Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
You can't get a more majestic story than this!, 9 Oct 2000
By A Customer
The first time I read Titan (for I have since lost count of how many times I have pulled it down from my bookcase), I stayed up all night gobbling page after page this epic. Capt. Cirocco Jones and the rest of the crew, are quite literally hijacked by a planet, a living contruct-God called Gaia. They are thrust without food, clothing, or shelter, as naked as newborns into an alien environment. I mean what do YOU do when you find yourself living in a God, which is quite possibly insane? Varley is definitely on my top ten list of SF authors. He is funny, cynical and sexy. I DO suggest that if you read TITAN, have WIZARD and DEMON available as well. You won't you be fit company for anyone until you can find out what happens next. Trust me, I know.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
How to reach the stars! - the technology needed, 26 Jun 2007
That's not what the "Gaia" trilogy is usually seen as. It's often reviewed as an exciting space opera with heroes and villains on an artificial life-form, the size of a planet, in orbit around Saturn.
Don't believe it! What this is, is a very serious attempt to come up with a design for a star-faring craft. At the end of this very enjoyable set of three books, you might want to consider whether mankind really expects to reach the stars.
The technology at the centre of the books is a living being. It's the size and shape of a big wheel - several kilometers - no, several hundred kilometers across. It's spinning, and the "tyre" around the edge is hollow, filled with atmosphere and populated with centaurs. And humans.
Why would anybody build such a thing?
All becomes, gradually, clear as you discover the intelligence that lives in the hub; a god-like device, clearly artificial in origin but capable of reproduction. Its main skill is a genius for genetic engineering and biosphere maintenance.
Without spoiling the story, it is quite capable of designing a life-form which inherits language; or a plant which grows silicon circuitry in its leaves, or even, of upgrading the DNA of a human being so that it can interbreed with the centaurs.
Varley doesn't say, at any point, that this would be a useful skill! - but recently, all the birds on my local park ponds died. It was after a dry summer, and analysis showed that a thin layer of toxin had formed on the bottom of the pond; all bottom-feeding lifeforms which ingested it, perished. And, it occurred to me; "suppose this happened on a star-ship?"
On planet Earth, it's a local tragedy. Eventually, the toxin dissipates, and new ducks fly in; new fish eggs arrive (often, stuck to the toes of the ducks) and the pond gradually starts its normal life cycle. On a "generation ship" flying between Sol and Polaris, it would be terminal.
Think of the recent bee-hive catastrophe, where all the bees in hives suddenly abandon their homes. On the planet, it's a crucial problem; until someone finds a wild type of bee which isn't affected by it. Gradually, new queens are brought in, new honeycomb is built, and the business of pollinating fruit trees resumes. On our generation ship, no more fruit. Not ever.
The technology to build an intelligence like Gaia is beyond us. Indeed, there's not the slightest evidence to suggest it actually exists as a possibility. Even with this ability, it's far from clear that a Gaia-based generation ship could survive the thousands of years it would take to travel around interstellar space, even if it did have a portable heat and light source.
Read the books for the fun of seeing a truly well-imagined world. Well, apart from the snapping "spoke" strands. But think about it next time you find yourself talking to a "libertarian" who says that we have to leave Earth and colonise space.
It's a dream, and quite beyond humanity. Certainly beyond humanity now, probably beyond anything we'll be capable of doing, or our next-step descendants would be capable of doing. Look at Gaia, and think how different she is from us...
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very Enjoyable, 5 Dec 2002
John Varley is a good writer, there is not much doubt about that. His writing is recognised in the field for being original and full of new ideas as well as being excellent stories."Titan" is volume One of the Gaean Trilogy (no! please don't stop reading!). It is categorised on the cover as Science Fiction/Fantasy which intrigued me. It is actually a successful cross-over story. Cirocco Jones is the Captain of the first manned spacecraft to explore the Saturn and its moons. They discover an extra small "moon" which on closer inspection seems to be an old spaceship. Not wishing to give away plot details, I can tell you that when they are exploring the object later, the Fantasy elements appear but the author manages to keep it believable (almost!). The author usually adopts a jokey style for the fantasy aspects. I don't suppose it can be considered to be great Science Fiction because of the implausibility of some of the ideas but that doesn't stop works like C S Lewis's Perelandra Trilogy being considered to be classics, not to mention "The Book of the New Sun" by Gene Wolfe. The bottom line is that it was very enjoyable. The book does have an ending and is readable on its own - there are no loose ends.
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