The one thing I remember from this novel when it first came out was a review that basically said, "It's great but it's missing one thing . . . the ending." Nowadays with this and the sequel "Olympos" long in print that isn't as much a concern but it should be a warning that if you're going to take the plunge and read this, you're essentially committing to reading both books, and probably have to refrain on passing judgement until you've read the whole thing since, much like that long ago masterpiece "The Hyperion Cantos", it's one giant book broken up into two just at the point where things are really starting to heat up.

That said, we're going to go ahead and judge it prematurely anyway.

In a sense, Simmons was probably ahead of his time in dividing giant novels into two chunks centered around what should be a climax in any other normal book, as that tends to be standard practice in movie adaptations of famous series when they get to filming the final novel in the sequence. In the event they ever film this, they'll probably have to go and make it six books. And also hand out a primer on Greek literature to the audience.

An author with a long career shouldn't be judged on just one book, but when that book is "Hyperion", it's not surprising that it overshadows most of his other science fiction work, and speaking strictly personally, nothing else he's ever done (with the exception of "Phases of Gravity", which I think is vastly underrated) has ever hit me quite the same way in terms of showcasing how a blend of science-fiction and literature can function and have resonance without seeming like the author is simply proving to me that he's done his homework. So, even though it's been years since that slightly time twisted work of science-fiction based on classic literature, he dips his toes back into the same format by giving us a slightly time twisted novel based on a classic of world literature, in this case, the Iliad.

If I have to explain to you what the Iliad is, you either didn't pay attention in high school or are definitely in the wrong place. But, for those without immediate access to an Internet search engine, it's the famous poem by Homer that tells the story of the Trojan War, which ten years, an extraordinarily large cast, and a lot of Very Bad Things happening to people, some of it deserved and some of it simply because the Greek gods, when you come down to it, are petty, petty beings. Simmons divides his story into three paralleling plotlines that converge at the end, with one of them devoted to what's essentially a reenactment of the Trojan War, with people who seem to be the Greek gods running the show and managing everything while people who also equally seem to be famous Greek and Trojan heroes squabble and stab each other while shouting heroic speeches that are fortunately summarized because in the real thing they tend to go on for pages. In this is the resurrected scholar Thomas Hockenberry, an expert on the poem who has been brought back after his death along with some other experts to observe and report and help ensure that things are proceeding as they're supposed to be.

At first glance, this section appears to be a strange mix of Roger Zelazny's "Lord of Light" (people use super advanced technology to turn themselves like unto gods, in this case the Indian pantheon) and John Crowley's "The Deep" (on a strange planet aliens are apparently making everyone reenact the War of the Roses for no understandable reason) but it mostly succeeds on the "what the heck is going on?" aspect of it, lacking both Zelazny's humanity and intensity and Crowley's eerie sense of mystery. Hockenberry makes for a fun narrator, especially as he attempts to find room to move in a situation where he's totally out of his element, but the early scenes are more or less science-fictional retellings of the Trojan War and every time a bunch of names are listed in great detail it just seems like Simmons is showing off his research through Hockenberry. As long as the novel sticks to a basic reenactment of what's happening, it's not terribly exciting since we're being told what's going to happen and thus aren't very surprised when it does. The Greeks and Trojans, famous and otherwise, make for interesting people in some parts but there are literally so many we don't get to know many of them in depth and after a while it starts to feel like a slightly better budgeted episode of "Doctor Who", or the BBC costume drama department going way off the rails. Only toward the end of the novel when Hockenberry starts to possibly find places to make deviations to his own advantage, does it seem like there's actual stakes at play (fortunately, my biggest criticism, that we know how the war goes, gets jettisoned eventually and he starts to take that ball and run with it in the beginning of "Olympos").

Part of the problem may be that the Trojan War portions come across as a straight retelling with SF trappings, while the other sections start to play more to Simmons' strengths ("Hyperion" integrated the "Canterbury Tales" into the story and used the basic structure as a starting point for Simmons to launch his own take), featuring a pair of sentient robots that are on a mission from Jupiter to figure out what the heck happened on Mars, and a small group of people who are among the very small population of people who are left on a nearly abandoned Earth.

