Ilium - First Edition, First Impression

From the Hugo Award–winning author of the Hyperion Cantos, the first book of a breathtaking duology (with Olympos) based on the themes of Homer’s The Iliad and Shakespeare’s The Tempest—a groundbreaking work from a “magnificently original” (Denver Post) writer.

Dan Simmons’s Hyperion created a sensation among readers worldwide. The New York Times called the four Hyperion novels “an unfailingly inventive narrative that bears comparison with such classics as Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, Frank Herbert’s Dune, and Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun.” In this return to epic science fiction, Simmons begins a new saga based on the themes of The Iliad and The Tempest.

With events set 3,000 years in the past and 2,500 years in the future, with action leaping from the volcanoes and terraformed oceans of Mars, to Jupiter space, to the Plains of Ilium during the Trojan War, to the wildly changed Earth of the distant future—in a story filled with characters like Caliban and Achilles and Helen of Troy, with immortal gods who may be neither immortal nor gods, with all-too mortal humans who might be much more than human—Ilium celebrates science fiction’s sense of wonder in a way few other tales have attempted. Full of action, passion, and intelligence sure to appeal to a diverse range of readers, Ilium explores the themes of fate, courage, friendship, duty, and death on a heroic scale.

Dan Simmons was the Hugo Award-winning author of Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion, and their sequels, Endymion and The Rise of Endymion. He wrote the critically acclaimed suspense novels Darwin's Blade and The Crook Factory, as well as other highly respected works, including Summer of Night and its sequel A Winter Haunting, Song of Kali, Carrion Comfort, and Worlds Enough & Time. He passed away in 2026.