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. The term Illion, Ilium has several meanings, including in legends, in anatomy, and in the arts: Ilion or Ilium is an alternative name for the legendary city of Troy. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Dan Simmons (born April 4, 1948 in Peoria, Illinois) is an American author most widely known for his Hugo Award-winning science fiction novel Hyperion and its sequel The Fall of Hyperion. ... Gary Ruddell Gary Ruddell (born 1951 in San Mateo, CA) is an American artist best known for his cover paintings for works of science fiction and fantasy literature. ... For other uses, see Country (disambiguation). ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Ilium/Olympus is a science fiction duology by Dan Simmons. ... Some notable science fiction novels, in alphabetical order by title: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke 334 by Thomas M. Disch An Age by Brian Aldiss The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton The Atrocity Exhibition by J.G. Ballard... A publisher is a person or entity which engages in the act of publishing. ... HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by Rupert Murdochs News Corporation. ... Hardcover books A hardcover (or hardback or hardbound) is a book bound with rigid protective covers (typically of cardboard covered with cloth, heavy paper, or sometimes leather). ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ... “ISBN” redirects here. ... Dan Simmons novel Olympos, published in 2005, is the sequel to Ilium and final part of Ilium/Olympus duology. ... Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ... Dan Simmons (born April 4, 1948 in Peoria, Illinois) is an American author most widely known for his Hugo Award-winning science fiction novel Hyperion and its sequel The Fall of Hyperion. ... Ilium/Olympus is a science fiction duology by Dan Simmons. ... title page of the Rihel edition of ca. ... Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the solar system, named after the Roman god of war (the counterpart of the Greek Ares), on account of its blood red color as viewed in the night sky. ... // Greek mythological characters (Most of the gods and goddesses had Roman equivalents. ... Hyperion The Hyperion Cantos form a tetralogy of science fiction novels by Dan Simmons. ... Intertextuality is the shaping of texts meanings by other texts. ... For other uses, see Homer (disambiguation). ... Shakespeare redirects here. ... “Proust” redirects here. ... In Search of Lost Time (a translation of the original À la recherche du temps perdu) is a 3,000+ page novel in seven books (recently published in six volumes), by French writer Marcel Proust, originally published between 1913 and 1927. ... Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (Russian: Влади́мир Влади́мирович Набо́ков, pronounced ) (April 22 [O.S. April 10] 1899, Saint Petersburg – July 2, 1977, Montreux) was a Russian-American, Academy Award nominated author. ... Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov published in 1969. ... 2004 : January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December See also: July 2004 in sports Deaths in July • 31 David B. Haight • 29 Francis Crick • 29 Nafisa Joseph • 23 Joe Cahill • 23 Mehmood • 23 Illinois Jacquet • 23 Carlos Paredes... The Locus Awards are presented to winners of Locus Magazines annual readers poll, which was established in the early 70s specifically to provide recommendations and suggestions to Hugo Awards voters. ...

Plot introduction

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. ... For referencing in Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Citing sources. ... The third-person Narrative is narration in the third person. ... The past tense is a verb tense expressing action, activity, state or being in the past. ... Hyperion is a Hugo Award-winning 1989 science fiction novel by Dan Simmons. ... A frame story (also frame tale, frame narrative, etc. ...

Plot summary

This article or section contains a plot summary that 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.

Image File history File links Broom_icon. ...

Greek storyline

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." For other uses, see Apollo (disambiguation). ... For the unrelated disease caused by Salmonella typhi, see Typhoid fever. ... For other uses, see Achilles (disambiguation). ...

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. In Greek mythology, Bias was a brother of Melampus who received one third of Argos (see Melampus for more information). ... Menestheus, the son of Peteus, son of Orneus, son of Erechtheus, was a legendary King of Athens during the Trojan War. ... In Greek mythology, Chryseis (Greek: Χρύσηίς, Khrysēís) was a Trojan woman, the daughter of Chryses. ... For other uses, see Athena (disambiguation). ... Look up time in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... A pantheon (from Greek Πάνθειον, temple of all gods, from πᾶν, all + θεός, god) is a set of all the gods of a particular religion or mythology, such as the gods of Hinduism, Norse, Egyptian, Shintoism, Greek, vodun, Yoruba Mythology and Roman mythology. ...

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. In Greek mythology, Melete was one of the three original (Boeotian) Muses, though there were later nine; her sisters were Aoide and Mneme. ... The Birth of Venus, (detail) by Sandro Botticelli, 1485 For other uses, see Aphrodite (disambiguation). ...

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. Diomēdēs or Diomed (Gk:Διομήδης - God-like cunning or advised by Zeus) is a hero in Greek mythology, mostly known for his participation in the Trojan War. ... Nanotechnology refers broadly to a field of applied science and technology whose unifying theme is the control of matter on the atomic and molecular scale, normally 1 to 100 nanometres, and the fabrication of devices within that size range. ... This article is about the ancient Greek god; for other uses, see Ares (disambiguation). ...

