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Ilium - cool plot/setting but weak characters

Spoiler for Ilium by Dan Simmons below.

Has anyone ever read a novel with a very interesting world and concepts and the plot kept you going, but the characters just weren't enough for you to CARE?

I just finished Ilium by Dan Simmons and that was my take on it. I loved his rich world, all the technologies and science concepts which make SF interesting, and it was great to see SF set in ancient greece - I loved that. But then are all the epic plot was over I just thought "so what??" - I really didn't care what happened to the characters, they were like bystanders, and so it didn't have an emotional punch for me. And yet it is a much loved book, well rated on goodreads and it has won an award and been nominated for the Hugo award.

So is it just me? Does anyone else feel this way that characters are central to a story being enjoyable and memorable? Or have you read a plot/setting rich story that is so good you didn't care? I've read rich worlds and epic plots but there is normally a central character or characters with flaws/needs that make you root for them.

Apart from the lack of emotional payoff I also didn't have a payoff with the mystery aspect. One thing that kept me page turning was the mystery of just what was going on. Who are these gods? Why are they fixated on the trojan war? In the end it go close and then didn't reveal what was happening and I felt let down. For me I reckon mystery stories NEED to reveal the mystery for their payoff - its like the character arc itself for that genre. You can't have a mystery with an ending of "Oh, we just don't know who did it, oh well". C'mon!!

Apart from those two pretty big flaws I did enjoy the book, for its amazing ideas and humour.
 
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