Hockenberry and the Trojan Women have tricked Achilles and Hector into an uneasy alliance, and at least for the moment all the Greeks, Trojans and their moravec allies follow them in their war against the Olympian gods. But both camps are far from united: Menelaus is still trying to kill his stolen wife Helen, and seize control of the Greek armies back from Achilles. The only thing that keeps the gods from banding up against each other is the ultimate authority of Zeus, who himself must be careful not to offend the Titans of Tartarus.

Back on Earth, things are going badly: The few remaining old-style humans are being slaughtered left and right by antisemitic robots, by Caliban, and by Caliban's god Setebos. They have to hope that help will arrive from Odysseus (either the old one that lives among them, or the young one that has just been kidnapped away from Mars), or from combat moravecs, or from any surviving post-humans, or from Prospero and Ariel. Or from the Quiet.

The book makes for an exciting (if confusing) read, but in the end, most of the plot lines are not resolved in a satisfactory way. There is no epic showdown, just a couple of last-minute super-sudden ex-machina turns of events, and some major threads are just dropped completely. Maybe Simmons is planning on a third volume (or a second dilogy) to wrap things up.