Dan Simmons
Ilium (2003)
Author: Dan Simmons
Genre: Science Fiction (Philosophical)
Plot Summary:
Thousands of years in the future, the lives of three beings intertwine--Thomas Hockenberry, Ph.D., once a 21st-century classics professor at Indiana University,now resurrected as a "scholic" observing a new Trojan War at the behest of the Greek gods; Daeman, an "old-style" human on earth whose greatest concern is seducing his beautiful cousin; and Mahnmut, a sentient, biomechanical organism from Jupiter's moon Europa who also has a passion for Shakespeare. Each of them suddenly finds himself transformed into a man on a mission, though whose mission and what the consequences will be are anything but clear. SPOILER: In the distant past, what we know as the internet grew to encompass all information, both biological and technological, eventually becoming a sentient entity known as Prospero, which watched as the self-evolved "post-humans" that created it unleashed unknown forces from other universes with their quantum teleportation experiments.
Geographical Setting: Mars, Earth, moons of Jupiter
Time Period: Distant Future (~5000 years)
Series: Ilium (#1)
Appeal Characteristics:
Ilium's epic scale does justice to its use of Homer's Iliad, with numerous Shakespeare and Proust references for good measure. Both writing style and subject matter are an interesting blend of literary and technical--there are long passages where Mahnmut debates literature with his friend Orphu of Io, but also pages where there is nearly nothing but intricate description of how a certain technological maneuver is carried out. The beginning could be somewhat disorienting at first, given how it plunges the reader into Hockenberry's ninth year as a scholic and then darts off to meet Daeman almost immediately after that, but a rhythm soon develops, assisted by the fact that each chapter's title names where the action takes place, and the combination of short scenes, constant shifting between the three main characters, and the nearly relentless discovery of new information keeps the pages turning. The characters are somewhat secondary to the universe they inhabit, but are still fully drawn, likeable, and interestingly different from each other. The setting is both very futuristic (on Earth, Mars, and the moons of Jupiter) and hearkens back to another time (on the Plains of Ilium), which serves to underscore how humanity both changes and remains the same.
Read-alikes: As Ilium ends on a cliffhanger, any reader who enjoyed the characters, universe, and literary borrowings will certainly want to move immediately to the sequel, Olympos, which follows Hector and Achilles' siege of Mount Olympus and the universe-spanning repercussions. Those who enjoyed Ilium's multiple points of view, historical references, and characters' determination to change what seems set in stone might be interested in Orson Scott Card's Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus, in which near-future scientists attempt to alter how Europe and North American came into contact. Readers who liked the epic scale and more cerebral aspects of Ilium might want to look into Isaac Asimov's classic Foundation, the first in a series of novels which explores psychohistorian Hari Seldon's incredible efforts to prevent the human race from falling into 30,000 years of barbarism. Fans of
the futuristic technology, war, and expanding definition of human might like John Scalzi's Old Man's War, which follows seventy-five-year-old John Perry as he joins the army and heads off into space to fight for Earth's colonial worlds. Finally, for those who particularly enjoyed the reimagining of a classic tale in literary style could try Jo Graham's Black Ships, which takes place after the fall of Troy and retells the story of Aeneas from the point of view of the seer Gull.
Red Flags: language, some sexuality, graphic descriptions of battle
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