I would say that the Illium novels are about the same quality as the three Cantos books. The first one however recaptures a little bit of that Hyperion-esque mystery by purposefully keeping the reader in the dark about certain aspects of this brand new setting. Let me give you a little taste of what can you expect from this book:

Cover of Illuim

Imagine future Earth: empty, depopulated wilderness with precious few human settlements. Most major cities are empty, crumbling ruins taken over by nature. The entire ecosystem is off its kilter – most niches dominated by wild mutations of genetically engineered animals – such as dinosaurs and prehistoric birds. Surviving humans (less than a million of them) live in fully automated compounds, where all their needs are taken care of by swarms of robotic servitors. These mechanical servants prepare their food, mend their clothing, build and maintain their houses, and ferry them around on carts and droshkies. They have no cars, and no flying machines since all compounds are interconnected by “fax nodes” – instant teleportation devices.

These remaining humans have no jobs, no art, no science. They are illiterate, shallow and spend most of their time at lavish parties and social gatherings. Very few have any kind of interest in the past – and even those who do, struggle to wrestle secrets of the ages from old crumbling ruins, and musty old books they can’t even read. No one knows what happened to the millions of people who have once inhabited the planet. There are some stories about plagues, wars and that sort of stuff. There is also talk about post-humans who have faxed most of the base-line population into the massive orbital rings that surround the planet – or something like that. Post humans built the rings, the fax nodes, the servitors and pretty much every other advanced technology that is used today. Then they left to live in the rings. No one really ponders the past too hard though because on their hundredth birthday each person “ascends” into the rings to live among the post-humans. Or at least that’s what people think is happening.

Then again, no one has actually seen a post human in centuries and their technology is in a dire need of maintenance slowly starting to fail. As if there was no one up there in the rings anymore.

Cover of Olympos

Unbeknownst to the humans, there is other intelligent life in the solar system. The Jovian space and the asteroid rings are populated by Moravecs – self aware machines which descended from the early space exploration and commercial mining automatons. They are have their own autonomous society and culture and they have long ago lost contact with inhabitants of the Earth. They are a bit concerned because after few centuries of virtually nothing happening on Earth, they are now picking up intense quantum activity from the vicinity of Mars. Someone or something is essentially ripping holes in the time space continuum. So they decide to send a team there to investigate.

What is happening on Mars you ask? The Illiad, that’s what. Literally. Mars has been terraformed almost over night. There are Greek gods residing on Olympus Mons, an authentic city of troy, Agamemnon with his armies, Hector in his crested helmet. The whole nine yards… Why? No one knows – it is just happening there.

A lot of people get discouraged by the large amounts of Illiad Simmons essentially copied in this book. For example, the book starts by quoting the beggining of Wrath of Achilles word for word, until it veers off in a different direction. The amount of research the author had to do for this book is actually quite impressive. The names of the heroes, the sequences of battles, minutiae trivia about famous Greek and Trojan heroes are all there. In fact, sometimes it almost seems like Simmons is showing off his deep knowledge of the Homeric masterpiece by indulging in very detailed descriptions – be it of battles, armor, clothing or back stories of some minor characters. Those parts of the book can be a little bit on the dry side – especially if you are not a Homeric scholar. At one point I had flashbacks to my freshman year literature class, in which a crazy professor made us memorize chunks of the text and mercilessly quizzed us on names of minor heroes,a or useless factoids such as “who held the rains of this heroes chariot in this particular battle”. Ugh… I got over it pretty quickly though.

Even if you are not a big fan of Illiad, these books still have a lot to offer. I would say it is worth to sit through some of the initial Homeric data dump, because soon enough things get really interesting. The action jumps between three main story lines. One follows a groups of Earth-bound humans who decide to unravel some of the mysteries that surround the post-humans and their current absence. One keeps tabs on the Moravec Mars expedition, concentrating mostly on the quirky personalities of some of it’s members – a deep sea adapted Shakespearean scholar from Europa, a crab like deep space adapted Proust fan from Io, and etc.. The third thread follows the Martian edition of the Illiad which soon enough de-rails and departs from the Homeric script. All these threads slowly converge upon each other, up until the central mysteries of the setting are revealed.

