Titan

Rating:
Summary: Imaginative to a point...
Review: An artifact is discovered in space...inside is an amazing assortment of discoveries, but more importantly our group of people need to find a way off this thing.

1) Fantastic world created!!

2) Like others have said the author suffers from immaturity when handling the sexual portion of this book.

3) Definitely not for kids! Not to mention there are so many other things that could happen without characters having sex ever thirty pages or so. I literally counted three scenes within the space of 80-90 pages...which took up most of those pages.

4)Characters were ok, but nothing too rememberable.

OVERALL: Kept reading in the hopes things would improve but they didn't. Gave it a two stars vs. one because of the fantastic world created in general. For exploring an alien artifact, Greg Bear's "Eon" was a much better read (and more mature)

Rating:
Summary: Of Discriminating Taste
Review: But I finally read the entire trilogy. Titan seems to be out of stock everywhere but Amazon and was well worth the wait.

All the truths that were established in the other two novels are blown completely away. Proof again that the reader is always as ignorant as the narrator.

Rating:
Summary: Varley is the most original author since Heinlein!
Review: I first read the Gaean trilogy as a teenager, more years ago than I want to admit. Whenever I find myself in the book aisle staring at the covers of all the sci-fi books and wondering what happened to Original Thought... I go back home and read Varley's trilogy again. And every time I return to Gaea, I discover something new that my younger eyes missed.

Varley's style is similar to Heinlein in that he was light-years ahead of the social culture he wrote in, but I think even Heinlein would be completely blown away by some of the imagery and new morality described in Varley's books!

Varley creates a fantasy world which is none-the-less completely believable, with a pandora's box of characters including whale-like creatures filled with helium that float through the sky, centaur-like beings that give a whole new meaning to "free love" and terrifying denizens of the air that soar down to rip and shred their victims.

As Varley's human characters make their way through this stunning and sometimes brutal backdrop, we delve into the phsychological and physiological effects this harsh yet beautiful world has on them, we watch them evolve and in some cases, we see them de-volve.

If you are ready for a completely mind-blowing experience that will stretch the outer boundaries of your imagination, I highly suggest reading Titan, Wizard and Demon.

Rating:
Summary: Incredible World Creation and Exciting Adventures
Review: I first read this book (and the other two in the series Wizard and Demon) in the early 80s as a teenager. I bought them at the time based primarily on the comparison to the Dune novels by Frank Herbert. I was a Herbert fan, and wanted more excitement in a similar vein. Of course there is not nearly the depth of socio-political, philosophical core as there is in the Herbert novels, but the world Varley creates is as fantastic and new and exciting as anything in Dune.

Cirroco Jones and her crew are sent on a mission to explore the moons of Jupiter, and when they approach the moon Titan, they make an amazing discovery: Titan is not a moon, but what appears to be a gigantic space station in the shape of a wheel. The discovery of what is the actual nature of the wheel is the whole point of the book, and early in the book, the natural defenses of the wheel grab Cirroco's ship and crew out of space. They essentially get absorbed into the machine, only to be "reborn" on the inside of the machine. Each of the crew goes through a metamorphosis in this re-birth, not all survive, some transformed for the better, some transformed with psychoses or neuroses. And along the way they discover a myriad of fantastical creatures much out of mythology, like a race of centaurs, angels, and more than I can go into much detail about.

This book is a prime example of what science fiction used to do: tell a compelling story, keep you guessing at what all the details of the universe are (you'll have to read Wizard and Demon, the two sequels to find out all the truth about this world the humans call "Titan") and is well edited, that is, it is not an overblown novel stretched out to some 700 or 800 + pages the way many writers do these days. What ever happened to conciseness? Well, Varley is concise, precise, and very entertaining.

I read it recently after almost two decades, as I still have the original paperbacks I bought in the 80s. As an adult, I can now see that there are a few things that I missed as a budding teenager. Yes, I thought back then that it was great to have the main character be a woman, and the co-star is also a female character. There are other female characters at the "core" of the novel as well that I will let the reader discover. Cirroco Jones was a progressive woman who took her sexual encounters for what they were and nothing more: part of life's daily pleasures. What an inspiration: Sexual freedom! No hang-ups about it. The trip to Jupiter is a long journey, so yes, she'll sleep with more than one of the male crew along the way. People are human and have human needs. Revolution! Woohoo! Go Varley! I think we could use a booster shot of these kinds of attitudes. Those who complain about rampant sex throughout the book really must have never read any real erotic fiction. This is not erotic fiction, this is science fiction with a healthy dose of reality throughout.

But as an adult now in my mid thirties, I do see that the young hero I saw in Cirroco Jones was not so much a liberated woman, but merely a female character who acted like all of the male characters you'd read about in every other book out there on the market (and still do today.) There is surprisingly little real feminine energy driving this "female" lead. But that only becomes an issue in enjoying the book if you are looking for a feminist journey. The trials and challenges she faces are real and exciting.

