Olympos by Dan Simmons Search Amazon for other books by or about Dan Simmons. Rating: Reviewed by: John Walsh

This 800-plus page sequel to Olympus shows Simmons continue with the multiple strands introduced in the first novel, Ilium, which is itself a weighty enough tome. The main strand is that following the recreation of the siege of Troy and the subsequent war with the gods of Olympus: there are also the rather less interesting narratives of the few remaining humans on a version of a future earth and their various struggles and the events surrounding a group of anthropic robots, known as "moravecs." Readers familiar with Simmons' work will be quite familiar with both the good and bad aspects of his writing. There are certainly interesting plot twists and the narrative bangs along at a decent enough clip. On the other hand, I think I can honestly say that from the best part of 1,500 pages I cannot remember any single sentence or even phrase that startles or pleases the mind with its elegance. Further, the characters behave according to different motivations and in suitably different ways but without always much differentiation in terms of language or vocabulary. Few protagonists appear to have much of a intellectual hinterland (it is a mistake to have highly educated figures as central to a narrative if the author is unable to demonstrate more than a passing understanding of their field of study), while those moravecs who are supposed to have a deep understanding of Shakespeare, Proust and Joyce reveal little more than superficial awareness of the relevant texts. Worse still is an ill-advised sub-sub-plot involving Islam and Judaism which I am just going to pretend does not exist.

So what about the story? Well, the interesting elements mostly surround the continuation of the Homeric epic, albeit that this has by the end of the first book already gone bizarrely off track. The progress of Achilles and Helen, in particular, help to keep the narrative missing although the whole purpose of the recreation of the war has essentially been negated by the inability of the somewhat tediously small town Hockenberry figure to continue as a meaningful observer of the action. As the author's interest seems to veer off towards other topics, notably the retelling of The Tempest through the figures of Prospero, Ariel, Caliban, and Sycorax (and some puppet-like humans replacing the original shipwrecked crew), the heroes and gods assume a less important role and, indeed, at the resolution very little is properly resolved or, indeed, explained. It is possible to carry off such an ending (as other authors demonstrate) but in this case it rather looks as if Simmons just became exhausted with the whole thing and found ways just to bring it all to an end, one way or another.

I have read a number of books by Dan Simmons over the past couple of years, most notably the Endymion/Hyperion books which are rather good. However, those I have seen in the book shops recently seem to be becoming longer without developing in terms of interest: there is a Dickensian one, one called The Terror set on a ship trapped in ice and the re-issuing of Carrion Comfort which is I think the book that helped make his reputation. Of these, Carrion Comfort is the only one I would really consider reading now. I seem to have become all Simmonsed-out.