Simmons is pretty good with his pacing, and keeps the action going. Sometimes he really abuses the old writing trick of ending each chapter with a mini-cliff-hanger but in this particular setting it works quite well. It keeps you reading – so you will rip through a chunk of Illiad in no time, because you really want to find out what happened to the human crew, or those adorable Moravecs.

These novels are probably not for everyone. In Hyperion, Simmons teased the readers with Keats. In Illium and Olympos he really goes all out. The book is soaked in literary references. He shows off his knowledge of Illiad, Aneid and all the surrounding texts but he doesn’t stop there. He delves into Shakespeare, analyzing his sonnets, and playing around with The Tempest. He also offers some very deep analysis of Proust. He quotes various poets, and scholars. But it is not boring – Simmons’ interpretations and literary allusions are usually rather interesting, and apropos what is happening to the characters at the time. Personally I love this sort of thing. I love when my science fiction contains some well researched academic discourse – be it scientific or literary one, I don’t care. Your millage may vary.

I highly recommend these books – they have action, suspense, some very deep literary discussions and a really awesome dystopic setting. If you don’t get scared away by all the Illiad, Shakespeare and Proust you will really enjoy them. I promise.

Book Cover

The Hollow Man is a Dan Simmons book. Yes, the same man who wrote the Hyperion and Illum novels. That’s basically why I picked up this book. I happen to be a big fan of Simons’ work. This novel however is remarkably different from what I got used to from him. It is still a smart and well written book, but it has an unusual setting. Or should I say unusually usual. The action takes place in contemporary America. Which is kinda strange after reading his exceptionally well crafted novels that take place in a distant future. Strange to me at least, though I know that Simmons does not limit himself solely to science fiction.

The main character of the story, Jeremy Bremen is a brilliant mathematician (I instantly took a liking to this character because of his background – I’ll take a scientist over a gruff ex soldier or a cop any day) with a little secret. He has an unusual gift that allows him to read other people’s minds. A gift he shares with his wife. As you can imagine the two telepaths, being able to share the most intimate thoughts, and unable to keep secrets from each other have forged an intimate bond that is unlike most relationships – it goes much, much deeper than that. This is why Jeremy falls apart when his telepathic soul mate dies. He has a mental breakdown, and he loses the ability to tune out other people’s thoughts. Eventually he burns down his house, takes out all of his savings from a bank, drives to the airport, hops onto the first flight out of there, and continues moving. His journey takes him to weird and unexpected places. He becomes a witness to a mafia killing in the everglades which makes him a hunted man. He end up being a character at Disney world. For a while he lives as a homeless man in Chicago. He becomes a farm hand on a ranch. He uses his powers to become a successful professional poker player in Vegas.

Why does he keep moving? What drives him? Bremen’s mind is in shambles, he keeps hearing echoes of his wife’s voice, and his mind reading talent seems to have attuned itself to the deepest, darkest and most disturbing thoughts which is driving him insane. Throughout his journey however, a second narrator starts to pipe in. Someone who seems to know everything about Jeremy and his wife, his research and his quest to understand his gift. Someone who claims to have been created, and/or awakened by Bermen’s gift. So while Jeremy is busy doing his Raul Endymion stint, this mysterious new voice takes the opportunity to take readers through series of flashbacks that flesh out Bremens’ relationship, and the way they slowly started unraveling the mystery of their powers.

Jeremy’s antics keep you at the edge of your seat, while the details of his research give you something to chew on. A lesser writer would stick to the cheap thrills, and leave out the science and mathematics and philosophical musings on the nature of a human mind. Simmons indulges in it, an this is why I love him. It is actually quite amusing that I have read this book right after Anathem, because it totally syncs up. This is probably very spolerish, but Bremen’s final breakthroughs before his wife got sick were very similar to what Orolo was working on at the Lineage Math on Ecba. Though both books arrive at the same idea, they both approach it from different directions. I love when something like this happens.

