Ilium

By: Dan Simmons

Narrated by: Kevin Pariseau

Length: 29 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's summary

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 21st-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 40th-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 20. 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 fax." 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 mountaintop miles above the terraformed surface of Mars.

©2003 Dan Simmons (P)2014 Audible Inc.

I love long complex scifi, but after 3 hours ...

I love long complex scifi, but after 3 hours just couldn't get into it. will ask for a refund/exchange.

A great human epic gets an upgrade

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes. This story was great!! It takes the events of the Iliad (one of the greatest human epics ever told) and throws in a sentient race of semi-organic machines, some Eloi humans (as in The Time Machine) and an mere mortal slob tasked as the observer of the "gods". It is incredibly imaginative and really develops the concept of post-humanism. It also has( what seems to me) to be very solid science behind the fiction without being too techno the way Clark and Asimov are. It is funny and uncensored and not at all predictable, which is a key component of a really well told story.

Who was your favorite character and why?

My favorite character was Mahnmut the moravec. He has an innocence about him and is surrounded by characters and situations that would test one's moral compass. He's a basic nice guy, the kind of person I at least won't to be. Also he has all this cool tech.

Have you listened to any of Kevin Pariseau’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No, I have not listened to other stories by this narrator, but he is up to the task. He gives a performance that I would expect, not overly spectacular, but not lacking either. The minor greek warriors didn't seem that distinct but they were minor characters with usual;y one scene, so that's not really a negative. Overall, it was a good reading.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No, but only because it was just so overwhelming. I wanted to listen and then process. It intruded a lot of really interesting concepts that could be stories in their own right.

Any additional comments?

The only negative is that is is harder to follow than most stories for two reasons. First, the writer explains very little. He leaves a lot to the imagination of the reader, which is fine to a point, buy some things he just does not tell you until two-thirds into the book. The second reason is that the story follows three sets of character and one of them is in first person POV while the others are in third. Is that a thing now and I'm just behind the times? Anyway, its weird, but it is in no way a deal breaker. I love this story and plan read the second part of this two-part cycle.

Not sure about the hype

The concept is really good and I love the themes of gods and post humans, but the story just isn't here. None of the characters are fleshed out, they all seem two dimensional, and I just couldn't find the backdrop to frame the visuals of the world the author created. A lot of words are thrown around without explanations from the beginning, it takes a long time and patience to figure out what the hell is going on. I loved the Hyperion series and am surprised this is by the same guy. So, just not sure on this one. I was not captivated.

The Gods of 40th century Mars

A fantastic sci-fi epic in the tradition of Simmons's Hyperion Cantos. In Ilium, as in the Hyperion books, Simmons really shows off his knowledge of classical literature. He obviously knows the Iliad and the Odyssey inside and out, but the author (through his characters) also fill this book with literary and historical references to Shakespeare, Proust, and a dozen other sources. It's ingenious and it made me to resolve to finally get around to reading the Iliad myself once I've finished this series.

Set in the 40th century, Ilium is a retelling of the Ilium. Kind of. We begin with "scholic" Thomas Hockenberry, who was an early 21st century classics professor revived by the Olympian gods in the 40th century to monitor the ongoing Trojan War — which is taking place on Mars.

"Wait, what?" you are thinking. The "gods" are creatures of super-science, using unimaginable powers of quantum manipulation and nanotechnology to take on the roles and attributes of the classical Greek deities. And not just the big names either — while all the old familiar gods like Zeus and Athena and Aphrodite of course figure heavily into the plot, Simmons, through his educated protagonist Hockenberry, encounters scores of minor named gods and heroes as well.

Just why the gods are reenacting the Iliad on a terraformed Mars is not made clear by the end of this volume, but the heroes — Achilles, Hector, Paris, Odysseus, etc — are also as epic as the gods, thanks to both nanotech enhancements and literal interbreeding between gods and mortals, just like in the myths.

Hockenberry and his fellow scholics are basically embedded journalists for the gods, but although they all know how the Iliad ends, they have been forbidden by Zeus to tell any of the other gods. The gods know that the scholics know how Homer said the story is supposed to end, but they've been forbidden to ask the scholics. So they continue playing their games with mortal lives.

And then Hockenberry is recruited by one of the gods for a clandestine mission to kill another god. And with the "magic artifacts" he's been given, he's able to change a key event. And suddenly we're not in the Iliad anymore. And Hockenberry, who's now a dead man as soon as the gods catch up to him, decides to change the story completely.