The sentient robots ("moravecs") probably have the best sense of humor and their attempts to not get killed as the mission goes absolutely haywire very quickly make for some of the cleverest parts of the book, and initially the best chance to discover what's really going on as they're directly investigating strange events. However, their bits get bogged down by Simmons wanting to cram more literature down our throats, with one robot being an expert on Shakespeare and the other on Proust, giving them plenty of reason to have constant exchanges about the merits on each while doing mundane things like attempting to repair their ship or staying alive in a gradually worsening situation. Being it has no immediate bearing on the plot it seems self-indulgent to have the robots go on and on about it and feels more like padding than anything else (although Proust is spoken highly enough that it may make the otherwise unaware reader curious about seeking it out, a feeling that may end abruptly when they realize "Remembrance of Things Past" is three times as long as this book and the sequel put together and about ten times as dense).

That leaves the Earth plot, following a group of men and women who live lives of leisure for about a hundred years or so thanks to "post-humans" who abandoned the planet in droves but seem to hang out up above watching over everyone and fixing the planet while they're at it. The layers of science and mystery in these sequences are the most intriguing and feel more like Simmons than anything else, with the casual yet dazzling references to future technology and a mysterious backstory that we're not completely clear on keeping the story interesting even when the characters themselves aren't the most compelling (a girl, an older guy, a whiny guy, and a girl who isn't the first girl is how I remember them, though things get better when the stereotypical Crotchety Old Woman Carrying Forbidden and Forgotten Knowledge arrives to take everyone to Future School). Seeing a reimagined Earth thousands of years in the future, with orbital rings carrying possible god like people float silently overhead makes for a fascinating setting as the characters careen through an oddly vacant world, encountering some decently weird unanswered questions, most of which have the potential for satisfying answers (or a whole load of gibberish, it could go either way at this point).

Needless to say, the individual stories all start to interconnect at the climax and while things wind up just enough so you could technically say this is a standalone experience, absolutely no real revelations are uncovered as to how and where and why of this entire setup beyond those required to get you to keep reading the next novel to continue and finish the story. If I didn't already have "Olympos" (having bought both when they came out and taking me usual inordinate amount of time to get to anything) I'd probably be somewhat upset that I had to wait to give the story anything other than an incomplete grade.

Still, having not read much Simmons SF in a while (most of what I've read from him in recent years seems to be horror oriented) it's nice to see that the old guy still has it for the most part. The ideas are there, although the execution lacks the detailed intensity that I fell in love with during the "Hyperion Cantos" era and the literary references seem more forced this time . . . for some reason I found the constant references to literature before the 20th century to be a little jarring, with characters who are familiar with Proust and Shakespeare and the Trojan War, but apparently no other literature after 2006 or so was created before the post-humans rocketed out of there since no one ever mentions it (having Hockenberry originally die around 2006 means that Simmons gets to reference the September 11th attacks a couple times, which feels even more weirdly out of place) so it threatens at times to become a warped exercise in nostalgia. Looking back is nice, but the trick is to take cues from the past and use them to shape the future, not use the past as a way to make the future seem more exciting than it really is.

Readers, Assemble! and go get this book and read it. Seriously, this is a book lovers paradise. It is a science fiction/fantasy mash-up of the Iliad and Odyssey but also with two other totally awesome and original story lines that at first seem like they have fuck all to do with one another until all the tiny pieces start to click and you see how vast Simmons' imagination is and how well he plots. A book this length usually would take me about four or five days, I'm a severe insomniac and pretty much read exclusively for my entertainment, but this took me close to two weeks. I wanted to savor this one. To rush through this would be to potentially miss some detail or slice of awesomeness and that is unacceptable. Simmons is already one of my favorite authors and the Terror is one of my all-time favorite books but I gotta tell you, he couldn't have written anything more in-line with my tastes if he had reached into my subconsciousness and wrote something based on something he ripped out. This was an absolute joy to read. Oh and by the way in between the huge action and dramatic pieces there are these two sentient, robot-like creatures who discuss and dissect sonnets by Marcel Proust and Shakespeare. I'm a substance abuse counselor and I use some of Proust's writings when teaching about triggers and involuntary memory especially using the Episode of the Madeleine and c'mon who as a reader does not like Shakespeare? I read almost all of his plays before I had to for school and his stuff proves writing is timeless. This book plugged right into my brain and no matter what was going on in the outside world, when I was reading this I was happy.

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 it well, and Ilium does it well.

