Editing Setebos (section)

====''Ilium/Olympos''====

An [[extraterrestrial life|extraterrestrial creature]] called Setebos plays an important role in [[Dan Simmons]]' science-fiction novels ''[[Ilium (novel)|Ilium]]'' and ''[[Olympos (novel)|Olympos]]''. The two novels, which comprise a [[Ilium/Olympos|series]], also contain characters named Prospero, Ariel and Caliban who are clearly based on the eponymous characters in ''The Tempest'', and there is little doubt that the author patterned his Setebos after the god mentioned in that play as well. Simmons's Setebos also calls to mind Browning's description in his ''[[Caliban upon Setebos]]'' in that Simmons describes Setebos as having myriad arms; however unlike Browning's Setebos, who is [[infertility|infertile]], Simmons's character is highly fecund.

Simmons gives the following description of Setebos, as seen through the eyes of a human named Daeman. The creature sits over a crater at the center of a blue, ice-cold dome:
<blockquote>
This raised crater looked very much like a nest and the impression was reinforced by the thing that filled it{{emdash}}gray brain tissue, convoluted ridges, multiple pairs of eyes, mouths, and orifices opening and shutting in no unison, a score of huge hands beneath it{{emdash}}these hands occasionally rearranging the huge form's mass on its nest, settling it more comfortably{{emdash}}and he saw other hands, each larger than the room Daeman occuped at Ardis Hall, that had emerged from the brain on stalks and were pulling themselves and their trailing tentacles across the glowing floor.<ref>{{cite book |last=Simmons | first=Dan|author-link=Dan Simmons| title=Olympos |page=288 |date=2005 |publisher=[[Harper Collins]]|location=New York | isbn=0-380-97894-6}}</ref>
</blockquote>
Daeman counts several dozen eggs around Setebos. He steals one; it eventually hatches, into a miniature, and very malevolent, version of its parent.