From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2007)

Ilium

Cover to the 2003 first edition
Author	Dan Simmons
Cover artist	Gary Ruddell
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	Ilium/Olympus duology
Genre(s)	Science fiction novel
Publisher	HarperCollins, Eos imprint
Publication date	2003
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	731 pp (paperback edition)
ISBN	ISBN 0-360-81792-6
Followed by	Olympos

Ilium is a science fiction novel by Dan Simmons, the first part of the Ilium/Olympus cycle, concerning the re-creation of the events in the Iliad on Mars. These events are set in motion by beings who have taken on the roles of the Greek gods. Like Simmons' earlier series, the Hyperion Cantos, the novel is a form of "literary science fiction" which relies heavily on intertextuality, in this case with Homer and Shakespeare, as well as periodic references to Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu (or In Search of Lost Time) and Vladimir Nabokov's novel Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle. In July 2004, Ilium received a Locus Award for best science fiction novel of 2003.

Contents 1 Plot introduction 2 Plot summary 2.1 Greek storyline 2.2 Moravec storyline 2.2.1 Greek/Moravec convergent storyline 2.3 Earth storyline 3 References 4 External links

The novel centers on three main character groups; that of the scholic (a resurrected old-style human whose job is to observe and record the actual events of the Trojan War and compare them to Homer's telling) Hockenberry, Helen and Greek and Trojan warriors from the Iliad; Daeman, Harman, Ada and the other humans of Earth; and the "moravec" robots, specifically Mahnmut the Europan and Orphu of Io. The novel is written in first-person, present-tense when centered on Hockenberry's character, but features third-person, past-tense narrative in all other instances. Much like Simmons' Hyperion where the actual events serve as a frame, the three groups of characters' stories are told over the course of the novel and their stories do not begin to converge until the end.

The plot summary in this article or section is too long compared to the rest of the article. Please edit the article to focus on discussing the work rather than merely reiterating the plot.

The novel begins as the Iliad begins; with the Achaean army suffering from a disease inflicted by a vengeful Apollo, which the character Hockenberry postulates is typhus. Hockenberry reports the attacking Achaean army at a strength of 250,000 men, with about half that number defending Troy, and that events have proceeded as Homer narrated. The scholic Hockenberry says that the confrontation between Achilles and Agamemnon is about to take place and, though he should be excited to see the events of the Iliad truly begin, he finds that he does not "give a shit."

With the help of a morphing bracelet, Hockenberry has taken the form of Bias, a captain serving Menestheus, in order to watch the confrontation between Agamemnon and Achilles over Chryseis. Here Hockenberry observes Athena's interference between Agamemnon and Achilles. While Homer described Athena's influence over Achilles by his mere sensing of her presence, Hockenberry witnesses Athena stop time and directly order Achilles to not strike Agamemnon. It is here that Hockenberry comes up with his scheme to rebel against the Greek Pantheon.

On returning to Olympos, Hockenberry finds the Muse, Melete, who oversees the scholics looking for him. She takes him to see the goddess Aphrodite and that Hockenberry is special among the scholics. His writings on the Trojan War were factored into the recreation and his cells are exempt from nanocyte disruption, a constant threat of imminent death that hangs over all the scholics heads. Aphrodite gives Hockenberry the Helmet of Hades, which confers invisibility, as well as a medallion which allows him to quantum teleport (QT), and charges Hockenberry to, at her signal, kill Athena.

Athena takes the form of Laodocus to break the truce between the Greeks and Trojans and events proceed as Homer describes in book IV and V of the Iliad. Hockenberry takes the form of the Trojan captain Echepolus to watch as Athena retrofits Diomedes with nanotechnology and the gods join in the battle. After Aphrodite and Ares are wounded, Hockenberry QTs to follow them to Olympos where Ares and Aphrodite are placed in healing vats. Zeus sees Hockenberry but says nothing.

Hockenberry QTs to follow Hector and listen to him speak to Paris and Helen. Hockenberry takes Paris' form in order to bed Helen. After Helen discovers his identity, they scheme together in order to change the course of the war. Hockenberry QTs back to Olympos where he takes a flying chariot and flies it into the healing vats in an attempt to kill Aphrodite. The Muse recognizing that Hockenberry is no longer under Aphrodite's control, begins killing all the scholics. Hockenberry finds his friend Nightenhelser, a fellow scholic, and saves his life by QTing him to the other side of the planet in what would be Indiana, circa 1,200 B.C. QTing back to Olympos, Hockenberry hears Zeus declare to the other gods that no one save himself should interfere further in the Trojan War.