The main hook of Ilium is that it's a science fiction book set in the Trojan war of Homer's Iliad. It also mixes in a healthy dose of Shakespeare and even Proust. And this all contributes to a fine and wonderful story, but it's also Ilium's downfall. At parts, the Iliad thing starts to feel gimmicky. It's not often, but it's enough to keep me from giving the book five stars.

On the whole, it's well-written. Every once in a while, the author tries to conjure up some convoluted imagery which is ridiculous enough that I just laughed at the poor sentence structure instead of being struck by whatever he was trying to tell me. But that was rare and for the most part I didn't notice the language at all.

So I loved the book, but it's ever-so-slighty flawed. Still, it was much better than even this review is, and I'll definitely be reading it a third time in the future.

But now, I'm looking forward to starting the sequel n  Olymposn. Onward.

Although I have great admiration for the scope, scholarship and ambition that went into this book, I felt as a narrative whole it never really came together for me. There were times that I really enjoyed aspects of the storytelling - most specifically the three very different stories that were presented, and thought he employed those stories from a pacing standpoint superbly - but there were too many moments of unknown plot elements or characters grabbing hold of the narrative and leaving the reader in the dark.

I'm familiar with the unknown-to-known style of storytelling, and from a big picture standpoint, felt that Simmons did a great job at using this technique, but in the latter 100 pages of the book, he continued to introduce new elements that added to this reader's consternation as to what the point of all of this was. I hope that the sequel illuminates a lot of these elements, because I felt just as things were getting interesting and clear, the author introduced things to deliberately confuse the reader.

But I did like a lot of this, as well as what he has set up for the conclusion, so I hope that I'll look back at this review and just think I was impatient for the whole story. But as a whole, this felt a lot like a penultimate book of a series that is more setting things up for the final book than telling its own tale. That said, I still enjoyed a lot of it. 3.5/5

Considering that this is fairly described as a sci-fi reworking of the Iliad and that I'm pretty sure the seed that inspired it—or at least the decision to put the Trojan War on Mars—is also the source of my least favourite Ancient Greek factoid (Homer's description on three occasions of the sky as "bronze", leading to the obnoxiously frequently repeated claim the Greeks couldn't see blue; I very much appreciate Simmons didn't reference this explicitly), it's actually astonishing how well it is executed. Simmons took his research extremely seriously, and manages to use both the Iliad (and the broader Greek Epic matter) and Shakespeare's The Tempest (and derivative works) not just as set dressing but as fundamental components to a story (set of stories) that—incredibly—manages to be compelling both to people who don't know anything about either of these and to people who know way too much.
It's a little annoying he didn't manage to wrap things up in 640 pages, but at no point did it feel like he was wasting time, either. Guess I'll have to read the sequel too.

Was there ever a more tedious read?? I have been meaning to read Hyperion and Ilium for a while now, and since I am a huge fan of Ancient Greece, I decided to start with Ilium. Perhaps that was a mistake, as I was so disappointed that I don't think I want to read Hyperion or anything else by Simmons ever again.

The story sounded interesting when I read the description, but the book just killed it for me. There are three storylines which will eventually overlap: one with some humans on a post-apocalyptic earth, one with Trojan war raging on Mars, and one with few robots on a mission to Mars.

The world building seemed very interesting, and I was looking forward to learning more about it. But the characters all feel very undeveloped. They are annoying and I just kept wishing them dead and gone. The humans are bland and dull, and the most sympathetic characters are actually the robots. But all they ever do is talk about Shakespeare and Proust. Like, a lot. In detail. Too much detail. All the fucking time.

I bravely read on, hoping it will be good, hoping I was wrong, but then the Trojan war storyline just blew me away. In a negative sense. There is this scholar guy who is brought back from the dead to observe the war and report to the gods what's happening, as they apparently have no idea what will happen in the future. Fine. So that he could observe at peace, he is given the ability to transform into random characters. Fine. Now, for some reason, which I still didn't find to be very plausible, the scholar decides that Aphrodite is going to kill him the very next day. He's got only 24 hours to live. So what does he do? He morphs into Paris and goes to have sex with Helen of Troy. Yes, you've read that right. Now, technically, this is rape. And to be clear, I am ok with reading rape scenes, as long as they're portrayed as, well, as rape scenes, but here, it feels that it is even supposed to be humourous, like LOL, that's what everyone would do, YOLO.

Now, if I wasn't put off by that enough, wait there's more. Helen, somehow figures out he's not really Paris, and confronts him, so he explains who he is and asks her how did she know. Turns out, he's a much better shag. Yes, much better.

