Where Have All The Humans Gone?
An epic about humanity legendary past, ultratech god like beings and poetry loving robots.
Ilium is the word used in Latin for the mythical city of Troy, center of one of the most famous wars in literature, and also the name of one of the most complex and original science fiction books I've ever read.
Dan Simmons, the mastermind behind the Hyperion Cantos and now author of Ilium, is some sort of shapeshifting writer. He's written fantasy, horror and sci-fi, and likes to include several literary allusions in many of his books. Definitely Simmons is a good storyteller and not afraid of challenging himself in each new work.
When I read Hyperion I was amazed by his ability to write tales within tales, the pilgrims' stories could be considered a whole book each, and interweave plots. Changing viewpoints and narrative styles many times in a book is not a problem for Simmons, as can be noticed in Ilium, a story with three apparently disconnected strands, in three different worlds (times?, dimensions?) leading us towards an unthinkable climax.
There's an Earth that reminded me of Bill Joy's insightful essay why the future doesn't need us. A post singularity world where Earthlings don't need to worry about anything and death can be reversed, even if you were eaten by a creature from the far past.
These easy-living hedonistic humans can teleport to many locations in the planet by using “faxing” portals, but they can't go places with no portals, and they are not fond of too much walking anymore. These are in certain way like Well's Eloi. They don't know about their world's geography or history and have completely forgotten how to read.
It's a world where these things, err... humans, can enjoy life thanks to their servitors, some kind of dumb robots, and the mysterious voynix, who seem to be their guardians and reminded me of Hyperion's Shrike.
As most of this domesticated humanity spend their time going from party to party and have no material needs, a small group begin to question their origins and start a journey to find the answers about their precisely limited population, controlled aging and promised afterlife.
A few hundred million miles away, in Jupiter's moons, a highly advanced species of AIs known as the moravecs (it's safe to assume the name was coined after Hans Moravec), identifies dangerous quantum activities in Mars, “a threat to the entire solar system”, and decides to send an expedition.
Here we meet two of my favorite characters in the book: Mahnmut, a lover of Shakespeare's sonnets, and Orphu of Io, a Proust enthusiast. These two will discover a bizarre host of events which takes us to the third plot.
I have been bound and servant to you, O Muse, you incomparable bitch. And I do not trust you, O Muse
A terraformed Mars where genetically resurrected scholars from Earth, who happen to be experts in Homer's Iliad, are studying the Trojan War. But studying is a misleading verb, these guys (who can't remember how or why they arrived here) are witnessing the real thing, the actual Trojan War, and reporting to their bosses: the Greek Gods. You know, Zeus, Aphrodite, the whole gang. Would these be the real deities or an alien race fooling around? Good question.
We see all these events through the eyes of one scholar, Thomas Hockenberry, who will play an important role when things start reeling in quite strange ways and a collision of cosmic proportions is imminent.
Ilium is a fantastic novel, the first of a two-part series to be concluded in Olympos, which I haven't read yet as I write this. It's beautifully written, contains well crafted characters and offers a plethora of ideas to ponder later.
Are these the real events of the Iliad? What happened to Earth? Who created the moravecs? Was Helen of Troy really such a bitch?
With references to nanotechnology, mythology, genetics, dystopia and literature classics this is a long and complex novel, one that you'll want to read at least a couple of times. It's also the perfect excuse to finally read, and try to understand, the complete Iliad, not just the cliff notes.
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Submitted by alexis on Sat, 2006-08-19 04:27. Find more books
