful gods and goddesses. On Earth, a small band of the few remaining humans pursues a lost past and devastating truth—as four sentient

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Paperback, 752 pages

Published June 28th 2005 by HarperTorch (first published 2003)

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May 04, 2013 Clouds - (¿head-in-the?) rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction-series, locus-sci-fi, science-fiction, reviewed, 5-star

Christmas 2010: I realised that I had got stuck in a rut. I was re-reading old favourites again and again, waiting for a few trusted authors to release new works. Something had to be done.

On the spur of the moment I set myself a challenge, to read every book to have won the Locus Sci-Fi award. That’s 35 books, 6 of which I’d previously read, leaving 29 titles by 14 authors who were new to me.

While working through this reading list I got married, went on my honeymoon, switched career and became...more

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Oct 27, 2012 Jayaprakash Satyamurthy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction

Most excellent.

I like SF, and I like much of what gets lumped under the rather stuffy title 'classic literature'. Clearly, so does Dan Simmons. Set in a very distant future, long after both AI and posthumans have merged, this novel contains three main storylines, all of which ventually intersect.

First, there's a group of languid, pleasure-seeking old-style humans living on old earth, all their needs taken care of by mechanical servitors left for them, presumably, by the posthumans. Upon comple...more

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Sep 07, 2011 Jonathan Cullen rated it 5 of 5 stars

"Literary science fiction". One of the words in this phrase struggles and strains against the other two like an 18-month old who doesn't want to be picked up. It doesn't want to be associated with a genre that often is long on ideas and short on quality prose and sharp and distinct style. It often succeeds in escaping the pull of science fiction's weak gravity. Occassionaly, an author creates a story that is so dense that the word is held in place in an unstable orbit. Ultimately many of those f...more "Literary science fiction". One of the words in this phrase struggles and strains against the other two like an 18-month old who doesn't want to be picked up. It doesn't want to be associated with a genre that often is long on ideas and short on quality prose and sharp and distinct style. It often succeeds in escaping the pull of science fiction's weak gravity. Occassionaly, an author creates a story that is so dense that the word is held in place in an unstable orbit. Ultimately many of those fail under their own weight and implode into the speculative fiction black hole. Rarely, very rarely, O Muse, an author has the incredible imagination, literary style and guts to weave together a story with just the right mix of literary competence, adventure, science and kickassedness to balance needed to sustain the phrase. Dan Simmons did it with Hyperion with inhuman aplomb.

And yes, he does it again with Ilium. It's freaking awesome.

While Hyperion gave us a structure loosely based on the classic Chauceresque frame story, Ilium is straight up Homeric Trojan War. On Mars. With robots from Jupiter obsessed with Shakespeare and Proust. With the Greek gods and quantum teleportation. On Mars. Oh and dinosaurs. We take in a lot of the action from the point of view of a formelly dead scholar. Oh yes, Simmons has taken his favourite weapon of intertextuality and speared himself doosy.

I have yet to read how Sai Simmons came up with this idea but I would not be shocked if it involved a bet and a half-empty bottle of whiskey. I can just imagine him waking up on the bathroom floor in the morning with some indecpherable napkin notes ending with the phrase "good luck with that". Stack on top of this Achillian challenge three seemingly unrelated plot lines that span the solar system and you have what I like to call, the unpossible.

But that's what makes this book so good. Simmons takes the unpossible and shapes it with Zeus like vision into something that I read in a little over a week, smiling the entire time. The pace will have you gasping in the thin air of Olympus Mons.

There is absolutely no way I can give this less than 5 stars considering the pure effort it must have required to conjure up this opus and for the resulting amusement park for your brain. However, if I had any critique, it might be the same as I had for the Fall of Hyperion and it's only in (an unfair) comparison to their predecessor: many characters in Hyperion are so unique and familiar that it's difficult if not impossible to reproduce that feeling in subsequent works. I did identify with Hockenberry fairly well though and even with the damn robots.
To continue my theme from my review of Carrion Comfort, five Dan Simmons books into it and I can say he remains at the top of my list.(less)

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Sep 15, 2007 James Williams rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: people who think that the Trojan war with nanites sounds like fun

According to the cover for Ilium, it was nominated for the Hugo Novel of the Year in 2004. It absolutely deserved it. It also didn't win, and it deserved that as well.

Don't get me wrong. It's a great book and I loved reading it (indeed, this was the second time I read it and I think I enjoyed it more the second time). It's really three stories all happening in different places in the solar system at the same time, inevitably approaching one another. It's rare to find a book tries this and does...more

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Jul 22, 2007 Mark rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: sci-fi fans, literature fans

The Iliad serves as the starting point here ("Sing, O Muse, of the rage of Achilles..."), and from there Dan Simmons proceeds to amaze you with some of the most literate science fiction you'll ever read. The story unfolds in three parts, which are skillfully woven together to increase dramatic tension as the plot lines spiral closer to each other. The end of Ilium is a soft stop, there is some closure but it leaves much open for the next book Olympos.