If you haven't rolled your eyes to death by now, wait there's more. He also has a bigger dick. WHAT?? He morphed into Paris ffs!! How can he possibly have a bigger dick? That makes no sense. And no explanation ever will be good enough for me to accept that this is fine. What a shameless and pitiful self-insert!

And it all went downhill from there, really. I couldn't wait to finish this book and never look back. There were more random bits later on that didn't make much sense, the relationships between the characters felt so fake and shallow, even though they were supposed to be deeper than at the beginning. The ending was abrupt, and I know there's part two, but I am so not going to read it, as I so don't care about what happens to any of those people/robots/creatures.

Биороботи от луните на Юпитер (наричани моравеки), които имат интерес към човешката литература и обсъждат любимите си творби на Уилям Шекспир и Марсел Пруст, са изпратени на опасна мисия до Марс, за да проверят какво се случва там. На Земята към 1 милион старостилни човеци водят изключително комфортен и безгрижен, но и безсмилен живот, а пък постчовеците тайнствено са изчезнали, като за тях се носят само легенди... Старостилните живеят точно по 100 години, като на всеки 20 биват „ремонтирани“ с помощта на нови технологии , за да са през цялото време млади и здрави. За сметка на това, те не могат да четат… Третата сюжетна линия (от която идва и заглавието на романа) представя футуристична версия на Троянската война (по „Илиада“) , в която са замесени високотехнолoгични гръцки богове... Те взимат участие във войната, както и могат да възкресяват като „схоластици“ хора от отминали времена, които да следят, дали действието се развива по творбата на Омир. Събитията обаче тръгват и в непредвидена посока...

Впоследствие трите паралелни истории са преплетени от Дан Симънс по страшно интересен начин! „Илион“ не достига чак до висотата на великолепната Хиперионска поредица, но все пак е четиво с грандиозна визия за бъдещето, както и смислени послания, така че не е за изпускане!

Stunning, an utterly brilliant novel, this is one of my very favourite novels to date. After reading the Hyperion/Endymion books by Dan Simmons and being blown away by them, I went into reading Ilium with an attitude of, 'well Ilium and the sequel Olympos, both have a lot to live up to'. Well, guess what, Ilium is a masterpiece in my opinion and it did live up to those high expectations. I absolutely loved this book, the pages flew by and I was completely immersed in the novel. The storytelling and prose are excellent, the characters are well rendered and have their unique individual style and the plot is gripping. I urge anybody who maybe interested in reading this novel to steer clear of spoilers or discussions about the narrative. I'm hugely impressed with the depth of imagination that Simmons had in order to create a science fiction novel, that weaves the Iliad into a really compelling story for the modern era. I'm not surprised that the book was nominated for the Hugo Award and that it won the Locus Award, because it is a masterwork of speculative science fiction. The book has my highest recommendation.

Holy bloody freakin' incredible hell. Or Hades. Whatever. I'm... I have no words. Seriously. This was beyond brilliant. I don't know who took Dan Simmon's brain, drugged it up, sprinkled it with colours and glitter to come up with THAT but please do it again. Often.

Ilium is a wild mixture of science-fiction, fantasy, a history (or should I say literature?) lesson, and awesomeness. And it's only the first part - don't think you can get in other books between Ilium and its sequel Olympos (I wanted to, but now I can't).

In Ilium, you follow three different, but somehow converging story lines. The first one is that of scholar Hockenberry, Ilias expert, originally from the 20th/21st century, dead and revived by the old Greek Gods and taken to the Olymp - or at least the Olympos Mons on Mars. Yes, you've heard right, the old Greek Gods. Zeus, Hera, Athene, Aphrodite, Apollo, and the whole rest, augmented by nanotechnology, quantum teleportation, and lots of other interesting stuff. And why would the Greek Gods want Hockenberry and other scholars to live? Because the Ilias is happening right at this moment, and Zeus wants them to look for any discrepancies between Homer's opus and the real life happenings. And it IS real life. You get Achilles and Hector and Helena and the rest of the whole bunch - and they fight and slaughter and kill to the best of their abilities.

