Gaea trilogy
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The Gaea Trilogy consists of three science fiction novels by John Varley. The stories tell of humanity's encounter with a living being in the shape of a 1,300 km diameter space habitat, inhabited by many different species, in orbit around the planet Saturn
The novels are:
- Titan (1979)
- Wizard (1980)
- Demon (1984)
Contents |
[edit] Plot Synopses
[edit] Titan
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| Author | John Varley |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science Fiction |
| Publisher | |
| Released | 1979 |
| Media Type | Print () |
| ISBN | ISBN |
| Followed by | Wizard |
A scientific expedition to the planet Saturn in 2025, aboard the ship Ringmaster, discovers a strange satellite in orbit around the planet. Commanding the ship is Cirocco Jones, a tall NASA career woman, aided by astronomer Gaby Plauget, the clone twin physicists April and August Polo, pilot Eugene Springfield, physician Calvin Greene and engineer Bill (whose last name is never given).
As they reach the satellite they realize it is a huge hollow torus, a Stanford torus habitat. Before they can report this the ship is entangled in cables from the object. They are rendered unconscious and later wake up inside the habitat. Initially separated, they find each other, but April is missing, as is another of the Crew, Calvin Greene. Gene Springfield, a pilot, seems oddly changed.
As the story progresses, they find Calvin living as a companion inside a Blimp, an intelligent gasbag a kilometer long, one of many that swim forever in the air inside the habitat. Calvin can speak to the blimp and understand its responses, which consist of whistles. His blimp's name is Whistlestop, in human terms. Calvin no longer wants to be with his companions—he helps them for a while and then leaves with Whistlestop.
Later the remaining companions encounter the Titanides, strange centaurs who speak a language based on music. Cirocco finds she speaks this language. The Titanides are in a state of war with Angels, birdlike humanoid creatures. Strangely neither race seems to know why they fight, only that each must kill the other.
Cirocco, Gaby and Gene learn there is a controlling intelligence, called Gaea, and it lives 600 km above them, in the hub. They decide to climb up to this place using the support cables that maintain the structure against centrifugal force. Gene is increasingly erratic - he rapes Gaby and Cirocco during the trip. They get rid of him and keep going. Months of climbing brings them high in one of the spokes of the great wheel. There they find April. She has been transformed into an angel, of a solitary species. She can hardly bear to be near them, staying only to ask them to ask Gaea why the Angels must make war and die.
Finally reaching the hub, they discover Gaea, who presents herself as a frumpy middle aged woman. She explains that the great wheel is old, and the regional intelligences around the rim have rebelled against the center. One of them captured the Ringmaster and altered some of the crew. Gaea rescued them and, unable to change them back, placed them where they would be happy. She makes an offer to Cirocco : in exchange for long life and unusual abilities, she can be Gaea's agent at the Rim, her Wizard. Cirocco accepts, with the condition that the war at the Rim must stop.
Gaea's personality is that of a movie addict. She has been watching television signals from Earth and is obsessed by movies, especially from Hollywood's Golden Age. The war was something she started because she had seen it in these movies. This movie theme repeats throughout the trilogy, especially the final volume.
[edit] Wizard
| Author | John Varley |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science Fiction |
| Publisher | Ace Books |
| Released | 1980 |
| Media Type | Print () |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-441-90067-4 |
| Preceded by | Titan |
| Followed by | Demon |
Wizard takes place in 2100, seventy five years after Titan. Cirocco has become an alcoholic, apparently under the strain of being the Wizard. Gaby Plauget has picked up the slack, carrying out special projects for Gaea such as building the Circum-Gaea Highway, in return for which she gets some of the benefits Cirocco enjoys, including apparently perpetual youth.
Gaea herself is bored. She arranges for streams of people looking for miracle cures to come to her from Earth, and then sets them a task: travel once round the circumference of the great wheel, and their wishes will be granted. This is her way of ensuring an enduring supply of entertainment, as she arranges hazards for them to overcome or die trying. When not doing this she sits in the hub with her sycophants and watches old movies.
Chris Major and Robin the Nine-Fingered are two such pilgrims. Chris suffers from psychotic episodes. Robin, member of a group of latter day witches, has a strange epilepsy that only manifests itself in gravity higher than the Moon's. With Gaby, Cirocco and four Titanides they set out on the trek. Gaby and Cirocco have a hidden agenda - they want to canvass the regional brains to try to overthrow Gaea, who they see as being irretrievably insane.
During the trip, we begin to learn what really drove Cirocco to her alcoholism. As payback for the discontinuation of the Angel/Titanide War, Gaea has made the Titanides dependent on her to have children. Only her saliva can activate the eggs they produce, so that they can be implanted in a host mother to grow. The responsibility for an entire race's survival is more than Cirocco can bear; with resignation impossible and suicide ruled-out by her love for the Titanides, her only release is alcohol-fueled oblivion.
