Genre-hopping Dan Simmons returns to science fiction with the vast and intricate masterpiece Ilium. Within, Simmons weaves three astounding story lines into one Earth-, Mars-, and Jupiter-shattering cliffhanger that will leave readers aching for the sequel.

On Earth, a post-technological group of humans, pampered by servant machines and easy travel via "faxing," begins to question its beginnings. Meanwhile, a team of sentient and Shakespeare-quoting robots from Jupiter's lunar system embark on a mission to Mars to investigate an increase in dangerous quantum fluctuations. On the Red Planet, they'll find a race of metahumans living out existence as the pantheon of classic Greek gods. These "gods" have recreated the Trojan War with reconstituted Greeks and Trojans and staffed it with scholars from throughout Earth's history who observe the events and report on the accuracy of Homer's Iliad. One of these scholars, Thomas Hockenberry, finds himself tangled in the midst of interplay between the gods and their playthings and sends the war reeling in a direction the blind poet could have never imagined.

Simmons creates an exciting and thrilling tale set in the thick of the Trojan War as seen through Hockenberry's 20th-century eyes. At the same time, Simmons's robots study Shakespeare and Proust and the origin-seeking Earthlings find themselves caught in a murderous retelling of The Tempest. Reading this highly literate novel does take more than a passing familiarity with at least The Iliad but readers who can dive into these heady waters and swim with the current will be amply rewarded. --Jeremy Pugh


From Publishers Weekly
Hugo and Stoker winner Simmons (Hyperion) makes a spectacular return to large-scale space opera in this elegant monster of a novel. Many centuries in the future, Earth's small, more or less human population lives an enjoyable, if drone-like existence. Elsewhere, on some alternate Earth, or perhaps it's the distant past, the battle for Troy is in its ninth year. Oddly, its combatants, Hector, Achilles and the rest, seem to be following a script, speaking their lines exactly as Homer reported them in The Iliad. The Gods, who live on Olympus Mons on the planet Mars, may be post-humans, or aliens, or, well, Gods; it isn't entirely clear. Thomas Hockenberry, a late-20th-century professor of the classics from De Pauw University in Indiana, has, along with other scholars from his era, apparently been resurrected by the Gods. His job is to take notes on the war and compare its progress to Homer's tale, noting even the smallest deviations. Meanwhile, the "moravecs," a civilization of diverse, partially organic AIs clustered on the moons of Jupiter, have been disturbed by the quantum activity they've registered from the inner solar system and have sent an expedition to Mars to investigate. It will come as no surprise to the author's fans that the expedition's members include specialists in Shakespeare and Proust. Beautifully written, chock full of literary references, grand scenery and fascinating characters, this book represents Simmons at his best.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
The author of the popular and highly praised Hyperion books returns to sf in his usual manner, applying a variety of raw materials to a very large canvas with a free hand. There is the cast of the Trojan War--warriors, women, gods, and all. There is a terraformed Mars. There are robotic scholars resurrected from literature, a pastoral but poisoned Earth (genetic engineering was overdone), and Savi, the Wandering Jew. The action in and around Troy is the easiest to follow, provided one is familiar with the Iliad. The action on Earth and the terraformed Mars develops more slowly because of the vast changes in human beings and the widespread development of artificial intelligence, which tends to follow its own rules, which Simmons must elucidate. Fortunately, Savi serves as a bridge between the past and the future. The book concludes with a cliffhanger, to be resolved in the forthcoming Olympos. Simmons has entered the ranks of those writers--a distinguished company, beginning with Euripides--who are disgusted by the gods' behavior in the Iliad. Broadly literate sf fans with a high tolerance for uneven pacing will be the readers who are best able to orient themselves. An impressive if not transparently accessible novel, and as such no surprise coming from Simmons. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
Dan Simmons, author of the award-winning Hyperion Cantos (Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion, Endymion, and The Fall of Endymion), returns to epic science fiction with Ilium, an awe-inspiring novel that reconstructs the events in Homer's classic The Iliad. Imagine the Trojan War taking place on a terraformed Mars, with gods that are really highly advanced post-humans. Add to that a variety of races of sentient biomechanical organisms living in the outskirts of the solar system, a reincarnated professor from the 21st century working as an observer for the gods, handheld time-travel devices, and Little Green Men, and what do you have? One word: Hugo!

