Ilium
The Greek Gods are real and about 10 feet tall. They are armed with nano-technology and have hired scholars to make sure the Trojan War on Mars goes the same way that the original Trojan War went. Meanwhile, the post-humans are attempting to go to Mars to see what is going on there. And on Earth a small group of humans left on Earth are going on an adventure when they run into the Wandering Jew, who tells them what’s happening while taking them on a real adventure. But, what happens when one of the scholars decides to rebel by sleeping with Helen and trying to convince Achilles to kill the Gods.
Simmons is the perfect author for this material. He does a wonderful job of weaving the Trojans and Greek together with the Gods in a science fiction setting and making it believable. The interactions between the scholar and the Gods show how advanced the Gods are and how the scholar grows to hate them. Which leads to his act of rebellion and finally pushes Achilles and Hector into an uneasy truce and a war on the gods. The Trojan women help the scholar in a horrifying way, that is all too believable.
The humans are on Earth, but they, for the most part, no nothing about the past. They live 5 twenties (100 years) and a baby can only be born when one human dies. The insemination method is…interesting to say the least. They four humans start on an adventure that takes them far out of their comfort zone. They try to track down a woman that one of the party remembers from a few years ago and it turns out to be the Wandering Jew. She leads them further astray until they run into Odysseus. This is apparently the real Odysseus, not the one fighting for the Gods on Mars. The party then ends up in the post-human arena and are forced to make difficult choices.
This is an amazing story which leaves me wondering what else can happen in the sequel Olympos