The science fiction is the good stuff that s...more

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Jun 12, 2007 Matt rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: not just sci-fi readers

The plot of this book is to complex to even attempt to go into but it has a dead historian recording events of the Trojan war for the gods, strange humans on a seemingly distant future earth, a machine race of explorers living on the outskirts of the solar system, and Shakespeare. Believe it or not they all go together in not such a surreal way as you might think. The characters are well rounded and evolve with the story. I don't know that it has important moral implications in the world but it...more

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Dec 20, 2011 Ben rated it 3 of 5 stars

4 stars in the sub-category of entertaining science fiction.

Ilium is a fun read if you're looking for entertaining science fiction. It is quality writing, yet at the same time doesn't burden itself with too much of an attempt at an overarching theme, message, and/or deep philsophical life lessons.

The story is quite interesting as (and this is hardly a spoiler) it's a new tale interleaved with characters, plot lines, and ideas from the Homer, Shakespeare, and other literary works. I imagine it's...more 4 stars in the sub-category of entertaining science fiction.

Ilium is a fun read if you're looking for entertaining science fiction. It is quality writing, yet at the same time doesn't burden itself with too much of an attempt at an overarching theme, message, and/or deep philsophical life lessons.

The story is quite interesting as (and this is hardly a spoiler) it's a new tale interleaved with characters, plot lines, and ideas from the Homer, Shakespeare, and other literary works. I imagine it's hard to pull off what Dan Simmons did: the borrowed characters and references do in fact have a good balance of feeling like they are "from" the original works but also fit into their place in Ilium. The subtle references to little details in the borrowed works can also be quite entertaining.

The characters unique to Ilium do remind me of other books by Simmons. There's a wide variety of characters with different personalities: some are quite intriguing, others feel too much like characters with behavior cut from a template - making them a bit irritating after a while (e.g. Mahnmut: great, unique character; Daeman: irritatingly predictable). Likewise, the book introduces multiple plots lines, jumping from one to the other between chapters (without exception) and eventually merging: a quite common format, but it does make the book feel formulaic rather than as if the story is telling what needs to be told next. I mention this mostly because, at its best parts, Ilium is unique and written in a way that seems nothing like formula, but at its worst, the generic structure is hard to ignore.

Admittedly, the novel can be predictable at times. At others, it seems like Simmons is afraid of the story taking itself too seriously and drifts into a mode of (what seemed to me) light-hearted, but unnecessary vulgarity. As a whole though, it's a pretty darned good science fiction novel: not a classic piece of literature, but a great read for fans of the genre.

And unfortunately for myself, I didn't realize this book did not stand alone but was the first in a series! I guess I have three more books to read if I want to know what really happens...
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Mar 12, 2011 Stephanie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Prepare to have mind blown.

I like dense reads, and I like immersing myself in complex worlds created by brilliant minds... but never, NEVER have I read a more astonishingly complex novel. 1/2 the way through this gigantic mind bender I was still completely without a clue about what was going on in the book. The fact that I and so many others rate this book so highly tells you a little something about our Mr. Simmons and the quality of his writing. Who get's away with this?? Nobody does... excpet...more

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Jul 28, 2007 MacGregor rated it 5 of 5 stars

Loved it. Dan Simmons has a way of writing page-turners that don't feel dumbed down (or smart books that stay exciting?). The concept is great fun for people with a background in classical history; it made me want to go back and re-read the Iliad. However, he's up to his old tricks again with regards to setting his hooks in deep and then leaving you hanging for the sequel, just like Hyperion, even though I loved that book too. I bought Olympos anyway, and am planning to read it soon.

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Mar 13, 2011 Peter added it · review of another edition

Intricate plot, excellent book. How does Simmons think this stuff up?: Mr. Simmons is arguably one of the best genre-hopping authors around, having pulled down awards for SciFi, Horror, Fantasy, etc. But this massive book (700+ pages in the paperback) makes me wonder exactly how does he think this excellent stuff up?

Ilium mixes the Trojan War (is it the real Trojan War, or a setup re-creation?), future humans (who are so pampered that they have forgotten or have been forced to forget their hist...more

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Feb 17, 2013 Smcleish rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: owned

Originally published on my blog here in August 2004.

To science fiction fans, Dan Simmons is best known for his award winning novel Hyperion, which uses the poetry of John Keats as its inspiration. In Ilium, his most recent novel and a return to the genre (in which he writes occasionally), the literary references are there again. Here, though, they are made more central (being far more frequently referred to directly), and are more varied. Homer is naturally the most obvious, but there are also d...more Originally published on my blog here in August 2004.

