Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.91 AVERAGE
3.91 AVERAGE
Goddamn, this is a weird book. Marvelously, hilariously weird. Perhaps the weirdest I've ever read, and I'm including "The Illuminatus! Trilogy" in that consideration.
It's "The Iliad." With Little Green Men on Mars. And quantum magic. And Greek Gods. And space ships. And robots. One of the robots is a Proust-obsessed crab. And giant stone idols. And weeks at sea, trapped in the anti-doldrums: a Martian dust storm. And bombs. And wormholes. And Shakespeare, uh... come to life. And dinosaurs.
What the fuck is this book?
Oh, right. It's only Part 1. Shee-it.
It's "The Iliad." With Little Green Men on Mars. And quantum magic. And Greek Gods. And space ships. And robots. One of the robots is a Proust-obsessed crab. And giant stone idols. And weeks at sea, trapped in the anti-doldrums: a Martian dust storm. And bombs. And wormholes. And Shakespeare, uh... come to life. And dinosaurs.
What the fuck is this book?
Oh, right. It's only Part 1. Shee-it.
And here I thought I'd be getting a futuristic retelling of the Trojan war. And I did...sort of, but what I got so completely transcended my initial expectations. I want to know how Simmons' mind works, how he creates such believable, hard sci-fi futures and populates them with engaging characters, some of whom are Greek gods. A huge fan of his, having read the entire Hyperion Cantos, his style is intelligent sci-fi adventure, a multi-layered story encompassing so many different ideas and theories. But he still finds time for the engaging, rousing adventure or action scene and on the fields of Troy, there is certainly ample opportunity for bloodshed. Definitely recommend it. I'm onto Olympos now, the sequel, to see how the story ends.
Slightly higher development to action than usual for Dan SImmons. I love the balance he struck in Hyperion and Carrion Comfort, but this definitely dragged in places and then felt rushed in others.
Looking forward to Olympus with a little bit of nervousness that it won't satisfy.
Looking forward to Olympus with a little bit of nervousness that it won't satisfy.
Great great modern sci-fi combining Martians with Creation Myths with Ancient Greek Myth.
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 [b:Olympos|3972|Olympos (Ilium, #2)|Dan Simmons|http://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388216654s/3972.jpg|1537178]. Onward.
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 [b:Olympos|3972|Olympos (Ilium, #2)|Dan Simmons|http://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388216654s/3972.jpg|1537178]. Onward.
This book is amazing! Well-crafted, fast-paced, I couldn’t put it down. I am obsessed with the epic poems and literature in general and loved the ease with which the author entwined sci-fi, the Iliad and Shakespeare all in one. On to the next one!
Why the hell are there self-proclaimed greek gods using scifi tech & ancient heroes playing Homer's Iliad to the word on terraformed Mars? If that alone sounds interesting you'll love this, Simmons doesn't disappoint. Not quite as good as Hyperion, but then again barely anything is as good as Hyperion.
A cool concept for a novel! I like that it's sci-fi but at the same time has detailed descriptions of the Iliad. As both a classics AND sci-fi/fantasy nerd, this is totally perfect!