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A review by bramboomen
Ilium by Dan Simmons
4.0
Clearly, Dan Simmons must be insane.
I read the back of the book, I read Simmons before, I should have been prepared.
Seriously though, I loved this book. I read the Iliad during my last year of high school, so a lot of it came back to me reading this, which was nice. I have no knowledge whatsoever about Shakespeare (or Proust) which made some of the more poetically inclined chapters a bit abstract to me. This is of course not Simmons fault, but it did make me feel that I missed out on a piece of the grander story. Also, it did genuinely make me want to know about the plays by Shakespeare, how about that.
There is something about Simmons writing that makes me lose any concept of "sensible". Simmons goes: "Trojan war on parralel universe earth and gods on Mars" and I go: "Okay, go on". Simmons goes: "Robots reflecting on Shakespeare and Proust on the moons of Jupiter" and I go: "Fine". Simmons goes: "Quantum Teleportation, Brane Holes, Little Green Men, Invisibility Hat" and I don't even blink an eye. Any other writer would have got me shouting at the book "Get it together man! This is just getting too much too fast, where in gods name are you going with this?", but for some reason Simmons makes me go: "Sure". This is some kind of magic I thourougly enjoy, and I will be reading much more of Dan Simmons from now on.
I read the back of the book, I read Simmons before, I should have been prepared.
Seriously though, I loved this book. I read the Iliad during my last year of high school, so a lot of it came back to me reading this, which was nice. I have no knowledge whatsoever about Shakespeare (or Proust) which made some of the more poetically inclined chapters a bit abstract to me. This is of course not Simmons fault, but it did make me feel that I missed out on a piece of the grander story. Also, it did genuinely make me want to know about the plays by Shakespeare, how about that.
There is something about Simmons writing that makes me lose any concept of "sensible". Simmons goes: "Trojan war on parralel universe earth and gods on Mars" and I go: "Okay, go on". Simmons goes: "Robots reflecting on Shakespeare and Proust on the moons of Jupiter" and I go: "Fine". Simmons goes: "Quantum Teleportation, Brane Holes, Little Green Men, Invisibility Hat" and I don't even blink an eye. Any other writer would have got me shouting at the book "Get it together man! This is just getting too much too fast, where in gods name are you going with this?", but for some reason Simmons makes me go: "Sure". This is some kind of magic I thourougly enjoy, and I will be reading much more of Dan Simmons from now on.