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Olympos by Dan Simmons
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Olympos (2005)

by Dan Simmons

Other authors: See the other authors section.

Series: Ilium-Olympos (2)

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English (27)  French (2)  All languages (29)
Showing 1-5 of 27 (next | show all)
I read this book very bittily, because I couldn't get into it very well. I thought it was okay. It was absorbing enough once I forced myself to concentrate on it. The technology, to my mind, made things a bit too easy. And if some things had been cut out, it would've made it more readable and made it make more sense. For example: why, if your only motivation so far has been to get back to your pregnant wife, and you have important information to deliver, would you go into a radioactive wreck where you know you'll receive a fatal dose of radiation, just out of curiosity? You wouldn't. That threw me out of it.

(Also, inaccuracies don't endear it to me. Calypso and Circe were not the same person. Odysseus stayed with Circe for a year on Aeaea, and she willingly let him go. Odysseus stayed with Calypso for seven years on Ogygia, and she had to be forced to let him go. If nothing else, look at the two different personalities there!) ( )
  shanaqui | Apr 9, 2013 |
great concept-but somehow misses; resurrected 20th century scholar observes aliens reenacting Trojan War, while other related aliens try to exterminate remains of humanity
  FKarr | Apr 6, 2013 |
Illium was a brilliant book, catering to every kind of reader on many different levels, in ways most of us could never even dream of. A book that manages to successfully combine science fiction, Greek mythology and Proust into its narrative just has to be a gem. And that was Illium, despite its flaws. A gem.

Olympos had a lot to live up to. Did it manage it?

Well, yes and no, depending on how you look at it. If you want more science fiction, more mythology, more epic battle scenes and more Proust, you will certainly find it here. But as a narrative, as a story as a whole, it is disappointing. Granted, Illium left many threads dangling, and these needed to be tied up. In Olympos, the result is a rambling, often incoherent, and sometimes just plain monotonous plot. By the last third of the book, I found myself skipping huge chunks that just seemed irrelevant and over-wrought. Much of the mystery of Illium is well... de-mystified in Olympos. And not in a necessarily good way. Some things are best left unsaid. The Star Wars prequels are an example of this. Olympos is of the same ilk. The mysteries of Illium were so mind-boggling and intriguing, that when you find them answered in Olympos, you end up wishing you had not discovered such inane and frankly implausible answers.

But I could have forgiven all of this if not for the fact that much of Olympos' content plain insulted and offended me. Simmons seems to have a frankly juvenile and adolescent obsession with sex. Some of his scenes verge on the pornographic, and his attitude towards the female characters is sometimes disturbing. For example, the one deed that the main character must perform in order to save the world is to have sex with an unconscious woman; this scene is described in minute, grandiose and unnecessary detail. Such scenes left me with the sense that Simmons clearly had something to get off his chest - and whatever it was was something also best left unsaid.

Those impressed with Illium will want to read this just to find some closure if nothing else. I suspect many of them will be disappointed. Fans of Simmons will probably like it despite all its deep and glaring flaws. As a fan of Illium but not of Simmons, I found this book disappointing, disturbing and offensive. It had its high points, and its intricacies of conception are to be admired. But as a novel as a whole, I would give only one piece of advice for the 'uninitiated' - tread with caution. ( )
  Ludi_Ling | Mar 10, 2012 |
I thought Dan Simmons had written himself into a corner with "Ilium," his mind-bending, classic literature sampling, time hopping saga of future Earth and Mars, genetically improved humans, post-humans, cyborgs, and alternative universes.
Luckily, it turns out that Mr. Simmons is a nimble author, and he knew what he was doing when he spun himself a narrative web this complicated.
While "Olympos" was in itself an engaging read, with plenty of action, emotion, and tragedy, I was especially pleased to find that the story went beyond these surface pleasures, and the author had a deeper point to make about the power of human creativity and history and consciousness.
I will probably add these two books to my permanent collection. ( )
  thelorelei | Sep 30, 2011 |
Like Ilium, this is a book that forcibly pulls me through the story. My will is not my own as I turn page after page. Just another 10 minutes I think, and then an hour has gone by... http://icantstopreading.wordpress.com/2008/04/27/olympos-by-dan-simmons/
  lorelorn_2008 | Jan 5, 2011 |
Showing 1-5 of 27 (next | show all)
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» Add other authors (8 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Dan Simmonsprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Rostant, LarryCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Ruddell, GaryCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed

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This novel is for Harold Bloom, who---in his refusal to collaborate in this Age of Resentment---has given me great pleasure.
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Information from the Dutch Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to the English one.
Helena van Troje wordt kort voor het ochtendgloren gewekt door het geloei van het luchtalarm.
Quotations
Information from the Dutch Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to the English one.
Hoe had Homerus al die dingen kunnen weten?
Toen dit alles zich afspeelde was hij een kameel in Bactria!
LUCIANUS, De droom
...de werkelijke geschiedenis van de aarde is in laatste instantie een verhaal over medogenloze oorlogvoering.
Noch zijn medemensen, noch zijn goden, noch zijn hartstochten laten een mens met rust.
JOSEPH CONRAD, Notes on Lifes and Letters
Ach, schrijf niet langer over Troje
Waar de Dood zijn stempel achterliet -
En verwar niet koning Laios' woede
Met de vreugde die de vrijheid biedt:
Al spreekt een sfinx met nieuwe monden
Van de dood die Thebe nooit doorgrondde.

Een nieuw Athene zal verrijzen,
En schenkt het verre nageslacht
Zoals het zonlicht aan de hemel,
de bloeitijd van haar praal en pracht;
Of laat, als niets van schoonheid leeft,
Wat de aarde neemt, de hemel geeft.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, Hellas
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Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0380817934, Mass Market Paperback)

Welcome back to the Trojan War gone round the bend. Hector and Achilles have joined forces against the Olympic Gods. Back on a future Earth, assorted creatures from Shakespeare's The Tempest get ready to rumble in a winner-takes-the-universe battle royale. And amid it all, a group of confused mere mortals with their classically trained robot allies (from Jupiter no less) race across time and space to keep from getting squashed as the various Titans of the Western Canon square off.

Confused? It's all part of Dan Simmons's Olympos, a novel one part fun-with-quantum-physics and two parts through-the-looking-glass survey of Western Literature. Picking up where he left off in the high-wire act Ilium, Simmons doesn't disappoint. Not only is Olympos excellent hard science fiction and grand space opera, it's a riveting and fast-paced book that is alternately shocking, thrilling, and often deftly hilarious as his hapless human creations wrestle the forces of literary history itself. Be sure to read Ilium first though. That and a more-than passing familiarity with The Illiad might come in handy for the journey to Mars, Ilium's far-off shores, and the Earth that might be. --Jeremy Pugh

Amazon.com Exclusive Content

Master of the Universes: An Exclusive Interview with Dan Simmons

Changing genres as easily as others change clothes, bestselling author Dan Simmons has written horror, mystery, historical fiction, thrillers, fantasy, and science fiction. In this Amazon.com exclusive interview, he talks about his latest SF triumph, Olympos, a tale of Mars, the Greek gods, and survival in a post-human world.

(retrieved from Amazon Wed, 02 Jan 2013 14:08:50 -0500)

(see all 3 descriptions)

Achilles and Hector lay seige to the home of the gods, inadvertently triggering a massive conflict between humanity and such powerful beings as Setebos, Prospero, and Caliban.

» see all 3 descriptions

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