This is the conclusion of the story that Simmons began in Ilium. Again, attempting to detail the plot of these big “space opera” books either 1) makes no sense or 2) completley diminishes the story. Read the publisher’s comments in the Amazon page for a good synopsis.

Again Simmons follows the style that he uses in a lot of his recent books: one central Big Idea, a large cast of characters, an increasingly fast-paced story arc, a lot of tension, and many story threads all moving in parallel. He’s quite good at creating the level of interest and engagement with the reader that makes his books “page-turners”. I’m sure at some point I thought “Honey, don’t bother me! Achilles is killing Zeus!”

The Big Idea that moves this book is the same one that Simmons introduced in Ilium, but more developed here. In typical sci-fi fashion, Simmons asks a central “what if” question. In this case, he posits the notion that in our quantum universe, what if thought created other universes? In particular, what if the literary creations of certain human authors, amplified by the reading and devotion of countless others, created universes in which their literary creations existed in actual fact? So the Greeks/Argives and Ilium/Trojans that we were introduced to in Ilium turn out to be the actual incarnations of those characters that Homer sang and wrote about in such detail. These aren’t the original humans whose conflict Homer dramatized in his famous saga, but actually those characters, brought into quantum reality through some process of human thought, and brought into our universe through magical application of superstring physics.

I suspect Simmons also read some Brian Greene books and got even more excited than I did. :-)

In Ilium, we see the original Iliad conflict acted out, with the intrepid Thomas Hockenberry (resurrected classics scholar) accounting to his Olympic masters the minute differences between the tale Homer told and what is occurring on the Ilium-Earth and the plains of a recently terraformed Mars (oh yeah, Olympos in this case is Olympos Mons, the largest volcano in the solar system. Go figure…). Hockenberry derails the story in an attempt to save the Trojans he has come to love from destruction. In the second book, things come completely unglued, and we start to understand the reality behind the story. In the process a lot of cool stuff happens, including a visit to Tartarus with the entire cast of the Titans. Meanwhile on the “real” future-Earth, sentient robots and “old-style humans” struggle to save themselves and the planet from a number of potentially cataclysmic outcomes.

I can’t say I was completely satisfied with the ending, which sputters to a finish instead of providing a tight close to a very complex plot arc. I suspect Simmons is preparing the way for another pair of books, similar to what he did with the “Endymion” books after the pair of “Hyperion” books. Some authors simply can’t write short fiction.

A great geek book. I couldn’t wait for paperback, so I got this in hardcover.