Has this ever happened to you? Did you ever read two completely different, unrelated books only to realize that the authors probably read and were inspired by the same philosophers and themes? Actually, let me throw another book on the pile here: Divine Invasion. Now that I think back to it, I can definitely see the same patter there: polycosm and human mind which has the power to transcend it due to it’s quantum nature. Then again a lot of Dick’s late work is incomprehensible due to deep, caked on layers of symbolism, and mysticism.

If you are going to pick it up, keep in mind that the story is not as good as Simons’ Hyperion, Endymion or Illium stuff. By which I’m not implying that the book is bad. It is quite the opposite – it is quite good. Just not Simons’ best, at least in my opinion. But what it lacks in narrative sense, it makes up in the science and philosophy department.

Flowers for Algernon

WTF is Algernon? Well, Algernon is a lab rat. Not an ordinary lab rat mind you. He is a genius among his kind – the smartest rat that has ever lived. All thanks to experimental procedure that caused a very rapid, incremental growth of his intellectual potential. But this is not his story. The book is about Charlie – a nice, young fellow who was born with a very low IQ whose only wish is to one day become as smart as his friends. Charlie’s dream comes true when he gets picked as the first human subject to undergo the same procedure that was made Algernon into a rat-brainac.

The procedure is an overwhelming success. Over the next few weeks, Charlie’s intellect steadily increases. He starts learning new things. He devours books, and seeps knowledge like a sponge. He starts noticing things that he was previously oblivious too. He sees that his friends never really laughed with him, but at him. He sees that the doctors who came up with the procedure are really small minded, flawed people. Soon he intellectually overtakes all of them, and takes it upon himself to finish their research.

There is one problem: Algernon’s awesome mental powers start fading and deteriorate. Will charlie succumb to the same fate? Or does he have enough time to find a solution?

The novel is a great read. It is both moving, poignant and cleverly written. Keys frames his story as a compilation of Charlie’s progress reports he was instructed to write for the experiment, which at some point evolve into a very eloquent, introspective and thoughtful diary.

Fall of Hyperion

This novel is the continuation of Simmon’s Hyperion, which I reviewed previously. It picks up, right where the first novel left off. This means that you don’t really want to be reading it as a stand alone novel. You can, but you will be really confused as Simmons assumes the readers are already familiar with his complex universe and the main characters so he doesn’t even attempt to explain things for the new readers. He jumps right into the action and continues the story of the last Shrike pilgrims on Hyperion.

The book is good, but not as great as the first one. If you liked the main narrative that connected the different tales, you will like this novel as well because it is basically just more of that. If you found the main source of enjoyment from reading the tales themselves, and didn’t care about the pilgrims’ current predicament you might be a bit disappointed.

The book continues to build up the story and gives us glimpses to the parts of his universe he previously glossed over. For example, we get a first hand look at the elusive and mysterious Ousters. We find out more about the Techno Core and the real purpose of the second Earth and the Keats construct. We get to meet Kassad’s mysterious lover and learn about her relationship to the shrike. We found out what happened to Het Masteen and learn his reasons for the pilgrimage. And of course we finally find out what is Shrike and what is the true purpose of the Time Tombs.

So while the first book left you hanging, the second book ties up all the loose ends, and answers all the questions. Which is both good and bad. It’s good because it shows that Simmons didn’t just write bunch of open ended plot hooks to create an illusion of depth where there is none (this strategy is used extensively by the writers on LOST). He actually thought this whole thing out and created a logical, cohesive story. It is bad, because some readers may feel disappointed with Simmon’s answers. Some people say these answers are to shallow and to simple and that they do not live up to their expectations created by the first book. Others say they are too convoluted and muddled to follow. I found them adequate and satisfying. They do however take out some of the magic and mystery out of the first book. You will look at it in a different light.