It is at this point that Hockenberry decides that the embassy of Big Ajax, Odysseus and Phoenix to Achilles is the "fulcrum" Helen charged him with finding. He takes the form of Phoenix in order to give his own speech that would encourage the Greeks to fight the gods. However, Phoenix is given no opportunity to speak and, finding no other possible course of action, Hockenberry takes the form of Athena and kidnaps Patroclus, dumping him where he had previously brought Nightenhelser. Achilles, believing Patroclus to be dead, asks his mother Thetis for advice. Hockenberry masquerades as Thetis, and tells Achilles that the only action left for him is to unite the Trojans and Greeks in a war against the gods.

Upon returning to Helen, Hockenberry is drugged and brought before a group of the Trojan women from the Iliad such as Helen, Andromache, Cassandra, and others. The women are tired of the war and want it to end. They tell Hockenberry to bring Achilles to Scamandrius' nursery where he will present him to Hector in one hour. Hockenberry returns to Olympos in the time that he has to find Ares talking about Achilles' having bested the Atrides in single combat and taken over the Achaean armies. It is then that Apollo brings the captured moravecs to Olympos.

Near Conamara Chaos on Europa, Mahnmut the Europan pilots a submersible craft named The Dark Lady. He is being chased by a kraken as he tries to make his way to a meeting. After escaping the kraken, Mahnmut meets with the other moravecs and his interlocutor, Orphu of Io, to discuss an expedition to Earth. The moravecs have become nervous because of lack of communication with the post-humans for over 50 Jovian years (600 Earth years), and they want to see what the post-humans are up to, if they have become a threat, to find out why Mars has been terraformed to look like ancient Earth, why its coastlines are lined with what appear to be like the Easter Island moai, and to investigate the quantum disturbances centering on Mars.

The unnamed ship that the moravecs take to Mars is shot down in Mars orbit by two Greek gods and falls into the Tethys Sea. Attempting to reach a shoreline, Mahnmut and Orphu talk about Shakespeare and Proust. Mahnmut dreams that he is talking with Shakespeare in London. Mahnmut comes ashore on the coast of Chryse Planitia where he encounters the zeks, a race of literal little green men who help him release Orphu from where he is entrapped inside The Dark Lady.

Mahnmut and Orphu travel with the zeks on their felucca down a flooded Valles Marineris and learn that the statues are of Prospero. Upon reaching shore after traversing Candor Chasma, they assemble a hot air balloon-type vehicle and use it to begin traveling towards Olympos. As they travel, Orphu theorizes that Prospero is real, as well as the Greek gods, and that these fictional characters are reality in an alternate universe (see Pantheistic solipsism). They are captured by Apollo and the gods decide to destroy them.

Hockenberry follows Hera as she goes to destroy Mahnmut and Orphu and tasers her, knocking her unconscious. Hockenberry QTs himself and Orphu to the Grecian encampment and talks to Achilles while Mahnmut activates a squirt transmitter which sends a signal to the rockvecs, the moravecs' cousins. He takes the Device, which is a mysterious object moravecs had been carrying with them since they crashed, and hides in the caldera at the bottom of the lake on Olympos. Hockenberry takes Achilles to meet with Hector, who is grieving for his son, Scamandrius, who Andromache says was slaughtered by Athena and Aphrodite. Hockenberry knows that Andromache herself killed the baby but says nothing and Achilles and Hector join forces against the gods.

When the Device goes off, triggered by Mahnmut, it opens up Brane holes that allow interdimensional travel from Mars to Olympos (see string theory). The rockvecs arrive to join in the fight as the Greeks and Trojans charge through the Brane holes to attack the gods. Three weeks after the beginning of the war with the gods, Hockenberry visits his friend Nightenhelser to check that he is doing all right and finds out that Patroclus is traveling back to Troy. Nightenhelser opts to stay in Indiana with the Indians whose tribe he has joined and Hockenberry returns to the war.

