This is gonna be a bit of a rant…

• First off, it’s not as good as Ilium, but it’s still a fast-paced page turner. If you skip all the useless prose.
• It isn’t Science Fiction. It’s Future Fantasy or something. There’s no science (and that’s not just due to the “far future” timeline). Simmon’s an English major FFS.
• He (thinks he)’s well-read, and lets you know it on every single page.
• The story is rather convoluted (probably due to trying to be clever with its literary inspiration) and deus ex machina abound — how couldn’t they in a world full of “gods”? Bah.
• Anything that “creates universes via the thought / inspiration of genius” is made of FAIL. Humans aren’t special, get over it.
• Worst of all, the book is in so many ways incredibly self-centred. By that I mean, that so much of its thinking is a product of the time (and even country of origin as well as possibly religion) of the author.

Still, the Hyperion Cantos (which I enjoyed quite a lot) had similar faults.