Robin McKinley once stated that every author has one story they are trying to get out and all their works can be traced through that story line. Although I hadn't noticed that before, after reading these two books (and several discussions with Rebecca on the topic), I'm convinced that many authors follow this pattern. Dan Simmons has an obsession with taking literary genius and bringing a reincarnation to a future science fiction conflict. And his grasp on making an interesting world definitely convinces me that there are volumes of backlog notebooks he's written for his story.
Obviously from the titles, this pair of books follows the characters of the Illiad, throwing in a mish mash of Greek mythology from other literary sources. In the preface, Simmons acknowledges that he had a painful time keeping track of all the characters and couldn't stand to read these books (Illiad, etc.) himself so he relied greatly on a plethera of other authors' notes. I personally have never read much Greek mythology for this same reason (other than selections from my treasured Metamorphoses). But I didn't have that problem with this duo. I think I read all 1400 pages of these two books in about a week.
Well, scratch that. I read approximately 1300 of these pages. Dan Simmons is a very captivating author, but I always have to skip pages and pages of sex. Other than that warning, I have to say this story is amazing. Rebecca and I read The Lightning Thief right after this book and I didn't believe in those Olympian gods at all... but the gods and world that Simmons creates are truly the brutal, violent, selfish and destructive forces that ruled over the early civilized world. Maybe I should pick up the Illiad and read it.
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