Edition: U.S. / Global


By Gerald Jonas
Published: July 27, 2003

In the massive four-volume space opera that he has retrospectively called the ''Hyperion Cantos,'' Dan Simmons not only created a galaxywide civilization of plausible complexity but filled it with characters whose fate we came to care about. With ILIUM (Eos/HarperCollins, $25.95), he returns to science fiction on a grand scale. But whereas the Hyperion books were deadly serious, wrestling with end-time issues of sin and redemption, ''Ilium'' takes a more playful approach to apocalypse.

Once again, the fabric of the universe is threatened by ill-considered use of godlike powers. This time, the threat comes from beings who literally cloak themselves in the guise of Greek gods. Wielding energy-hungry devices of unknown provenance, they have established a base on Mount Olympos, not the mythical abode of Zeus et al. but the actual volcano on Mars that is the tallest mountain in the solar system. By virtue of a superscientific technology known as ''quantum teleporting,'' these self-proclaimed gods can move around in time and space at will. For so far incomprehensible reasons, they have chosen to observe, and intervene in, the very siege of Troy that Homer wrote about.

Meanwhile, sentient robots from the moons of Jupiter, worried about the long-range effects of such profligate energy use, have arrived to monitor the monitors and, if necessary, intervene in the intervention. And elsewhere and elsewhen, a group of human beings enjoy an apparently carefree existence on a largely depopulated Earth, tended by machines and creatures whose benign intentions they take for granted.

Where the Hyperion books were saturated with Judeo-Christian imagery and symbolism, the major characters in ''Ilium'' flaunt their acquaintance with the great books of the Western world. The two robots who dare to challenge the gods on Olympos are fond of quoting Shakespeare and Proust. As for Homer, a resurrected 20th-century classics scholar named Thomas Hockenberry provides a running commentary on how the bloody action on the plains of Ilium mimics, and then diverges from, the relevant scenes in the ''Iliad.'' Simmons takes a shameless pleasure in subverting our hazy memories of the Homeric canon. Hockenberry gets to know the Muse well enough to refer to her as an ''incomparable bitch''; his relations with Achilles, Helen and other worthies of the time are idiosyncratic in the extreme.

For answers to the mysteries laid out in ''Ilium'' -- from the true identity of the Olympian gods to the fate of robots and humans and of the ''little green men'' on Mars for whom communication means death -- you will have to wait for the promised sequel. For now, matching wits with Simmons and his lively creations should be reward enough.

THE PHOENIX EXULTANT, by John C. Wright (Tor/Tom Doherty, $24.95), is subtitled ''Dispossessed in Utopia: Volume Two of the Golden Age.'' It picks up precisely where the first book, ''The Golden Age,'' left off. The multi-talented hero, Phaethon, has run afoul of the ruling body of the putatively utopian society that calls itself the Golden Oecumene. As punishment, he has been cut off from the computer-assisted enhancements that link all citizens in a seamless virtual existence of beauty and power. The world that has always bubbled with data- and sensory-rich downloads beamed directly to his brain has suddenly turned gray and lifeless: ''Even the advertisements ignored him.''

Phaethon has reached this pitiful state by challenging the fundamental assumption of his society: that no change is permissible in a utopia. His crime was to build a spaceship capable of reaching the stars. In a society that has all but abolished mortality, his virtual ostracism is intended as a death sentence. But Phaethon is too resourceful to accept his fate. With the help of beings who in different ways also doubt the wisdom of societal stasis, he finds temporary refuge in a community of outcasts; there he learns not altruism but ''mistrust.'' Despite superficial similarities, Wright's vision bears little resemblance to the good-vs.-evil scenario of the ''Matrix'' movies. The selfish concerns of the outcasts doom them to ineffectual rebellion. Phaethon is after nothing less than a revolution of thought and feeling. Even those who oppose him are granted an opportunity to explain themselves.

In fact, like its predecessor, ''The Phoenix Exultant'' is a philosophical novel in high-tech dress. The action sequences, for all their verve, seem like mere interludes between the ethical and epistemological debates. For every sentence like ''the main energy cell in his breastplate opened into a single, all-consuming beam of atomic flame,'' there are many sentences like ''chaos theory produces sufficient variation in events, that no one stratagem maximizes win-loss ratios,'' and ''within the useful energy-life of the macrocosmic universe, there is at least one maximum state of efficient operations or entities that could be created, able to manipulate all meaningful objects of thoughts and perception within the limits of efficient cost-benefit expenditures.'' The resolution of these debates, along with the outcome of Phaethon's machinations, awaits the concluding volume of the trilogy, which we are told on the last page of this book will be called ''The Golden Transcendence.''

CHANGING PLANES, by Ursula K. Le Guin (Harcourt, $22), is philosophical fiction in the manner of Jonathan Swift and Jorge Luis Borges. Le Guin's finest work, from ''The Left Hand of Darkness'' to the Earthsea series, consists of imaginative inquiries into the organization of human societies. Here, in place of the usual enabling apparatus of science fiction and fantasy, she launches her imagination on the wings of a pun. The narrator explains that a friend of hers, suffering from the ''tense misery, indigestion and boredom'' of airport waiting rooms, discovered that with a slight twist of her mind she could transport herself to other ''planes'' of existence. The 15 tales that follow are reports, ranging from the satirical to the gnomic, about the strangely familiar societies one encounters during ''interplanary travel.''

As might be expected from so accomplished a stylist, several stories confront the vagaries of language. Members of one utterly peaceful society cease talking as adults and communicate only with ''gesture, expression and gaze.'' In another society, people who never sleep and therefore never dream ''tell no stories and so have no use for language. Without language, they have no lies. . . . They live in pure fact. But they can't live in truth, because the way to truth . . . is through lies and dreams.''

A number of tales offer bracing variations on a theme that might be crudely summarized as ''It's the ecology, stupid.'' Even Le Guin's overtly cautionary tales have a delicacy that disarms resistance. Outstanding among these are the almost unbearably poignant ''Fliers of Gy'' and ''The Island of the Immortals,'' which break new ground in exploring the dangers of getting what you wish for.