And while you’re at it, Muse, sing of the rage of the gods themselves, so petulant and so powerful here on their new Olympos, and of the rage of the post-humans, dead and gone though they might be, and of the rage of those few true humans left, self-absorbed and useless though they have become. 'About this title' may belong to another edition of this title.Sing, O Muse, of the rage of Achilles, of Peleus’ son, murderous, man-killer, fated to die, sing of the rage that cost the Achaeans so many good men and sent so many vital, hearty souls down to the dreary House of Death. (Dec.)Ĭopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. This finely crafted novella is a perfect example of Simmons's many strengths. When aliens take an interest, the Earth's Men find themselves giving command performances of King Lear, Hamlet and the Scottish play for a series of increasingly important alien species, with evidence that the fate of all humanity may rest on the quality of their work. The Earth's Men travel to distant worlds and perform Shakespeare before human servants and slaves, bringing them some moments of pleasure and notions of Earth's lost glory. In this far future, Earth is a mausoleum and the far-flung human race occupies the lowest level of a complex interstellar hierarchy. Hugo winner Simmons (the Hyperion Cantos) combines his fine prose with a well-developed sense of wonder and love for reworked literary and mythological materials. Simmons’ novella, narrated by a young male earth’s Man, is an exceptionally artful religious legend of the far future, and quite special. They are, as proxies for all humanity-and more. The actors thereby climb the ladder of a universal order humans have been made to believe is divine. After that he orders them to yet another to play before the Demiurgos, who control the Archons, and after that to another to perform for Abraxas, the incarnate god. After a particularly good Macbeth, attended by some Archons and their dragomen (interpreters), one of the latter comes to the company and orders them to play for an all-Archon audience on another world.

The players are slaves, too, really, like all humans since, thousands of years ago, the Archons found earth and erased its culture, except for Shakespeare. The Muse of Fire schleps the Shakespearean troupe the Earth’s Men to the many planets inhabited by the slaves called arbeiters and doles, who, like the actors, are human.

Muse of Fire by Dan Simmons