To science fiction fans, Dan Simmons is best known for his award winning novel Hyperion, which uses the poetry of John Keats as its inspiration. In Ilium, his most recent novel and a return to the genre (in which he writes occasionally), the literary references are there again. Here, though, they are made more central (being far more frequently referred to directly), and are more varied. Homer is naturally the most obvious, but there are also direct references to William Shakespeare (the Sonnets and the Tempest), H.G. Wells The Time Machine, and Marcel Proust as well as indirect ones to other sources.

In The Rolling Stones, Robert Heinlein satirises the flagrant plagiarism of some pulp science fiction authors, a character who is a writer blatantly reuses plots from the Odyssey, Hamlet and The Comedy of Errors. Here, Dan Simmons has done something which is even more clearly reuse, but he does this in a much more interesting way; his retelling of Greek myth is a springboard for a fascinating piece of science fiction.

There are three storylines in Ilium: one a retelling of Homer's Iliad, in which the Greek gods influencing the action are beings from the future; a story from the other end of history, where pampered humans have lost a great deal of knowledge but live in a world run for them by robot "servitors"; and a mission by a group of artificial beings engineered to live on the satellites of Jupiter to discover what is behind some strange quantum effects observed on Mars.

One thing that is interesting to me about Ilium is how Simmons places each story in a different part of the science fiction genre. The Iliad bits are part fantasy, part something like Lord of Light; the last humans on a depleted Earth are like a number of far future scenarios originally derived from the Eloi in The Time Machine; the outer solar system artificial beings hard science fiction rather like Kim Stanley Robinson. Even with all this complexity, Ilium does not come across as having a split personality; Simmons holds it together magnificently for over six hundred pages - which means that each strand is long enough to form a novel in its own right.

The reader of Ilium will get a lot more out of it if they have read the various literary sources it alludes to, and an acquaintance with the Iliad is even more useful. Neither is absolutely essential, as the important points are explained as the story develops. (The device of having the point of view character in the Iliad sections a Greek scholar re-animated at the scene to provide the "gods" with a commentary on how well what happens matches Homer's poem is useful in this respect.) Even without the clever folding of the literary themes, the little references to delight the knowledgeable, Ilium is an extremely well written, if slightly over long, novel. Entertaining and intelligent, definitely one of the best books I have read this year.(less)

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Feb 01, 2013 Iliyan Dimitrov rated it 5 of 5 stars

Първият ми сблъсък с творчеството на Симънс – да именно сблъсък, защото реалностите, които създава Симънс, се стоварват върху съзнанието ти неочаквано, безжалостно и те обсебват без остатък, бе Хиперион. Определят четирите книги от поредицата като „space opera“ (проучването по въпроса ме остави с впечатлението, че терминът се използва повече с негативен оттенък), но за мен те бяха истинско откровение. Не знам кое ме впечатли толкова много в Хиперион – фактът, че само първата книга бе като пет кн...more Първият ми сблъсък с творчеството на Симънс – да именно сблъсък, защото реалностите, които създава Симънс, се стоварват върху съзнанието ти неочаквано, безжалостно и те обсебват без остатък, бе Хиперион. Определят четирите книги от поредицата като „space opera“ (проучването по въпроса ме остави с впечатлението, че терминът се използва повече с негативен оттенък), но за мен те бяха истинско откровение. Не знам кое ме впечатли толкова много в Хиперион – фактът, че само първата книга бе като пет книги събрани в едно и всеки разказ на всеки от главните герои, освен изключително оригинален, бе написан в детайлната дълбочина на специфичната стилистика на основните жанрове на фантастиката; пространният анализ на поезията на Джон Кийтс или фактът, че първият роман завърши с „Някъде отвъд дъгата“. Факт е обаче, че четирилогията съм я чел повече от 5 пъти и ми е сред любимите романи.
Като се има предвид всичко това, можете да си представите с какъв ентусиазъм и настървение се нахвърлих на „Илион“ в момента, в който разбрах, че е нов роман на Симънс. И макар за мен Хиперион и продълженията му да си остават все още венецът в творчеството на Симънс, двата тома „Илион“ и „Олимп“ обърнаха за пореден път виждането ми за фантастиката и класическата литература – в случая „Илиада“, сонетите на „Шекспир“ и „По следите на изгубеното време“ на Пруст.
Вселената, в която ни отвлича Симънс с двутомния си епос е доста… странна, поради липсата на по-добро определение.
На горещото илионско поле се води битка между троянци и гърци – високо технологизирани богове, симпатизиращи на двете войски, изстрелват кинетични светкавици и квантово се телепортират между Олимп и Троя, за да следят отблизо развоя на събитията. Томас Хокънбери, който е събуден за втори живот професор от края на двайсети век, е схоластик, чиято работа е да следи доколко реалността на войната следва хронологията на описания от Омир епос и да докладва на … музите. Всичко е някак странно познато и едновременно свръх екзотично. И докато летейки по редовете, успееш да успокоиш „дишането“ си и започнеш да осмисляш странната нанотехнологична троянска война, Симънс без предисловия те прехвърля в един идиличен свят в една Земя от далечното бъдеще, където телепортирането е ежедневие, роботи се грижат за всички домакински задължения, хората живеят живот на „елои“, животът им продължава точно по 100 години и на всеки 20 се „ремонтират“ в някаква космическа станция, която опасва Земята като пръстен. Още една глава по-нататък и се оказваш в дълбините на океаните на Европа (луната на Юпитер), където един малък робот прави литературна дисекция на 116-тия сонет на Шекспир, опитвайки се да разбере отдавна мъртвия поет и да разбере… човечността. Ако до тук не сте се объркали тотално и се питате какво е общото между тези сюжетни линии, имайте предвид, че това са само първите няколко глави. В развитието си романът набъбва и набира живот и цвят и се оплита в невъзможен възел от сюжетни линии, обрати и пророческа на моменти визия за развитието на технологиите. Моето усещане, докато четях, беше за пълно смайване от въображението на Симънс и детайлите, с които описва пространства и технологии, които съществуват единствено в неговата глава.
Илион и Олимп са разкази за богове и хора, за религия и литература, за гняв и любов, която може да се изживее, но не и да се преразкаже.(less)