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. For other uses, see Hector (disambiguation). ... See List of King Priams children Statue of Paris in the British Museum This article is about the prince of Troy. ... For other uses, see Indiana (disambiguation). ...

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. Ajax Ajax or Aias (ancient Greek: ) was a mythological Greek hero, the son of Telamon and Periboea and king of Salamis. ... For other meanings, see Odysseus (disambiguation) Ulysses redirects here. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Phoenix (mythology). ... Look up Fulcrum in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... This article is about the Greek sea nymph. ...

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. Andromache grieves the loss of Hector In Greek mythology, Andromache was the wife of Hector and daughter of Eetion, sister to Podes. ... For other uses, see Cassandra (disambiguation). ... In Greek mythology, Scamandrius (or Skamandrios) is a name that suggests some association with the city of Troy. ... Atrides is the collective name given to the descendants of Atreus, particularly Agamemnon and Menelaus, a family frequently referred to as capable of and doomed to perpetrating the most atrocious crimes. ...

Moravec storyline

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. Conamara Chaos The Conamara Chaos Zone is a region of chaotic terrain on Jupiters moon Europa. ... For other uses, see Kraken (disambiguation). ... Artists conception of a terraformed Mars in three stages of development. ... “Rapa Nui” redirects here. ... Ahu Tongariki, restored in the 1990s Moai are monolithic stone figures on Rapa Nui / Easter Island, Chile. ...

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. This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ... Chryse Planitia is a smooth circular plain in the northern equatorial region of Mars close to the Tharsis region. ... Little green men is a popular expression used to describe extraterrestrial life. ...

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. For the fictional moon, see Felucca (Ultima). ... Valles Marineris cuts a wide swath across the face of Mars Valles Marineris (Latin for Mariner Valley, named after the Mariner 9 Mars orbiter of 1971-72 which discovered it. ... Prospero and Miranda by William Maw Egley Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Prospero Prospero is the protagonist in The Tempest, a play by William Shakespeare. ... This article is about hot air balloons themselves. ... Pantheistic solipsism is a technical term that has been advanced for the World as Myth idea proposed by science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein in several of his books and stories, although the concept has nothing in common with either Pantheism (the universe is God) or Solipsism (nothing exists but...

Greek/Moravec convergent storyline

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. Summary An electroshock gun or stun gun, is a weapon used for subduing a person by administering an electric shock. ... Satellite image of Santorini. ...

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. This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... Interaction in the subatomic world: world lines of pointlike particles in the Standard Model or a world sheet swept up by closed strings in string theory String theory is a model of fundamental physics, whose building blocks are one-dimensional extended objects called strings, rather than the zero-dimensional point...

Earth storyline

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. Seduction is the process of one person deliberately enticing another person into an act (see motivation). ... // In sociology, seduction is the process of deliberately enticing a person into an act. ... “Nephew” redirects here. ... A childs first birthday party. ... A cariole (also spelled carriole) was a type of carriage used in the 19th century. ... Catherine IIs carved, painted and gilded Coronation Coach (Hermitage Museum) George VI and Queen Elizabeth in a landau with footmen and an outrider, Canada 1939 The classic definition of a carriage is a four-wheeled horse drawn private passenger vehicle with leaf springs (elliptical springs in the 19th century...

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. Blast furnace in Sestao, Spain. ... Assorted ancient Bronze castings found as part of a cache, probably intended for recycling. ... This article is about the manufacturing process. ... Manneken Pis of Brussels. ... Species type (Marsh, 1878) Paul, 1987 Mateus , 2006 jimmadseni Chure, 2000 vide Glut, 2003 Synonyms Creosaurus Marsh, 1878 Labrosaurus Marsh, 1879 Camptonotus Marsh, 1879  ?Epanterias Cope, 1878 Allosaurus (IPA: ) was a large (up to 11. ...

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. This article is about the capital of France. ... The event is named after its Saturday night ritual, the burning of a wooden effigy. ... The Wandering Jew by Gustave Doré. For other uses, see Wandering Jew (disambiguation). ... The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the opening into the San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean. ... Machu Picchu (Quechua: Machu Pikchu Old Peak) is a pre-Columbian Inca city located at 2,430 m (7,970 ft) altitude[1] on a mountain ridge above the Urubamba Valley in Peru, about 70 km (44 mi) northwest of Cusco. ...

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. For other uses, see Jerusalem (disambiguation). ... Mediterranean redirects here. ... Caliban can mean: Caliban is a moon of Uranus. ... Caliban upon Setebos is a poem written by the British poet Robert Browning. ...

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. lizards are pink and become very aggressive when they see other females. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Prospero and Miranda by William Maw Egley Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Prospero Prospero is the protagonist in The Tempest, a play by William Shakespeare. ... Not to be confused with Aerial or Arial. ...

References

External links

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