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Ilium | Dan Simmons | Full course meal
 
 


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 Ilium  

Ilium
Dan Simmons

Eos, 2003 - 570 pages

average customer review:based on 7 reviews
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     highly recommended  highly recommended



The Trojan War rages at the foot of Olympos Mons on Mars -- observed and influenced from on high by Zeus and his immortal family -- and twenty-first-century professor Thomas Hockenberry is there to play a role in the insidious private wars of vengeful gods and goddesses. On Earth, a small band of the few remaining humans pursues a lost past and devastating truth -- as four sentient machines depart from Jovian space to investigate, perhaps terminate, the potentially catastrophic emissions emanating from a mountaintop miles above the terraformed surface of the Red Planet.




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Don't worry about skipping your classics lectures

I picked up Ilium for Christmas (gift from my grandfather) and I must admit I was a litle concerned about the beginning and the (what appeared to be) heavy reliance on your knowledge of classics. However, I thoroughly enjoyed this grand tale. I won't write the book report, many others have already done a better job than I could but I will say that you don't need to have studied the Iliad to enjor this book or series. The writing is tight and mature and while I'm sure I missed out on some of the literary jokes, I don't care, its a great read and a great preimse.


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Full course meal

Simmons shares with the reader his fascination with Homer, the Bard of Avon, Proust and makes cogent insights on some aspects of their works. Add to that a terrific story full of excellent SF action and an incisive study into what it means to be a "person" and you have a full set of joyful stuff inside the covers. I couldn't put it down as it was very intense to participate in Simmons' fabricated universes for the time I was there.


An unexpected (but pleasant) suprise

I admit that I did not have high hopes for this book and in fact I put it down once after 30 pages (a rarity for me). But a friend raved about it and told me that I realy needed to give it 100 pages to grip me. I do so, and I am glad that I took his advice. This book was an unexpected, but pleasant, suprise. I thoroughly enjoyed it. The story does bounce around a bit at the beginning and is short on explanations, but once you get past the first 100 pages and understand what (although not why) things are happening, you will be hooked. Persevere and you will be rewarded.


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A Little Disappointing

One of the things I have loved most about Simmons' earlier work was his intricate plotlines and the way he weaves the storylines in and out of one another until finally bringing everything together in an ultimately unexpected way. One cannot accuse him of following any formula in this epic retelling of the Iliad fused with sci-fi but I think he got a little careless with this book. One detail which really bugged me and I suppose might be overlooked, was the fact that one of the protagonists at the beginning of the book refers to aonther character as her cousin. In and of itself this is unremarkable except for the fact that Simmons is careful to note that in this future people are only allowed to have one child.Correct me if I'm wrong but I was under the impression that siblings are a prerequisite for cousins. Hmmmm. Can't seem to figure that one out. Picky? Perhaps, and in any other author certainly a minor point but for someone of Simmons ability to make such a basic error is..well..disappointing.


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reviews: page 1, 2



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