Booknotes: John Morgan Wilson, Dan Simmons

Two recommended authors have new work out, which I have just read. They remain on my recommended list.

First there's Olympos, by Dan Simmons, followup to his Ilium.

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Drawing from Homer's Iliad, Shakespeare's Tempest and the work of several 19th-century poets, Simmons achieves another triumph in this majestic, if convoluted, sequel to his much-praised Ilium (2003). Posthumans masquerading as the Greek gods and living on Mars travel back and forth through time and alternate universes to interfere in the real Trojan War, employing a resurrected late 20th-century classics professor, Thomas Hockenberry, as their tool. Meanwhile, the last remaining old-style human beings on a far-future Earth must struggle for survival against a variety of hostile forces. Superhuman entities with names like Prospero, Caliban and Ariel lay complex plots, using human beings as game pieces. From the outer solar system, an advanced race of semiorganic Artificial Intelligences, called moravecs, observe Earth and Mars in consternation, trying to make sense of the situation, hoping to shift the balance of power before out-of-control quantum forces destroy everything. This is powerful stuff, rich in both high-tech sense of wonder and literary allusions, but Simmons is in complete control of his material as half a dozen baroque plot lines smoothly converge on a rousing and highly satisfying conclusion.
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This one is slightly less satisfying than Ilium, partly because the novelty of the setup has worn off, but as in the Hyperion series, Simmons plays off characters from the Western canon of literature against a kind of SF magical realism. Like much of the best SF, this means it's less accessible to mainstream readers lacking knowledge of either science (quantum entanglement, genetic engineering, etc.) or literature (Greek mythology, Homeric works, Shakespeare) -- which is why something like The DaVinci Code, a far inferior work, sells in vastly greater numbers.


Next, John Morgan Wilson has been writing mysteries featuring a gay journalist/detective, Benjamin Justice, since his Simple Justice won the coveted 1997 Edgar Award for best first novel by an American author.
His latest, Moth and Flame, is less a literate meditation on love and loss or Grand Guignol thriller than his previous works, being more of a murder mystery (three murders!) with a lot of WeHo atmosphere combined with a case study on journalistic integrity.

From Publishers Weekly
The sights and sounds of contemporary Hollywood lift Wilson's well-plotted sixth Benjamin Justice mystery (after 2003's Blind Eye). When actor-turned-writer Bruce Bibby is brutally murdered in his apartment, journalist-sleuth Justice takes on the task of finishing a booklet Bibby was working on that celebrates the 20th anniversary of the City of West Hollywood. It seems a simple enough task, but proves to be only the tip of the iceberg. Bibby's murder is somehow connected to a shady condominium development deal, as well as to the still-mysterious, decades-old disappearance of a local handyman. The advantages of the glitzy L.A. setting include glimpses of the rich and famous: Robert Duvall makes a cameo appearance, as does the Chateau Marmont, where John Belushi died of an overdose. The ghosts of Hollywood past hang heavy over all, despite the aggressively up-to-the-minute detail. Justice, for example, is gay, uses Prozac, is HIV-positive and is minus an eye, giving a whole new meaning to the term "private eye."
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

This one is settling into routine mystery series mode. There are now 6 Benjamin Justice mysteries, so if you are looking for a long, enjoyable series, this fits the bill. Just don't expect the sustained high intensity of some of the earlier novels.