Demon (novel)
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| Demon | |
| Author | John Varley |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Gaea Trilogy |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction novel |
| Publisher | Berkley Books |
| Publication date | 1984 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover & paperback) |
| Pages | 464 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-399-12945-6 |
| Preceded by | Wizard (1980) |
Demon is a 1984 science fiction novel by John Varley. It is the third and final book in his Gaea Trilogy.
[edit] Plot summary
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, named after significant religious figures from the past, 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 and - unless burnt first - become infested with creatures called deathsnakes .
The increasingly demented and film-obsessed 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 meanwhile 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. All this means that humankind's future is now in the wheel, and at the mercy of its senile ruler.
More of Gaea's earlier plotting comes to light when it is revealed that all the captured Ringmaster crew were fitted with a parasitic, worm-like spy right inside their brain, which broadcast their every thought and perceptions to her. The records kept of this in the spoke of the wheel mean that Gaby's personality has somehow survived her physical death as a rogue intelligence. She is able to communicate with Cirocco and together, they hatch plans for the future of the wheel. Cirocco's own brain parasite was extracted by a Titanide surgeon and emprisonned in a jar. Nicknamed Snitch, it is both a creature in its own right which can talk, feel pain, and apparently recover from any injury, and a part of Gaea's fragmented and disintegrating mind. As such, it becomes a source of information on her schemes, which Cirocco ruthlessly exploits through a mixture of torture and bribery - Snitch has emerged from her alcohol-addled brain with an addiction to liquor.
Chris Major stayed in Gaea, where he is mutating into a Titanide, but Robin of the Coven returned to her people in the interim, only now returning to Gaea. She has two children, a 19 year old daughter named Nova, and an infant son Adam - which is anathema in her female only community. It is revealed that the children weren't planned, but are offspring of herself and Chris, owing to genetic material somehow planted in her when she last was on Gaea and trigger released to grow at various times.
The three are reunited with Chris and Cirocco, whom the distraught Nova immediately develops a crush on. They also meet a new friend and lieutenant of Cirocco's, Conal, a none-too-bright bodybuilder from Canada and a descendent of Ringmaster crew member Gene.
After a short period of peace, Gaea's agents kidnap Adam. It soon becomes apparent that the infant can activate Titanide eggs like Cirocco can, and therefore represents the race's future, as well as a means of controlling them. Gaea has apparently arranged his birth so he can be Cirocco's successor, and his kidnapping to force her into a confrontation. After a failed rescue attempt by the group, Chris decides to take his chances in surrendering to Pandemonium, so that he can be near Adam.
Some months pass while Cirocco's forces attempt to regroup and make a new plan. Now desperate to recover Adam, who is beginning to see Gaea as a mother figure, 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, through her unusual mixture of charisma and ruthlessness she manages to transform the inhabitants into a genuine community, replacing the disorganized chaos that went before.
When Cirocco finally launches her attack, she has to guide nearly 40,000 human soldiers and several thousand Titanides some 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 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 by destroying one of the major nerves which Gaea's brain depends on. Gaea is disoriented enough for Gaby to force her out of the hub, leading the Monroe avatar to be destroyed while trying to climb up to the hub on one of the cables which bind the wheel. The last fragment of Gaea's mind, in the shape of Snitch, dies in Cirocco's hand. Gaby, now the new divinity of the wheel, reveals to Cirocco that Gaea was in fact an entity distinct from it and that those changes of 'management' are a regular occurrence in the enormously long life-cycle of those entities. All the plotting perpetrated by Gaea throughout the trilogy was aimed at securing her demise and replacement in a manner entertaining and flamboyant enough to suit her. Gaby invites Cirocco to share the position with her, but the former Wizard declines for now, choosing instead to simply live free for the first time in nearly a century.
