Ilium
- 592
- Pages
- about 11 h
- Reading time
- Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel
Affiliate link: buying through it supports BookRank at no extra cost to you.
About the book
Ilium is a science fiction novel by American writer Dan Simmons, the first part of the Ilium/Olympos cycle, concerning the re-creation of the events in the Iliad on Earth and Mars. These events are set in motion by beings who have taken on the roles of the Greek gods. Like Simmons's earlier series, the Hyperion Cantos, the novel is a form of "literary science fiction" that relies heavily on intertextuality, in this case with Homer and Shakespeare, as well as periodic references to Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu and Vladimir Nabokov's novel Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle. In July 2004, Ilium received a Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel of 2004.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.8 across 231 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 60% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Science fiction average of 7.8. That is how 7.8 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.2 | 13 | 6% |
| Hardcover | 7.7 | 218 | 94% |
Reader voices
The most-liked reviews on Hardcover (credited to their authors).
“Really struggled with this - almost DNFd on multiple occasions. It's a great world that Simmons creates but it takes over 300 pages for it to start coming together”
“I am of a split mind on this book (and its successor Olympos). First, Simmons' "Hyperion" is one of my favorite books of all time. This is no "Hyperion" despite a similar looking cover! I should say I wrote this review a while after finishing…”
Frequently asked
How long is Ilium?
It has 592 pages — longer than 79% of the ranked books in Science fiction.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Science fiction — with scores between 7.7 and 7.8, closest to this book.
