Book Review: Ilium by Dan Simmons
Mar. 2nd, 2006 11:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
juushikaTitle: Ilium
Author: Dan Simmons
Published: New York: Harper Torch (Harper Collins Publishers), 2003
Pages: 731
Total pages: 12,633
Text number: 35
Read for: for my personal enjoyment, recommended and lent by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
benwards.
In brief: Some time far in the future, science has taken a number of strange turns. Sentient robots study Shakespeare and Proust, the Iliad is reenacted at the foot of Olympus Mons on Mars observed by scholics revived from twenty-first-century Earth, and back on Earth humans live with no memory of their own history. These three storylines are united as human history is investigated and revealed. Literary illusions run rampant for Shakespeare (the sonnets and The Tempest) and the Iliad with a bit of the Greek tragedy, Odyssey, Aeneid, and Proust. It's a sci-fi book for geeks, but not, I would say, for the avid critical Shakespeare geeks—because what he has to say about characters in The Tempest is less than fulfilling.
I enjoyed Ilium and, I'll admit, it's nicely narcissistic to have one's geeky side catered to within an already geeky text. The premise of the book is a pretty tried and true one: an epic text with a number of literary predecessors and influences. The writing style reeks of pulp fiction/paper back novels (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but still): the plots run concurrently and every chapter ends at an almost-tasteful cliffhanger, making the book compelling and making the 730 pages feel faster than it is. All in all, the books achieves what it wants to achieve—a geeky, introspective, literary adventure into science-fiction that's still compelling and readable. On that level I really enjoyed it. Cliffhangers annoy me and make me feel cheap (simple tricks like that shouldn't work on a reader like me—or something like that), but I will admit that the author attempted, at least, to use them tastefully. The book was an escape, kept me interested, and made me squee like the Shakespeare (and anything-gay) fangirl that I am.
Despite this, Ilium is by no means perfect. Simmons isn't content to merely base his story on preexisting plots or characters—he also feels the need to use his text to create commentary on and interpret those precursors. That's a wonderful goal but, as the elitist Shakespeare geek that I am, the holes that I found in his analysis bugged the hell out of me. It's easy to get wrapped up in the text and to take his analyses as fact instead of fiction, but fact they are not. Much of the latter half of the book bases itself in the characters of The Tempest, but Simmons's interpretation of the characters is incredibly limited. He may have his reasons (rumor has it The Tempest plays a big part in the sequel), but as the book stands the analysis of Shakespeare in general and The Tempest in particular verge on the edge of limited, underdeveloped, unexamined, and even insulting. And in a book that purposefully includes geeky sources, failed commentary is a major drawback.
I'd still recommend the book, and it remains squee-worthy at times. The premise is interesting, I am hoping to read the sequel, and I enjoyed the text. It wasn't perfect, and I recommend that everyone take the analysis (especially of The Tempest) with a few grains of salt. But by all means, read it, especially if you've read, or better yet studied, any of the texts mentioned within this text.
Review posted here at Amazon.com
Author: Dan Simmons
Published: New York: Harper Torch (Harper Collins Publishers), 2003
Pages: 731
Total pages: 12,633
Text number: 35
Read for: for my personal enjoyment, recommended and lent by
benwards.In brief: Some time far in the future, science has taken a number of strange turns. Sentient robots study Shakespeare and Proust, the Iliad is reenacted at the foot of Olympus Mons on Mars observed by scholics revived from twenty-first-century Earth, and back on Earth humans live with no memory of their own history. These three storylines are united as human history is investigated and revealed. Literary illusions run rampant for Shakespeare (the sonnets and The Tempest) and the Iliad with a bit of the Greek tragedy, Odyssey, Aeneid, and Proust. It's a sci-fi book for geeks, but not, I would say, for the avid critical Shakespeare geeks—because what he has to say about characters in The Tempest is less than fulfilling.
I enjoyed Ilium and, I'll admit, it's nicely narcissistic to have one's geeky side catered to within an already geeky text. The premise of the book is a pretty tried and true one: an epic text with a number of literary predecessors and influences. The writing style reeks of pulp fiction/paper back novels (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but still): the plots run concurrently and every chapter ends at an almost-tasteful cliffhanger, making the book compelling and making the 730 pages feel faster than it is. All in all, the books achieves what it wants to achieve—a geeky, introspective, literary adventure into science-fiction that's still compelling and readable. On that level I really enjoyed it. Cliffhangers annoy me and make me feel cheap (simple tricks like that shouldn't work on a reader like me—or something like that), but I will admit that the author attempted, at least, to use them tastefully. The book was an escape, kept me interested, and made me squee like the Shakespeare (and anything-gay) fangirl that I am.
Despite this, Ilium is by no means perfect. Simmons isn't content to merely base his story on preexisting plots or characters—he also feels the need to use his text to create commentary on and interpret those precursors. That's a wonderful goal but, as the elitist Shakespeare geek that I am, the holes that I found in his analysis bugged the hell out of me. It's easy to get wrapped up in the text and to take his analyses as fact instead of fiction, but fact they are not. Much of the latter half of the book bases itself in the characters of The Tempest, but Simmons's interpretation of the characters is incredibly limited. He may have his reasons (rumor has it The Tempest plays a big part in the sequel), but as the book stands the analysis of Shakespeare in general and The Tempest in particular verge on the edge of limited, underdeveloped, unexamined, and even insulting. And in a book that purposefully includes geeky sources, failed commentary is a major drawback.
I'd still recommend the book, and it remains squee-worthy at times. The premise is interesting, I am hoping to read the sequel, and I enjoyed the text. It wasn't perfect, and I recommend that everyone take the analysis (especially of The Tempest) with a few grains of salt. But by all means, read it, especially if you've read, or better yet studied, any of the texts mentioned within this text.
Review posted here at Amazon.com