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Jan 17, 2013 Craig rated it 4 of 5 stars

I liked this book when I was EXTREMELY skeptical about it. There are three plot lines that run through this book that eventually come together about 700 pages in (well, at least two of them do). Simmons is a brilliant writer; some of the best lines/paragraghs I've ver read are in this book. Some of it was mind numbingly boring. And a very tiny bit of it was almost Piers Anthony-esque with needless boob talk. I get how you need to describe the beauty of Helen of Troy, he just doesn't do it well.

H...more

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Aug 11, 2012 Bitvypr rated it 4 of 5 stars

Dan Simmons has a habit of doing this to me. He writes a book that tells a smart, no-nonsense story. He doesn't dumb it down for fear of alienating his audience. I guess he figures that the folks who dig his books will get it. He did the same thing with the Hyperion Cantos. Wonderful stuff with characters who are internally consistent, even if you can't really tell that from the beginning.

One thing I've noticed, though. Dan likes to write about writers. The Hyperion Cantos had a poet. His small...more

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Jul 24, 2012 Scott Rhee rated it 5 of 5 stars

I can't seem to say enough in the way of praise for Dan Simmons. The guy is a frickin' genius and one of the best writers working in any genre today. "Ilium" is his science fiction magnum opus. It is a grand epic in the same way Tolkein's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy and Frank Herbert's "Dune" series were grand epics in their genre. The funny thing is Simmons's "Ilium" is a sci-fi epic ABOUT one of the greatest epics of all time, Homer's "The Iliad". Well, it's not so much about "The Iliad" as it...more I can't seem to say enough in the way of praise for Dan Simmons. The guy is a frickin' genius and one of the best writers working in any genre today. "Ilium" is his science fiction magnum opus. It is a grand epic in the same way Tolkein's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy and Frank Herbert's "Dune" series were grand epics in their genre. The funny thing is Simmons's "Ilium" is a sci-fi epic ABOUT one of the greatest epics of all time, Homer's "The Iliad". Well, it's not so much about "The Iliad" as it is a very strange and wonderful re-imagining of the greatest epic poems in Western Civilization. The book is hard to describe, but here goes my attempt at explaining it: In the distant future (it is very unclear how distant), the planet Mars has been taken over by the Greek gods. Zeus, Hera, Aphrodite, Apollo, et al live on their new Mount Olympus, appropriately located on the peaks of Olympus Mons. Not only that, but the ancient city of Troy, along with all its Trojan citizens, as well as all the Greek warriors, led by Agammemnon, Menelaus, and Achilles, have been miraculously resurrected to play out the entire 10-year Trojan War. Again. Strangely enough, 20th-century college professor Thomas Hockenberry has also been resurrected (along with other scholars) to report to the gods on how accurately the participants of this Martian re-creation are adhering to the original. Having no clue as to how (or even why) he has been resurrected along with the others, frustrated Hockenberry decides to switch things up and "interfere" in the classic story. Meanwhile, the few remaining humans (roughly 3,000+) on Earth are blissfully unaware of what's happening on the neighboring planet until some curiosity-filled Earthlings decide to find out where all the other billions of Earthlings went, who (or what) keeps providing them with a continuous source of food and shelter, and why they only have a 100-year life expectancy, no more and no less. Then a 600+ year-old woman named Savi shows up, claiming to remember the days when the world was filled with people, and she introduces the Earthlings to a friend of hers, an even older gentleman who calls himself Odysseus. There's also a pair of Shakespeare-and Proust-quoting robots from Jupiter's moons who arrive on Mars, investigating some strange readings that would indicate the existence of a presence more powerful than anything they have ever studied before. Unfortunately, they are shot down by one of Zeus's lightening bolts, and immediately rescued by hundreds of adorable mute LGMs (Little Green Men). I know it sounds strange, and I'd be lying if I said it wasn't, but it's one of those books that sucks you in and never lets up. A grand and weird blend of space opera, fantasy, hard science fiction, and literary criticism, ""Ilium"" is definitely one of the best and most original science fiction novels I have read in a long time. Nominated for a Hugo, ""Ilium"" is the first of a series, continued in the second book ""Olympos"".
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May 03, 2012 Jake rated it 3 of 5 stars

My review of Ilium in a nutshell:
“I liked it?”