The re-creation of the Trojan War is only the foundation for this multilevel, truly extraordinary space opera. Thomas Hockenberry, a professor who once lived in 21st-century America, has somehow been reborn and thrust back in time to the last days of the Trojan War, as chronicled by the blind poet Homer. He is now working for the gods, secretly observing the events of the epic war. When a goddess enlists him in a plot to kill another deity, the pot-bellied scholar realizes his life is forfeit either way -- but in his desperation he begins to look at his strange reality in a different light￯﾿ﾽ

Easily Simmons' best work to date, Ilium is a breathtaking novel that is sure to garner accolades and awards. Paul Goat Allen

FROM THE PUBLISHER

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 tax."

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 mountain-topmiles above the terraformed surface of Mars.

FROM THE CRITICS

The New York Times

For answers to the mysteries laid out in Ilium -- from the true identity of the Olympian gods to the fate of robots and humans and of the ''little green men'' on Mars for whom communication means death -- you will have to wait for the promised sequel. For now, matching wits with Simmons and his lively creations should be reward enough. — Gerald Jonas

The Washington Post

Dan Simmons launches a new multi-volume epic with Ilium -- one that recalls his ambitious Hyperion series -- and its opening novel is a doozie, as three colorful plotlines eventually merge in impressive fashion. — Fiona Kelleghan

Publishers Weekly

Hugo and Stoker winner Simmons (Hyperion) makes a spectacular return to large-scale space opera in this elegant monster of a novel. Many centuries in the future, Earth's small, more or less human population lives an enjoyable, if drone-like existence. Elsewhere, on some alternate Earth, or perhaps it's the distant past, the battle for Troy is in its ninth year. Oddly, its combatants, Hector, Achilles and the rest, seem to be following a script, speaking their lines exactly as Homer reported them in The Iliad. The Gods, who live on Olympus Mons on the planet Mars, may be post-humans, or aliens, or, well, Gods; it isn't entirely clear. Thomas Hockenberry, a late-20th-century professor of the classics from De Pauw University in Indiana, has, along with other scholars from his era, apparently been resurrected by the Gods. His job is to take notes on the war and compare its progress to Homer's tale, noting even the smallest deviations. Meanwhile, the "moravecs," a civilization of diverse, partially organic AIs clustered on the moons of Jupiter, have been disturbed by the quantum activity they've registered from the inner solar system and have sent an expedition to Mars to investigate. It will come as no surprise to the author's fans that the expedition's members include specialists in Shakespeare and Proust. Beautifully written, chock full of literary references, grand scenery and fascinating characters, this book represents Simmons at his best. (July 22) Forecast: An 11-city author tour, plus the anticipation over Simmons's first new SF epic in years, will fuel sales. The conclusion to this two-part saga, Olympos, is due in 2004. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Restored to life by the "gods," a race of beings who dwell on the heights of Olympos, 20th-century scholar Thomas Hockenberry travels back in time to observe the events of the Trojan War, as chronicled in Homer's epic poem. There, one of the gods recruits him in a secret war against her brother and sister deities. Set in a far future in which the population of true humans is kept strictly regulated by extraplanetary forces and machine intelligences study Proust and Shakespeare as they perform their duties throughout the universe, Simmon's (Hyperion; Darwin's Blade) imaginative retelling of The Iliad forms the framework for a tale of epic proportions. Ancient themes of love, honor, duty, and courage play out on the stages of the distant past and the even more distant future. Highly recommended. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews