Monday, February 19, 2018

Tom Holland (whose book, Rubicon, I really liked) tweeted yesterday:

The best up-dating of the Trojan War by miles is Dan Simmons’ Ilium: the Iliad restaged on 30th century Mars by nano-enhanced super-humans (aka the gods).  A plus is that the novel also features dinosaurs.
Yes, Olympos is equally good. Anyone with an interest in the Trojan War who hasn’t read them has such a treat in store.






I've also read Ilium and Olympus.  My reviews here and here.  
I'm not quite as enthusiastic about these books as Tom Holland.  In fact, in 2016 I put these books on my list of  10 Worst Books: Fiction.
But... on reflection, I was probably a bit too hard on these books.  
I was ultimately disappointed by the ending.  And that disappointment colored how I remembered the books as a whole.  But, I really enjoyed the books as I was reading them.  Dan Simmons definitely held my attention while I was reading him, and he did a very good job at re-writing the Iliad.

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