Olympos by Dan Simmons Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Olympos
Book Review: very disappointing
Summary: 2 Stars
I'll start by saying I loved the first book of the series (Illium). Read it three times. The final scene with the combined Greek, Trojan, and robot armies ready to take on the gods on Mars just blew me away. I couldn't wait for Olympos, which I hoped would give me some resolution and some answers. Somehow all the plots would wrap together and we'd get a clue how this all came about.
What do we get here? Resolution yes - some good, some bad. But very little answers. Others below have said it much better than me. But I'm feeling deprived and ripped off, so here are my major plot line complaints...
Who/what/where/when is this Sycorax person? The only hint we get is the goofy little line about her "relationship" with Prospero. There's some sense that her whole role in the story is so she can have sex with Odysseus (ala Circe in the travels), but is that really it? Is she the person who really started all this?
What happened to Setebos? Someone calls down and says The Quiet is coming and he bails? A big war between Prospero and Setebos is hinted at in the beginning, but then we hear Setebos has just been hanging out on Mars sucking bad vibes from the Trojan war (which is not happening in Mars, anyway....)
Just who was the person or persons that came through from the alternate universe? Setebos? Sycorax? Zeus (as he claims to have existed before the other gods came into being)? Demogorgon? All of them? Your guess really is as good as mine.
This whole thing starts because of the needle on the quantum flux-o-meter is in the red zone and the solar system is about to implode, but there's no resolution to this. The rest of the "gods" are left to duke it out between Mars and Illium-Earth, so that quantum stuff is still on-going. Some of the others on Earth can QT all round. Is the fleeing of Setebos and Sycorax enough to calm things down?
This isn't really a plot line, but sort of a "what the heck?" thing. We're sort of led to believe that Harman finds out about the Sword of Allah so he can realize the dark side of human nature and just what might happen if "civilization" returns. He gets all depressed about it as he's dying, but then he gets all better and civilization returns anyway, and nobody seems to care anymore. Kind of reminded me of an atheist in a foxhole who makes it through, only to proudly proclaim his atheism again.
All in all, Simmons created an enterining world and gave us enough of its history to pique our curiousity, but that's about it. I'll admit to daydreaming trying to resolve it all in my head, but overall, Olympos is very, very disappointing after the thrill of Illium.