Yeah, the Islamophobia in Ilium/Olympos made me really tempted to put the books down several times. It's such a strange about-face from when he wrote the character Kassad in the Hyperion Cantos.

Like Frank Miller, it seems like 9/11 just broke him.

Ilium was my first Simmons & I was glued to it. The mem/meme "brane" portals to other realities still anchors so much of my thought, frames my perception signficiantly.

It also featured giant space crustaceans! Or at least one, the moravec Orpho. Along with his more human Mahnmut moravec friend. This feels low key resonant with our days filled with OpenClaw.

Accelerando hit 2 years latter (2005), with much more alien space lobsters. Where-as Orpho was a moravec that picked a crustacean shape.

Some random fan art, https://www.deviantart.com/microcosmicecology/art/Mahnmut-an... https://www.deviantart.com/vengethenian/art/Mahnmut-and-Orph...

Someone mentioned lobsters in Schismatrix (1985) reminding me that I haven't read it!!

Loved Ilium, and Olympos a little less so. Inspired me to read the Iliad.

Things most people don’t know about Illinois is that while the Mason Dixon line officially goes around the bottom of the state, philosophically it cuts through the middle. Peoria is maybe thirty miles north of the rednecks.

Add that he was a boomer and I was disappointed but not surprised when people started complaining about him.

Ha, I’d argue it starts right at Pekin.

That puts several university towns below the line. But little towns outside big towns in the Midwest have their own vibe.