AMBISHUN: DAN SIMMONS HAZ IT.

I’m not sure if it is possible to be too ambitious when creating a plot for a novel, but Dan Simmons seems to be on a mission to find out. There are concepts, there are high concepts, and there are Dan Simmons concepts.

When it’s time for Simmons to begin a new novel, I picture something like this:

Dan Simmons is smoking a pipe (made from the bones of an aurochs), deep in the bowels of Stately Simmons Manor. Inspiration...more

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Apr 01, 2012 Universalwhatnot rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi

The Illiad on Mars. Sounds absolutely ridiculous right? Turns out it's awesome.

Ilium is a wonderful science fiction book by Dan Simmons that takes this very concept, combines it with philosophical robots from the far reaches of space and ignorant humans on Earth in the far future. All of the story-lines run parallel to each other and weave a fascinating world very different from our own.

This is science-fiction, but the "fantasy of science-fiction" as my boyfriend describes it. The concepts aren'...more

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Mar 27, 2012 Donovan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi

This is science fiction at it's creative best. I found it a little hard to get my head around it at first because it is written in a combination of present and past tense. The technology that exists in this universe is not really described and there is a lot that the reader will need to work out for themselves.
But if you can get past that (and it's really easy to do) you'll have a read that is pure genius.
It is the first of 2 books, the second titled Olympos.
Also, if you get through this, then y...more This is science fiction at it's creative best. I found it a little hard to get my head around it at first because it is written in a combination of present and past tense. The technology that exists in this universe is not really described and there is a lot that the reader will need to work out for themselves.
But if you can get past that (and it's really easy to do) you'll have a read that is pure genius.
It is the first of 2 books, the second titled Olympos.
Also, if you get through this, then you'll have a blast with Simmons' other series called Hyperion.
I recommend you take the time and push through the first few chapters. If it doesn't capture you by then, then maybe this is not for you.

Plot ***Spoilers***
Illium
From the towering heights of Olympos Mons on Mars, the mighty Zeus and his immortal family of gods, goddesses, and demigods look down upon a momentous battle, observing -- and often influencing -- the legendary exploits of Paris, Achilles, Hector, Odysseus, and the clashing armies of Greece and Troy.

Thomas Hockenberry, former twenty-first-century professor and Iliad scholar, watches as well. It is Hockenberry's duty to observe and report on the Trojan War's progress to the so-called deities who saw fit to return him from the dead. But the muse he serves has a new assignment for the wary scholic, one dictated by Aphrodite herself. With the help of fortieth-century technology, Hockenberry is to infiltrate Olympos, spy on its divine inhabitants ... and ultimately destroy Aphrodite's sister and rival, the goddess Pallas Athena.

On an Earth profoundly changed since the departure of the Post-Humans centuries earlier, the great events on the bloody plains of Ilium serve as mere entertainment. Its scenes of unrivaled heroics and unequaled carnage add excitement to human lives devoid of courage, strife, labor, and purpose. But this eloi-like existence is not enough for Harman, a man in the last year of his last Twenty. That rarest of post-postmodern men -- an "adventurer" -- he intends to explore far beyond the boundaries of his world before his allotted time expires, in search of a lost past, a devastating truth, and an escape from his own inevitable "final fax." Meanwhile, from the radiation-swept reaches of Jovian space, four sentient machines race to investigate -- and, perhaps, terminate -- the potentially catastrophic emissions of unexplained quantum-flux emanating from a mountaintop miles above the terraformed surface of Mars ...

Olympos
Beneath the gaze of the gods, the mighty armies of Greece and Troy met in fierce and glorious combat, scrupulously following the text set forth in Homer's timeless narrative. But that was before one observer -- Twenty-first Century scholar Thomas Hockenberry -- stirred the bloody brew; before an enraged Achilles joined forces with his archenemy Hector; and before the fleet-footed mankiller turned his murderous wrath on Zeus, Hera, Athena, Aphrodite, Apollo, and the entire pantheon of divine manipulators.(less)

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Nov 23, 2011 Robotbee rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: amazing

A friend lent me this book (the same one who gave me Guns, Germs, and Steel and Year of Rice and Salt). The truth is, I would never have chosen it on my own; however, I am very glad he did (and that I have a compulsion to read whatever a person gives me) because I LOVED it!

I am not the hugest fan of the Iliad/Odyssey, having been forced to read most of it in English for various classes throughout high school and college, and translate parts of it from Latin in college. Nor am I the hugest fan of...more

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Sep 24, 2011 Христо Блажев rated it 5 of 5 stars

Величавото двутомие “Илион” и “Олимп” е фантастика от друго измерение!: http://www.knigolandia.info/2009/11/b...

