F/SF

Like all of Simmon’s this is worth the read. It is not quite in a league with his epic Hyperion saga though.
( )

What if the Greek epic of Troy were a science fiction, and there were kind-of immortal humans on Earth who got to meet Odysseus, and then in the space of six hundred pages those involved in the sci fi fighting of Troy never met up with the cast of characters on Earth? Why, then you'd have a somewhat frustrating lump of a book that is really more like two books, and then towards the end you'll realise that of course this is the first in a series, and that it's just a little bit too much work to read more in the series and so all the problems and mysteries set up across these six hundred pages will have to remain mysterious for you. ( )

Clearly, Dan Simmons must be insane.

I read the back of the book, I read Simmons before, I should have been prepared.
Seriously though, I loved this book. I read the Iliad during my last year of high school, so a lot of it came back to me reading this, which was nice. I have no knowledge whatsoever about Shakespeare (or Proust) which made some of the more poetically inclined chapters a bit abstract to me. This is of course not Simmons fault, but it did make me feel that I missed out on a piece of the grander story. Also, it did genuinely make me want to know about the plays by Shakespeare, how about that.

There is something about Simmons writing that makes me lose any concept of "sensible". Simmons goes: "Trojan war on parralel universe earth and gods on Mars" and I go: "Okay, go on". Simmons goes: "Robots reflecting on Shakespeare and Proust on the moons of Jupiter" and I go: "Fine". Simmons goes: "Quantum Teleportation, Brane Holes, Little Green Men, Invisibility Hat" and I don't even blink an eye. Any other writer would have got me shouting at the book "Get it together man! This is just getting too much too fast, where in gods name are you going with this?", but for some reason Simmons makes me go: "Sure". This is some kind of magic I thourougly enjoy, and I will be reading much more of Dan Simmons from now on. ( )

This review was also posted here - https://cavetothecross.com/blog/ilium/

This is my second attempt at reading a book by Dan Simmons. I read and hated Hyperion and after a recommendation from Nick Rekieta of this book, it is clear that I do not care for anything by Simmons and will stop trying.

I would not say that Simmons is without talent and it seems that a number of people enjoy his books. Simmon's pacing here is a slog. The story meanders and most of it feels like it's a high school teaching telling a bad story to get people interested in reading the Iliad. There is no character that is worth caring about. The main character barely seems like he would survive a fistfight let alone carry out the feats required of him in the story. For over three-quarters of the book, three different storylines crawl and switch enough times without any real revelations or reasons why one would care to continue that it is now three stories that crawl. It's not until the last quarter of the book that anything of actual value occurs and even then its a mixture of confusing reveals and plot points that I didn't know what really was going on or to what extent things mattered. Echoes of Hyperion loomed greatly here.

Simmons knows his history and his Iliad. However, what is two books could have been one and it's one that I will not be continuing as I fear it would lead to my own Odyssey. Final Grade - F ( )