The second story line starts pretty far away from all these events - to be precise on the Jupiter moon Europa. There, a few biomechanical, intelligent, technologically highly advanced, conscious Moravecs - further enhancements of robots brought by humans to the outer Solar System - are worried because of the massive quantum disturbances they detect on Mars. So, they send out a small group of Moravecs to have a look at what's going on there, and to stop it if necessary. Part of the four-Moravec-crew are best friends Mahnmut, a little Moravec originally stationed in the deep sea on Europa and Shakespeare fan, and Orphu, a high vacuum Moravec from Jupiter's moon Io and Proust aficionado. While their journey is peaceful, their welcome committee isn't so much, and soon Mahnmut and Orphu have to put together every creative shred of their mostly synthetic bodies to get their mission done.

The third story line is earth-bound and deals with humans as we know them. Or almost. Served by servitors and voynixes (I have no idea about the English names, since I've read it in German, but that's not really important anyhow, is it? ;-D), the human race has become complacent and dull. The few human exemplars still living have forgotten how to read, how to care, and how to ask questions. Living lives focused on party, sex, and food, freed of the fear of any sudden and permanent death, and fed with stories about their afterlife and the eternal normalcy of their behaviour, they know nothing about the world they live in. But Harman, on the verge of reaching the age of 100 and therefore destined to die soon, is not satisfied. Hungry for life, he cannot accept his close demise and looks for answers in a world that doesn't know questions. On his quest, he takes with him Ada, Daeman, and Hannah - and finds Savi, the only human existing who is old enough to still remember a different world. Who can guide them along on a dangerous path to see for themselves what this world of theirs is made of. Where are the "Post-humans"? Why do humans live to a hundred and no longer? Why are they cared for like children? And who or better what are these voynixes?

Aside from the craziness of the story itself, here is what I loved the most about it: the character portrayals and the perfectly thought through details. I loved Mahnmut and Orphu who, probably deliberately, defy their inhuman and synthetic exterior and have the most touching, human, and incredibly caring conversations (and show the behaviour and actions to match them) in the entire book. I enjoyed Daeman's development - a complete ignorant and arrogant idiot at first who in the fight for his own life and the life of others finds a strength in himself that he - and I as the reader - would have never thought him capable of. I loved how the Greek fighting scenes sounded so very Greek because they always began with a minute listing of who was where and said and did what. I enjoyed the fact that so much wasn't explained, that I had to just accept all the details at first and only later started to understand what they meant, how things worked together. How the whole world functioned. I had so many hypotheses while reading about where it was really set, what the time course might be, and I still have no idea now, but I LOVED all that. That I had to work, too, didn't only consume, but tried to interpret all the clues I got and still didn't manage to make up a coherent picture. And I still always felt that there WAS a coherent picture, I just didn't/couldn't see it.

This is so very much recommended to anyone who thinks he/she could enjoy such a story, really let go and dive in. Because this book is brilliant. Especially the last 50 to 100 pages. Seriously. And now I'm off reading Olympos.

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 sci-fi fans want and need. We're talking quantum teleportation, nanotechnology, sentient cybernetics, a light hint of time travel... the works. The literature references are numerous and impressive. You don't have to get all the references to make this book enjoyable; but getting some of them will make you feel quite well read. When you get a little Proust, a lot of Shakespeare, a dash of Browning, mixed in with twists on Homer, Aristophanes, and Virgil, you know this isn't lightweight stuff.

Very different and interesting SiFi book. It started out slow and I wasn't sure I was gonna get into it or even like it but it took off and grabbed my attention. ended on a real cliffhanger so I am curious to see how the 2nd book will wrap things up. Recommended

Can a science fiction book set in the future, also be an alternate history story at the same time?

Dan Simmons likes to take on some monolithic challenges. Ilium starts off with three separate story-lines. I know they are going to come together, they have to come together, what would be the point if they don’t come together. The true beauty of this story is how they come together.

I went for Ilium based on my love of Homer’s epics. Just tell me you’re going to build your world around that, and I am there with bells on. I was fascinated how Simmons took Homer’s Iliad and built this story around it, bringing in a time traveling scholar, sentient machines from the far reaches of our universe, and a gang of misfits from our own future on Earth.

Ilium provided hours of entertainment for me during my drive to and from work. The characters were well developed and captured my attention. The scenario was constantly moving in unexpected and unanticipated directions.

But this is book one of two. When I reached the end of Ilium, I felt satisfied. The story ended well, I enjoyed my time spent with Simmons’ characters in this impressive world, but I do not need more. I guess some might see this as a fail, the author might see this as a fail; I’m happy with the product received.