След изумителната “Фондацията” на Азимов в ръцете ми попадна и едно друго фантастично произведение, което изтрива границите между класическа литература и научната фантастика. Това е двутомието “Илион” и “Олимп” на неповторимия Дан Симънс, познат основно с невероятната тетралогия “Хиперион”.

Двете книги са наситени с безкрайно въображение. В тях са събрани няколко паралелни сюжетни лини...more

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Aug 26, 2011 Lewis rated it 2 of 5 stars

An alternate future earth where humans have forgotten how to read. Living robots who share a love of classic literature. An ancient Greek battle where iconic heroes do battle with the gods of Olympus. Mix these all up in a space opera novel (or two) and you get the novels Ilium by Dan Simmons. This complex, lengthy tome is quite the journey, spanning two books (the second is Olympos, but I’m just writing one review for both novels).
The plot lines are so complicated and detailed (indeed, each b...more An alternate future earth where humans have forgotten how to read. Living robots who share a love of classic literature. An ancient Greek battle where iconic heroes do battle with the gods of Olympus. Mix these all up in a space opera novel (or two) and you get the novels Ilium by Dan Simmons. This complex, lengthy tome is quite the journey, spanning two books (the second is Olympos, but I’m just writing one review for both novels).
The plot lines are so complicated and detailed (indeed, each book is over 700 pages long!) that I’m surprised he used a two-book format rather than the usual trilogy series. Set in the far future, with three disparate plots, seemingly unconnected to each other, one wonders what they’re doing in the same book. One storyline includes man-made robots “living” throughout the solar system. They actually have organic parts in their bodies, and have been programmed to have human curiosity, and a fascination with the arts. Two robots in particular, a small biped named Mahnmut and a large, horseshoe crab-like moravec called Orphu, are from moons of Jupiter, and are fascinated with human culture and feelings. They develop a strong bond as they are recruited to investigate an astonishingly rapid terraforming of Mars.
Another story involves humans living an idyllic life, their entire existence focused on superficial, meaningless activities, casual sex, shallow parties, etc. In fact, they’ve lost a basic curiosity of life and science, and don’t care about anything beyond the current fashion or trends. However, a few of them develop a fascination with ancient skills and trades, and start learning how to melt and pour metal, actually read from books, travel without the use of fax nodes or being pulled along by servitors. Their amusing hobby soon turns into necessary skills of survival.
Also, there is a story involving the siege of Troy, or Ilium, as the author puts it. A scholar (scholic) who was re-assembled after his natural death on earth is covertly asked by the goddess Aphrodite to use magical (actually, advanced technological) devices to kill Athena. The scholic, Hockenberry, is an expert on the Trojan War, and knows how it’s supposed to play out. However, with this wrench (or should I say, ‘knife’?) thrown into the battle plans, how will the war between the Greeks and Trojans conclude?
Again, three seemingly different and independent plotlines that gradually (at a snail’s pace!) come together and form a larger picture of an epic story that transcends time and space, literally. There are some bizarre characters that play the same roles as their namesakes from Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Not being familiar with that story, I Googled it just to get a better understanding of Caliban, Prospero, Sycorax, et al. I found Simmon’s use of these Shakespearean characters in his extraordinary setting interesting, but absurd. A lizard-like humanoid named Caliban? Really? I found these Shakespearean references somewhat jarring and abruptly removed me from the depths of the story. However, experiencing the ancient Greek gods and goddesses plotting against each other and playing their games with the lives of men (just as in the classic myths) was refreshing and satisfying.
There is some heavy science in this fiction. Quantum teleportation, string theory, nanotechnology, and other technological ideas are used plainly and easily by the characters. Though a bit confusing initially, the context of the story allows the reader to gain a workable grasp of the more complex physics that are mentioned in the books. Ilium and Olympus are actually two acts of one story. The books are dense and in need of further editing, but the story is engaging for the most part, despite its daunting length. If you’re adventurous enough to give it a try, be prepared to spend more time on these books than your usual literary fare. Be warned, however: the journey is much more enjoyable than the final destination.
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Dec 02, 2010 Jasmine Giacomo rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jun 23, 2010 Mitch rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction

In spite of the violent content, I really like Dan Simmons' Hyperion and its sequel.

This book looked like it had potential. For reasons unknown, the Greek gods are kicking it on Mars and the Trojan War is being fought with a lot of their participation.

Now the book starts throwing in all sorts of sci-fi wonders...nice, but not enough to save this.

First- it's far too detailed and has too many repeated references to the Iliad. Second, some seriously unbelievable things happen several times. And th...more

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Apr 07, 2013 Nancy Wu rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book is like a mix of the retelling of the Iliad and Battlestar Galactica. It has many intriguing ingredients, all of which scream out "What could possibly go wrong? And what the heck is going on?": trans-humanism, Mars colonization, a future dystopia-utopia, multi-verses or parallel universes, sentient machines, and even more incongruously, a discourse on classical literature.

