ILIUM sold 14,000 copies in its trade editions Cutting-edge epic Space Opera that revolves around Homer's Iliad Author of the multi-award-winning landmark HYPERION CANTOS 'Exuberant. Visceral detail, breathtaking audacity' Justina Robson, the Guardian 'Sets the standard for SF in the new century' Peter F. Hamilton 'Grade A hyper-imaginative space opera and about as unmissable as Science Fiction gets' SFX
Dan Simmons won the World Fantasy Award for his first novel, Song of Kali, inspired by his travels in India. In the 1990s he rewrote the SF rulebook with his Hyperion Cantos quartet. He has also written thrillers. Alongside his writing he maintains a career as a college lecturer in English Literature in the USA.
Drawing from Homer's Iliad, Shakespeare's Tempest and the work of several 19th-century poets, Simmons achieves another triumph in this majestic, if convoluted, sequel to his much-praised Ilium (2003). Posthumans masquerading as the Greek gods and living on Mars travel back and forth through time and alternate universes to interfere in the real Trojan War, employing a resurrected late 20th-century classics professor, Thomas Hockenberry, as their tool. Meanwhile, the last remaining old-style human beings on a far-future Earth must struggle for survival against a variety of hostile forces. Superhuman entities with names like Prospero, Caliban and Ariel lay complex plots, using human beings as game pieces. From the outer solar system, an advanced race of semiorganic Artificial Intelligences, called moravecs, observe Earth and Mars in consternation, trying to make sense of the situation, hoping to shift the balance of power before out-of-control quantum forces destroy everything. This is powerful stuff, rich in both high-tech sense of wonder and literary allusions, but Simmons is in complete control of his material as half a dozen baroque plot lines smoothly converge on a rousing and highly satisfying conclusion. Agent, Richard Curtis. 7-city author tour. (June 28) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Simmons has won just about every sf/fantasy award ever invented, but he's not sitting back. His latest is an epic that starts with the Greek gods. With a seven-city tour. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Adult/High School-In Ilium (Eos, 2003), readers were introduced to Hockenberry, a 20th-century historian on a Mars of the far future restructured to look and feel like ancient Greece. He works for quantum-technology-wielding beings that brought classical mythology to life for their own amusement. Olympos places Hockenberry in an alliance with the Moravecs, a race of sentient robots who fear that the self-styled gods' technology will destroy the solar system. Together, they fight for ways to stop the Olympians. A second story line occurs on Earth, with humankind facing extinction from multiple directions. Voynix, powerful robotic creatures that once served humans, seem bent on killing and destroying everything they can. A monster named Caliban and a giant, pulsating brain known as Setebos add spine-tingling, H. P. Lovecraft-inspired terrors. Full of plot twists, doses of humor, and technologically pumped action sequences, this complex tale is nevertheless readable and surprisingly easy to follow. While it is even more complex than its predecessor, Simmons does a much better job of connecting the threads here. The mixing of Homer's Iliad and Shakespeare's The Tempest is likewise handled better, making more solid use of the personae. While it helps to have some familiarity with these classics, it isn't required. The spectacular ending leaves just enough open for a sequel. Fans of epic, action-driven science fiction will talk about this inventive and highly addictive thriller for years.-Matthew L. Moffett, Northern Virginia Community College, Annandale Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
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