Daeman, a carefree, ladies' man of Earth, is introduced traveling to Ardis Hall by faxnode (a public teleportation device) with the sole purpose of seducing his cousin, Ada. He has been invited to celebrate a birthday with the rest of the guests of Ardis Hall. It is revealed that the humans of Earth celebrate their birthdays by “Twenties” and, upon their 5th Twenty (or 100th birthday), they use the faxnodes one final time and are believed to “ascend” to join the post-humans on the e-ring (a giant space structure which presumably runs equitorially around the Earth; there is also a p-ring which presumably runs in a polar direction) which encircles the Earth. Harman is a man celebrating his 99th birthday, an abnormal occasion which disturbs Daeman. Harman talks of spending his final year exploring the Earth and walking to destinations no longer accessible by fax. This is another abnormality in a society that is indolent, whose primary occupations tend to be love-making (pregnancy is prevented by nanotechnology in the woman which can store sperm for at least decades) and viewing the lately encountered turin cloths (passive virtual reality systems detailing the Trojan war) and which uses faxports to travel great distances and, for anything closer, carriole or droshky.

After the celebration is over, Daeman follows Ada in order to be closer to her to increase his likelihood of succeeding in his scheme to seduce her. Harman comes with them and they enter in the library. Harman shows Daeman a book full of pictures of butterflies and demonstrates his ability to read by naming the species on the pages without prior knowledge. It is of note that Harman is the only living human of their generation that can read as they have forgotten how and lack the "reading function," an ability of their ancestors to index books via nanotechnology in their bodies which allows them access to various functions such as proxnet, farnet and the now never used allnet. Ada and Harman ask Daeman questions such as where the voynix (cyborg servitors who guard and perform manual labour for the humans) came from, if the post-humans are really on the rings, and cause him to become confused and feel threatened. They end the conversation by telling him that they have need of a spaceship and believe that he might be able to find them one.

That evening, guests attend the “pour.” Harman and a girl named Hannah have constructed a cupola and make the first bronze casting in what Harman estimates is 3,000 years. Daeman, finding the proceedings boring, walks to the treeline to urinate and gets eaten by an allosaurus when the voynix fail to protect him.

Harman, Ada and Hannah visit Daeman at Paris Crater once he returns from the firmary. They ask him about the Burning Man festival where he encountered a woman he calls a witch and who Harman reveals is Savi, the Wandering Jew who had purportedly missed the "final fax" (an mysterious event where apparently mankind left earth) fourteen hundred years ago and been wandering Earth ever since. They fax to Antarctica where the last Burning Man was held and find scratched on a rock the faxnode numbers "8849," a faxnode none of them have visited before. They fax to the node and find Savi. She takes them on a sonie, a flying machine, to a reconstruction of the Golden Gate Bridge at Machu Picchu. It is here that they meet Odysseus, who the humans recognize from the turin cloth, and Harman convinces Ada to host the man at Ardis Hall for three weeks.

Ada and Hannah return to Ardis Hall with Odysseus as Daeman and Harman accompany Savi first to Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, they witness a bright blue beam of energy that is the trapped fax information of the 9,113 humans from the final fax before the voynix come to kill them. They escape to the drained Mediterranean Sea where Savi explains that she intends to save the soul of the Earth. They travel to the e-ring where they find all of the post-humans dead, killed by something. In the firmary, they find humans of their own time, killed and partially eaten, and meet a monstrous creature called Caliban, who captures them and takes them to his lair; this Caliban is more effective than the Caliban of The Tempest, and speaks in the style of Caliban upon Setebos In particular, the poem and the Ilium character speak in an intricate manner and are deeply devoted to Setebos, whereas the Shakespearean Caliban both never uses the word "thinketh" and only mentions Setebos occasionally. He kills Savi, but is wounded and retreats to heal.

Harman and Daeman live off of the blind lizards in the grotto for weeks before escaping, shutting down the firmary before they leave with the help of a holographic projection that calls itself Prospero. They destroy the post-humans' asteroid city and Daeman wounds Caliban in a fight. A sonie was docked with the city, sent by the Earth spirit, Ariel, and they use it to escape and return to Ardis Hall with Hannah, who had been faxed to the firmary for her first Twenty.

• Dan Simmons – Author's Official Website.
• Ilium duology Wiki.
• Ilium publication history at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database