I consider the book worth reading, and I’m looking forward to reading Endymion: the next novel in the Hyperion cycle. I enjoy Simmon’s style, I find his storytelling captivating and his Hyperion universe very fascinating. I’m hooked. Simmons has likely found a life long fan in me.

Startide Rising

What can I say about Startide Rising… Ok, let’s try this: have you ever watched the show called Sea Quest DSV? I remember that show mostly for the Wesley Crusher type kid genius and a talking dolphin. Reading this novel was a bit like watching that show back in the day. Talking dolphins, talking chimps, aliens, mind readers and one bad-ass special forces hero that can’t be killed.

Brinn’s Uplift idea is actually quite intriguing. This is why I picked up his book. In his universe, sentient races don’t just evolve. Instead they are uplifted (genetically modified towards sentience) by other sentient races that came before them. An uplifted race becomes a client and must serve the patron race for 10 thousand years. After that period they are free to pursue their own fate, and uplift their own clients. This pattern repeats itself all across the galaxy, and each race can trace their lineage back to a mysterious race of progenitors that has long since faded from existence. But who uplifted progenitors? Brinn never tackles that question directly, which is strike one against him.

Humans are an exception to the rule. Apparently we have no known patron and our sentience may have evolved naturally. Or the race that uplifted us just abandoned us and left. In either case, this makes humans the only known race in the whole galaxy that reached space flight capability without an aid from an older patron. This is of course a textbook case of Humans are Special trope. Not only that, but out of millions of sentient races we are the only one which does not suffer from Creative Sterility. All the alien technology is stale and static, based largely on the knowledge gathered in the Galactic Library which encompassed all of the collected knowledge of every race that ever existed. Humans seem to be the only race with their own unique take on space flight and uplift. The fact that I’m linking to TV tropes during this review is strike two against Brin.

The story is about the first space ship manned solely by dolphins – the newest sentient race uplifted by humans. It’s crew which includes a rudimentary supervisory human presence and a single sentient chimp, discovers a derelict fleet of alien ships so ancient that they may have been built by alien progenitors. When they transmit this information back to earth the whole galaxy literally explodes into chaos. Every race wants to get their hands on the fleet, and the poor dolphins have to take refuge on an uninhabited sea world as few dozen alien armies battle in its orbit for the exclusive right to interrogate the earthlings about their findings.

Brinn spends the most of his book trying to describe the dolphin culture, worldview and their relationship with humans, chimps and other galactic races. While his prose is competent, I didn’t find it very captivating. He does a decent job fleshing out his characters, but it is all sort of ruined by the cliche situations he puts them in. We have a Mutiny instigated by a pompous, bossy scientist, a Dolphin who gains a Disability Superpower, a dude who is a one man army. The dolphins fly in a Cool Starship that is a relic compared to the alien technology, but somehow performs better under certain conditions, and can also be tweaked to mimic patterns produced by enemy engines to avoid detection. There is also a classic Trojan horse maneuver, and etc..

The book is not bad. I’ve red worse (Cough, Twilight, Cough) but to me it seemed to rely too much on these standard tropes. That, and I just couldn’t get used to the way Brinn described his dolphins. They were a rather cheerful, uncomplicated race loving to sing, jest and struggling to suppress their animal instincts.

Here is the deal: when Dan Simmons made the dolphins talk in Hyperion, they seemed mysterious, aloof, alien and yet so familiar at the same time. It was awesome. Brinn’s dolphins just pale next to that portrayal.

That, and I just couldn’t stand the way Brinn portrayed humans as far superior to any of the older, more advanced alien races. I hate when writers do this and Brinn can’t seem to resist the urge to marvel at how special and unique we are every few pages.

It is an ok read, but I was less than impressed. Needless to say, I’m not going to read any other Uplift books. I’m not a fan.