Aside from using my favorite ingredients, this novel was weak from a literary perspective. The narrative is disjoi...more

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Oct 20, 2008 Dergrossest rated it 4 of 5 stars

2 of the 3 story-lines in this book are great as the story of the Illiad is re-told with a sci-fi/futurist/mythological bent - I couldn't stop reading these parts. Unfortunately, the third story-line is an odd and slightly boring robo-fest. However, my biggest problem is that I cannot imagine that the next installment of this book could possibly tie this all together. Accordingly, I don't know that I can recommend this book, even though I enjoyed it quite a bit.

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Dec 05, 2009 Arun Divakar rated it 4 of 5 stars

Imagine the Trojan war, imagine Mount Olympos with the entire pantheon of Greek gods, imagine a couple of sentient robots on a mission to do recon in Mars, imagine a post apocalyptic world where human beings are nothing but insensitive drones and to top it all off imagine a human trying to take Achilles and Hector to war against Zeus...this is what Ilium is about.

Dan Simmons creates a mind boggling tale of Sci Fi, Myth and Fantasy merged into one. The tale starts off as seen from three perspecti...more Imagine the Trojan war, imagine Mount Olympos with the entire pantheon of Greek gods, imagine a couple of sentient robots on a mission to do recon in Mars, imagine a post apocalyptic world where human beings are nothing but insensitive drones and to top it all off imagine a human trying to take Achilles and Hector to war against Zeus...this is what Ilium is about.

Dan Simmons creates a mind boggling tale of Sci Fi, Myth and Fantasy merged into one. The tale starts off as seen from three perspectives and barring one that initially has too much scientific jargon, the others are crack reads. What amazed and attracted me to the tale was the presence of literary persona as wide ranged as Shakespeare,Proust and Homer. The heroes of the greek drama are as alive in these pages as they were in the Iliad. The private ego clashes of the gods atop Olympos was a fresh perspective in the tale and so were the desperate efforts of the human race to understand and fight to overcome their miserable plight.

My pick of characters from the tale are Odysseus & the little robot named Mahnmut. Needless to say the most intelligent and tactical of all heroes in the tale Odysseus is also the one with a vision beyond the obvious even though it is to serve his own ends. Mahnmut is the most humane of all characters in the tale even though he is not related to a human in any way and we are almost in the final quarter of the book when he finally gets to see a human. The passion for literature and the ability in comprehending emotions set the little robot and his pal Orphu apart. Hector and Achilles always the proud,noble and fierce warriors they are are almost jumping out of the pages in their battles to kills or be killed.

Very rarely do i come across tales that fires up my imagination just as Ilium did and I am glad i found this book in a shelf in the library. As always with a book that I know has a sequel,I now await Olympos sans the literal baited breath...

Recommended for those of who with a interest in the mythological and the fantastic..(less)

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Apr 16, 2010 Nikki rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2009, sci-fi

I got into it after a while. Not as quickly as I thought since I figured I would love it as it is sort of about Troy. But it was also Sci-fi which was never a strong love for me. But I still really enjoyed it after I got past how ridiculous some of the ‘sci-fi’ things were. Also after I stopped trying to imagine some of the sci-fi devices and settings. I don’t know if I’m just not used to it or he doesn’t do a good job painting a picture with words, but at the end I couldn’t even really imagine...more

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Jan 03, 2011 Ryan McCormack rated it 3 of 5 stars

Dan Simmons knows how to write a good yarn, one that pulls threads from many different directions. Sometimes they come together to form a beautiful, mind-blowing, shimmering suit of armor, like the Hyperion tetralogy. Other times, you get something that feels warm and fuzzy, but is more like a patchwork sweater that Grandma gave you and you can only wear inside the house. Ilium is somewhere in between: not quite the masterpiece of Hyperion, but something that keeps your interest.

I really enjoyed...more

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Mar 09, 2010 Kat Hagedorn rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviewed, sci-fi-and-fantasy

http://tinyurl.com/3f74j3

How very unfortunate that Simmons' duologies fail with the second book as much as they succeed in the first book. I was really looking forward to reading Olympos, the second book of this duology, until I read the abysmal reviews.

But apparently, Simmons plays even more havoc with his created world-- that of a re-imagined Trojan War, set on Mars no less, and the Earth that can no longer house true humans except those who live exactly 100 years and have no culture to speak...more

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Mar 15, 2012 Sara rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: faith-and-religion, grownup-fiction, sex-and-sexuality, sci-fi, war-and-murder, 2012-favorites

The positive: Where Hyperion was Chaucer IN SPACE WITH CRUCIFORM PARASITES AND WEIRD STUFF HAPPENING, this is the Iliad IN SPACE, WITH ROBOTS, AND POSSIBLY THE GREEK GODS ARE REAL/TECHNOLOGICALLY SUPERIOR BEINGS WHO ACT LIKE GODS SORT OF MOST OF THE TIME. It's a lot of fun and, like Hyperion, benefits from the reader knowing something about the source material.

