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SUMMARY: Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Ilium/Olympos is a science fiction duology by Dan Simmons. These events are set in motion by beings who have taken on the roles of the Greek gods. Like Simmons' earlier series, the Hyperion Cantos, it is a form of "literary science fiction" which relies heavily on intertextuality, in this case with Homer and Shakespeare, as well as periodic references to Marcel Proust's la recherche du temps perdu (or In Search of Lost Time) and Vladimir Nabokov's novel Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle. As with most of his science fiction and in particular with one of his previous novels, the Hugo award-winning Hyperion, Ilium demonstrates that Simmons writes in the tradition of soft science fiction like Ray Bradbury and Ursula K. Le Guin. Ilium is based on a literary approach similar to most of Bradbury's work, but describes larger segments of society and broad historical events. As in Le Guin's Hainish series, Simmons places the action of Ilium in a vast and complex universe made of relatively plausible technological and scientific elements. Yet Ilium is different from any of the works of Bradbury and Le Guin in its exploration of the very far future of humanity, and in the extra human or post-humans themes associated with this. It is among several recent works that look specifically at the notion of a technological singularity where technological change starts to occur beyond the ability of humanity to presently predict or comprehend. The first book in the series, Ilium, received the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction novel in 2004. The series centers on three main character groups; that of the scholic Hockenberry, Helen and Greek and Trojan warriors from the Iliad; Daeman, Harman, Ada and the other humans of Earth; and the moravecs, specifically Mah... More: http: //booksllc.net/?id=12837452