Now excuse me, while I go browse TV Tropes for the next 4 hours. While I was searching for the tropes above, I managed to open about 80 background tabs, and I have this urge to read all of them now. Curse you TV Tropes. Why must you trap me this way, every time I visit?

Hyperion Cover

This backwater planet lying on the outskirts of the galaxy spanning empire played a key role in the lives of the 7 pilgrims returning to it for the last time as the galaxy spanning is on a brink of devastating world. It is a home to some of the universe’s impenetrable mysteries such as the vast, empty labyrinth of unknown origin underneath it’s surface, mysterious monuments called the Time Tombs which generate anti-entropic field (which evades understanding by modern science) that seems to be propelling them back in time and the almost mythical, fearsome, bloodthirsty beast known as the Shrike.

No one really knows what the Shrike is, since almost no one who have seen it lives long enough to tell anyone about it. But the creature has been also known to grant requests to it’s worshippers who go on a pilgrimage to the Time Tombs and put their life on the line. When the story begins Hyperion is about to be invaded, the Time Tombs seem to be opening and the shrike goes on a rampage decimating the population of the planet. The cult of Shrike carefully selects 7 very special pilgrims and sends them to face the beast.

Since the pilgrimage is a long and ardours trip they decide to share their stories with each other and figure out what exactly makes them so special. Simmon’s takes great lengths to keep each flashback unique by giving it distinct mood, flavor, tone and language. The narrative style shifts quite drastically depending on the subject. So for example the Soldier’s Tale is told by a third person, omnipotent narrator in a very structured and linear way. The Poets Tale on the other hand is first person narrative with flowery (and often crude) language, with many tangents, asides and soliloquies. The end result is a curious but rather interesting mix that offers the reader wide variety of experiences.

The quality of the individual stories varies. All are well written and interesting, but some will definitely stand out and lodge themselves in your memory. My favorite was probably the Scholar’s Tale which was a mix of all the right stuff. Moving story about parenthood, terrible heart wrenching loss, crisis of faith and trying to cope with a mysterious terminal disease destroying life of one’s only child. The Priest’s Tale also made a great impact on me – eerie, disturbing and soaked in mystery. The Soldier’s Tale on the other hand left me cold. I felt like it did very in terms of character development, and the ending killed whatever suspense it managed to build with a rather pointless combat scene. Nevertheless it contained interesting insights to the Outster culture, the organization of military in the human Hegemony, it’s customs and strategies. The Poet’s Tale was good, but in my opinion was a bit jumbled and lacked a disturbing hook or twist evident in most of the other pieces. Still, it provided great background on the history of the Hyperion universe, the destruction of Earth (eaten by a wormhole produced in a LHC experiment btw) and colonization of the planet Hyperion. Even if you hate the main character, you will keep reading it to find out more about the universe.

I did not care much for the Detective’s Tale on either. It was essentially an old-school Gibsonian cyberpunk detective story, complete with the silly notion of cyberspace, scheming AI’s and a murder mystery in the middle of it all. While I do not despise this genre, I’m not a big fan of it either. But once again, while this particular part of the book was of average quality (at least IMHO) it did add new insights to what makes Simmons’ universe tick.

The book is closed with the Consul’s Tale which is a slight departure from the other other tales in the book. The focus is shifted off he planet Hyperion here and revolves around the issues of innocence lost due to progress, colonialism and features an interesting spin on the twin paradox. Instead of twins, however we star crossed lovers one of whom is a shipmate on a star cruiser traveling at relativistic speeds, while the other stays planet-bound. One stays young while the other one ages naturally. Strangely moving and sad piece. It is actually a verbatim re-print of Simmons’ short story which appeared in the anthology “Prayers to Broken Stones” and later became a seed for the Hyperion universe.

If you like a good Scifi with a dash of mystery and touch of supernatural I highly recommend this book. I believe that you will find at least one story inside of it’s covers which will either move you, disturb you or stay with you in some way.