This would be a pretty awesome story all by itself, but in fact Hockenberry is only one of three main protagonists. There are two other subplots which eventually merge into the Iliad on Mars. A pair of "Moravecs" — a race of sentient robots built by post-humans before they disappeared, now living out among the moons of Jupiter — is on a mission of their own. Not having paid much attention to the inner system for generations, they discovered a lot of dangerous quantum manipulation and advanced terraforming on Mars. When they go to investigate, their ship is shot down... in orbit, by a bearded man in a chariot throwing a lightning bolt at them.

Mahnmut and Orphu, the only two survivors, try to make it across Mars, aided by mysterious "Little Green Men" who seem to be creations of neither early humans nor the gods. The two robots, whose dialog is kind of reminiscent of R2D2 and C3PO, if C3PO were a Shakespeare scholar and R2D2 were fond of Proust, add a bit of comedy relief to the story, but eventually have a role to play in the climactic confrontation between gods and mortals.

Finally, there are the last surviving humans on Earth, a tiny population of laborless dilettantes with little to do but go to parties and play musical beds. Their world has been created by the long-gone post-humans, who created teleportation networks around the world, set up a system in which all remaining humans are carefully population-controlled and do not have to work or want for anything. They are granted perfect health until their "fifth twenty," when they report for exterminationascension to the outer rings, Logan's Run-style. But as Eloi-like as the remaining human race may be (they are actually called "Eloi" by one of the old-time humans they later meet), the spark of curiosity hasn't completely died in all of them. A few set off on an unplanned adventure, and discover truths about their world... and that there are Morlocks.

Ilium is so rich in world-building and has such a tangled plot that there were occasional bits that lost me — I am still not sure of the role of Caliban, the Little Green Men are just strange, and we don't yet have an answer to the question of why super-advanced godlike beings have resurrected the entire cast of the Iliad on a terraformed Mars. But hopefully those questions will be answered in the second book, which I will be reading soon.

Interesting but predictable

Interesting setup but became very predictable as story progressed. Author also would ramble on with lists of inconsequential names as if he was Homer writing the original Illiad.

Long but worth it

After the first few hours of this book, I was beginning to think it was all hype. I was very wrong.

Future-humans-turned Greek gods follow Homeric txt

Like the Hyperion Cantos, Simmon's sci-fi series contains a variety of historical & literary themes. So, if you're a history buff that digs Shakespeare and/or Proust, you're in for a treat!

Another great science fiction novel by Dan! Simmon

Another great science fiction novel by Dan! Simmons, I couldn't stop listening to it!

Great literature, period

Any additional comments?

As most who read Simmons' Hyperion series, I was awed. It was one of my first encounters with sci-fi and it hooked me.

Since then I have read most of Simmons' oeuvre, including his horror novels. In my opinion, none equals Hyperion. Ilium comes close however.

Ilium is a sprawling novel centred on the future battle of Troy. Mysterious Gods from Greek antiquity stage Homer's Iliad on Mars. Human tragedy becomes godly entertainment as Zeus and his entourage look on from Olympus Mons. As we follow a technologically reincarnated 20th century American scholar of Homer, the mysterious situation on Mars is slowly unmasked and we begin to learn the true background to the story.

Meanwhile, we also learn of what has become of life on earth as four friends discover that their planet was not always inhabited by dinosaurs and that humanity's every need was not always tended to by mechanical guardians. Do they dare break free from their artificially pampared lives to uncover the truth? And will the little robots from Jupiter, who always debate Shakespeare, find out what is really behind the Gods of Mars?

Simmons loves classical literature and he often threads it throughout his novels. I suspect I didn't get all of the literary allusions in Ilium. Luckily, being well-versed in classics is not a prerequisite for enjoying the novel - although some knowlege helps.

Simmons' greatest flaw is the length of his books. He seems to love writing and he does a lot of it. Were it not for literary quality, I believe few would list him as a favorite. But Simmons possesses great skill and so we almost always forgive him his lengthy prose. Almost. Ilium (and Olympus) are really thick books. I love them dearly, but I can't believe the length is necessary. It would be interesting to read versions abbreviated by the author - I suspect they would be even better.

All in all - if you love philosophy and classical literature, this is a must-read even if you are not into sci-fi. Simmons qualities as a writer give his books a wider appeal than the sci-fi fans. This is great literature, period.

Very complex

This is a very complex story. I'm not sure I can even understand what is happening. That stopped me from enjoying it fully. I might need to reread it to get whatever I can out of it before moving on to the sequel.