The hazards of the trip include buzz-bombs, living creatures with jet engines that live on the support cables. They attack living beings, including humans and Titanides, attempting to capture them as food, and present a particular threat to pilgrims with their barbed noses and razor-sharp wings. Slowly the journey reduces the crew, killing first one of the Titanides and then, in an attack plotted by the crazed crewmember Gene, Gaby. All are separated. Cirocco is left on the Rim surface, while Robin and Chris are trapped underground, with the Titanide Valiha who has been injured. Eventually Robin has to leave Chris to tend Valiha, and climb back to the surface for help. She finds herself in one of the arctic cold zones of the habitat, and almost dies before being rescued.
Cirocco undergoes a complete transformation. She musters her considerable powers to rescue all the remaining expedition members. Robin and Chris go to confront Gaea, only to be told she has cured them anyway, and they can get lost. Afterwards Cirocco destroys the body Gaea was using to talk to people. This cannot kill Gaea herself, but it is Cirocoo's way of resigning. Now she will not be the Wizard, but the Demon.
[edit] Demon
| Author | John Varley |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science Fiction |
| Publisher | |
| Released | 1984 |
| Media Type | Print () |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-425-05879-4 |
| Preceded by | Wizard |
Demon takes place in the years 2113 through 2121, thirteen to twenty-one years after the events of Wizard. Cirocco Jones has become a combination fugitive and resistance leader, staying alive against the forces of Gaea by virtue of her unusual abilities, and the help of friends and allies. These include the race of Titanides, who remain loyal to the Captain, as they call Jones, rather than to Gaea. The militant creations of Gaea, once limited to the buzz-bombs, have expanded to include horrifying beings called Priests, each one made by Gaea from parts of her victims. The Priests carry out her dirty work as a class of undead field commanders, supported by bands of zombies. These are made from the corpses of humans who die in the wheel--any bodies that are not burned shortly after death become infested with creatures called deathsnakes, designed by Gaea for expressly this purpose of reanimating the dead.
Gaea has replaced the avatar that Jones destroyed at the end of Wizard with a new one, a 50 foot tall replica of Marilyn Monroe. She spends her time in a travelling film festival of her own making, called Pandemonium, where she is attended by various humans, zombies, and many bizarre creatures of her own creation, such as living film cameras.
Earth is in the grip of a slow nuclear war, possibly started by Gaea herself. Some survivors are rescued by mysterious pods called mercy flights that bring them to Gaea. They are cured of all their ills, and then dumped in the twilight city of Bellinzona, an anarchic place run by criminals.
Gaby has become one of the intelligences of the great wheel, helping Cirocco when the increasingly crazy Gaea is distracted. When the Ringmaster was captured, the crew were given wormlike creatures that sat on their brains, and transmitted everything they thought, said or did to Gaea. Gaea recorded all this, so Gaby's death left her personality in the possession of Gaea, who thought she had disposed of her. Gaby survived, and is becoming more powerful as Gaea gets crazier.
Chris Major stayed in Gaea, but Robin of the Coven returned to her people. She returns to Gaea with children - a teenage daughter Nova, and an infant son Adam. Both are Chris's children as well, by some trick of Gaea's. Both were apparently virgin births.
After a short period of peace, Gaea's agents kidnap Adam. It soon becomes apparent why. Adam can activate Titanide eggs like Cirocco can. Gaea has apparently arranged his birth so he can be Cirocco's successor, and let Gaea control the Titanides through a new Wizard. After a failed attempt by the group to stop the kidnapping, Chris decides to take his chances in surrendering to Pandemonium, so that he can be near Adam.
Needing to recover Adam and Chris, Cirocco uses her influence among the Titanides to conquer Bellinzona, imposing law and order with the intent of eventually raising an army to attack Pandemonium. In time, she manages to transform the inhabitants into a genuine community, replacing the disorganized chaos that went before. She is aided in her plans for war by Snitch, the creature Gaea had put in her brain, which was extracted by a Titanide surgeon. Snitch can talk, feel pain, and apparently can recover from any injury. He is also an alcoholic like Cirocco once was, apparently having become addicted from residing inside her body. Cirocco keeps him in a jar, and when necessary bribes or tortures him into giving him information about what Gaea is up to. Snitch, like all Gaea's creations, is part of her crazed mind, and knows something about what she is thinking.
When Cirocco finally launches her attack, she has to guide 40,000 human soldiers and several thousand more Titanides nearly 600 kilometers across the wheel, while fending off attacks from the Gaean Air Force, the successors to the old buzz-bombs. These new creatures are armed with rocket bullets, missiles, and bombs, forcing Cirocco to enlist the Angels in a preemptive strike to help destroy the GAF's refueling bases.
When the army finally reaches Pandemonium, Cirocco's attack is a mixture of display and deadly force. Whistlestop the blimp, with the aged and incurably dying Calvin inside, attempts to immolate Gaea in a Hindenburg-like blaze. Eventually Gaea is lured out of the city, enabling part of the army to rescue Adam while Cirocco and Gaea face off. At that moment Gene, old and addled, and living next to one of the former regional brains, sets off the final blow at Gaby's order. Gaea is disoriented enough for Gaby to force her out of the hub. This power shift allows the Monroe-avatar to be destroyed, and the intelligence known as Gaea dies in Cirocco's hands, as Snitch is the only part of her mind left in material form. Gaby is the new Gaea.
[edit] Source
- Varley, John. Wizard, Berkeley SF, 1984, ISBN 0-425-05879-4.
