Book summary

Dan Simmons, author of the sweeping science fiction Hyperion saga, borrows liberally from the fertile mythology of Homer's ILIAD in this first installment of an epic SF duology, set in a far distant future. The plot consists of three discrete, but thematically related, storylines. On a terraformed Mars, the Trojan War rages, presided over by awesome beings resembling the Greek gods who derive their powers from technology so sophisticated it may as well be magic. On Earth, a group arises from the decadent, uneducated scraps of humanity and struggles to reclaim forgotten knowledge left behind by the more evolved, vanished post-humans. Meanwhile, a group of moravecs--semi-organic, intelligent machines from the inner moons of Jupiter--journey to Mars to investigate a series of odd images they've picked up via remote observation of the planet.

Media reviews

"Simmons folds..[the] disparate threads...[of the novel] into a coherent and engrossing saga."