Taking the events and characters of the Iliad as his jumping off point Dan Simmons has created an epic of time travel and savage warfare. Travellers from 40,000 years in the future return to Homer's Greece and rewrite history forever, their technology impacting on the population in agodlike fashion. This is broad scope space opera rich in classical and literary allusion from one of the key figures in 1990s world SF and marks a return to the genre for one of its greats

Helen of Troy is in mourning for her dead husband, Paris. Killed in single combat with the merciless Apollo. His body a scorched and blasted thing. Hockenberry, her lover, still sneaks from her bed after their nights of lovemaking. And the Gods still strike out from the besieged Olympos. Their single-molecule bomb casings quantum phase-shifting through the moravecs' force shield and laying waste to Ilium. Or so Hockenberry and the amusing little metal creature, Mahnmut, have tried to explain to her. Helen of Troy does not give a fig about machines. She must dress for the funeral. And man and the gods and the unknown players in this tragedy must prepare for the final act. And a battle that will decide the future of the universe itself

The second novel in David Gemmell’s bestselling Troy trilogy. Interlacing myth and history, and high adventure, this is epic storytelling at its very best. War is looming, and all the kings of the Great Green are gathering, each with their own dark plans of conquest and plunder. Into this maelstrom of treachery come three travellers: Piria, a runaway priestess nursing a terrible secret; Kalliades, a warrior with high ideals and a legendary sword; and his close friend Banokles, who will carve his own legend in the battles to come. Together they journey to the fabled city of Troy, where a darkness is falling that will eclipse the triumphs and personal tragedies of ordinary mortals for centuries to come