The negative: Unfortunately, while I "got" the Shakespeare and mythology references, the Proust and Iliad sections lost me. Thank goodnes...more

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About Dan Simmons

Dan Simmons was born in Peoria, Illinois, in 1948, and grew up in various cities and small towns in the Midwest, including Brimfield, Illinois, which was the source of his fictional "Elm Haven" in 1991's SUMMER OF NIGHT and 2002's A WINTER HAUNTING. Dan received a B.A. in English from Wabash College in 1970, winning a national Phi Beta Kappa Award during his senior year for excellence in fiction,...more Dan Simmons was born in Peoria, Illinois, in 1948, and grew up in various cities and small towns in the Midwest, including Brimfield, Illinois, which was the source of his fictional "Elm Haven" in 1991's SUMMER OF NIGHT and 2002's A WINTER HAUNTING. Dan received a B.A. in English from Wabash College in 1970, winning a national Phi Beta Kappa Award during his senior year for excellence in fiction, journalism and art.

Dan received his Masters in Education from Washington University in St. Louis in 1971. He then worked in elementary education for 18 years -- 2 years in Missouri, 2 years in Buffalo, New York -- one year as a specially trained BOCES "resource teacher" and another as a sixth-grade teacher -- and 14 years in Colorado.

ABOUT DAN
Biographic Sketch

His last four years in teaching were spent creating, coordinating, and teaching in APEX, an extensive gifted/talented program serving 19 elementary schools and some 15,000 potential students. During his years of teaching, he won awards from the Colorado Education Association and was a finalist for the Colorado Teacher of the Year. He also worked as a national language-arts consultant, sharing his own "Writing Well" curriculum which he had created for his own classroom. Eleven and twelve-year-old students in Simmons' regular 6th-grade class averaged junior-year in high school writing ability according to annual standardized and holistic writing assessments. Whenever someone says "writing can't be taught," Dan begs to differ and has the track record to prove it. Since becoming a full-time writer, Dan likes to visit college writing classes, has taught in New Hampshire's Odyssey writing program for adults, and is considering hosting his own Windwalker Writers' Workshop.

Dan's first published story appeared on Feb. 15, 1982, the day his daughter, Jane Kathryn, was born. He's always attributed that coincidence to "helping in keeping things in perspective when it comes to the relative importance of writing and life."

Dan has been a full-time writer since 1987 and lives along the Front Range of Colorado -- in the same town where he taught for 14 years -- with his wife, Karen, his daughter, Jane, (when she's home from Hamilton College) and their Pembroke Welsh Corgi, Fergie. He does much of his writing at Windwalker -- their mountain property and cabin at 8,400 feet of altitude at the base of the Continental Divide, just south of Rocky Mountain National Park. An 8-ft.-tall sculpture of the Shrike -- a thorned and frightening character from the four Hyperion/Endymion novels -- was sculpted by an ex-student and friend, Clee Richeson, and the sculpture now stands guard near the isolated cabin.(less)

More about Dan Simmons...

Books by Dan Simmons

The Fall of Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, #2)

The Rise of Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, #4)

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Trivia About Ilium

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Quotes from Ilium

“Want to talk about Shakespeare's sonnets?" asked Orphu of Io.

Are you shitting me?" The moravecs loved the ancient human colloquial phrases, the more scatological the better.

Yes," said Orphu. "I am most definitely shitting you, my friend.” — 23 people liked it

“Rage.

Sing, O Muse, of the rage of Achilles, of Peleus’ son, murderous, man-killer, fated to die, sing of the rage that cost the Achaeans so many good men and sent so many vital, hearty souls down to the dreary House of Death. And while you’re at it, Muse, sing of the rage of the gods themselves, so petulant and so powerful here on their new Olympos, and of the rage of the post-humans, dead and gone though they might be, and of the rage of those few true humans left, self-absorbed and useless though they have become. While you are singing, O Muse, sing also of the rage of those thoughtful, sentient, serious but not-so-close-to-human beings out there dreaming under the ice of Europa, dying in the sulfur ash of Io, and being born in the cold folds of Ganymede.

Oh, and sing of me, O Muse, poor born-against-his-will Hockenberry, dead Thomas Hockenberry, Ph.D., Hockenbush to his friends, to friends long since turned to dust on a world long since left behind. Sing of my rage, yes, of my rage, O Muse, small and insignificant though that rage might be when measured against the anger of the immortal gods, or when compared to the wrath of the god-killer Achilles.

On second though, O Muse, sing nothing of me. I know you. I have been bound and servant to you, O Muse, you incomparable bitch. And I do not trust you, O Muse. Not one little bit.” — 15 people liked it

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