John Varley is just an excellent storyteller. His narrative is enjoyable, the escapades of the characters are exciting, and the visualization of the world is 100% (or more) complete. You really want for each of the characters to get what they desire, even though their desires don't all coincide as possible or reciprocal.. There is a core value about individuality and identity that permeates this series, something that hints at our suppression of who we really are and creates for some the ability to go through a transforming process, to follow our true hearts about who we really are. There is a belief that we can escape our self-perpetuated oppressions if we have faith in that belief and make effort to be true to ourselves.

Ignore all of the bad reviews and read these award winning novels. The series may just change your lives and open new doors for you. There is a world out there that accepts you for who you are and values your own unique qualities. Hope and acceptance. What more could one ask for?

Rating:
Summary: A classic, enormously enjoyable science fiction
Review: I first read this book when I was in sixth grade, then a few years ago I managed to track it down again. I'm glad I did, as this is one of those books that can be appreciated on several different levels. At 11, I was more interested in the descriptions of the fairy-tale aliens, while reading it now, I can appreciate the dynamics between all the characters, the science behind the fiction, and a terrific first-contact story.

A small space exploration stumbles across a fantastic satellite orbiting Saturn. A massive, hollow wheel, 1300 kilometers across, it sucks them inside an incredible, artificial alien world. Captain Cirocco Jones reunites her crew after their crash landing, and they begin to travel around the inside of the wheel - which they name Gaea - in search of a way home. They meet the citizens of Gaea, who are familiar and yet utterly alien. (They include winged humanoids and centaurs.)

Eventually, Cirocco and her friend Gaby make the grueling 600 Km vertical journey up one of the spokes of the wheel to the hub, where they meet the God of Gaea and learn some very interesting things about this alien "planet".

John Varley has done his science homework, which allows you to relax and quit worrying about the "How did they..?" questions that invariable crop up in any sci-fi book. The characters, while not always likable, are well-drawn and human (or not), and the changes they each go through while on Gaea raise thought-provoking questions about the effect of a powerful alien intelligence upon our own - and about our effect on the aliens.

I'd rate it PG-13, for a rape scene, implied incest and other sexual references, as well as some mildly disturbing violence. Highly recommended.


Rating:
Summary: Of Discriminating Taste
Review: I have read, with utter disgust and condenscending understanding, the reviews of Varley's Titan, but I must tell the readers of the various customer reviews, that the so-called critics have been deluded by their times, a sort of 21st century Victorianesque prudery that is in a lascivous relationship with the tendencies of political correctness and watered-down sophemoric feminism, that this is a wonderful novel. Read Titan. In your later years, and unless you die early, there will be later years, you will remember many scenes in Varley's trilogy--Wizard and Demon, too, and wonder what kind of novel you have been exposed to. The definition of science fiction is errenous because this novel cannot be defined by one genre. It's sensuousness and tenderness is almost French, and very rewarding in our very Teutonic culture. Can I say that? I don't care. Read this novel and the rest of the trilogy.

Rating:
Summary: Varley Still Rules!
Review: I read this book several years ago and it has become the standard for which I base innovative SF. I have read everything that John Varley has written since. His works seems to have common themes- a near future distopia, bio manipulation, and strong female characters are only some of them. "Titan" was the first in the series with "Wizard" and "Demon" following. Sigorney Weaver's Ripley in "Alien" must've been modeled after Titan's Cirroco Jones. I thought, "Some one's been reading Varley", when I first read Foster's novelization of "Alien". Varley has just the right mix of speculative and provocative fiction that are appealing to me as an open and imaginative reader. Varley's "Persistance of Vision" is one of my all time favorite short story series.I am thrilled to see anything new from John Varley.I was excited about reading his newer novels, "Steel Beach","The Golden Globe" and his latest "Red Thunder". Despite what any of the reviewers have said in these reviews, "Titan" remains at the top of my all time favorites. If you can't get this book at Amazon look for it elsewhere. As a long time bibliophile with broad and eclectic reading experience, I still say..Varley Rules!

Rating:
Summary: A classic of 1970's-vintage space opera
Review: The age of books like Titan is long since gone. The fact that Titan is still in print is telling -- it is among the best this era had to offer.

An enormous investment of imagination and analysis went into creating Gaea, the giant living space-habitat where the story takes place. Many novels of this day were full of strange alien landscapes and creatures that come off as hollow flights of fancy arranged by authorial fiat. Here though, they fit together in symbiosis. Even the parts of the world that seem "not quite right" on the first read through make perfect sense at the end after finding out more about the world's history. In fact, this is a good analogy for the plot of the book as a whole: a series of apparently random adventures with little obvious connection that finally makes perfect sense at the end when you learn what's really been going on.

Titan is also a reasonably good psychological novel. The opening events leave all the human characters mentally "damaged" in various ways, and Varley does a very believable, mature job of developing the plot as each character overcomes or sinks deeper into his or her respective psychosis.

What prevents Titan from being much better than it is is that Varley does not apply this same maturity to his handling of the various sexual issues he tries to address. In his treatment of free love, homosexuality, rape, abortion, and the like, his characters don't act like the liberated personalities he intends them to be, but simply as people who are as dogmatized in one direction as the American society of thirty years ago was dogmatized in the other. As a result, what Varley intended as thought provoking, having in time lost all shock value, comes off somewhere between childish and puerile. Especially in their almost fetishistic attention to alien pudenda, these passages are no longer good for much more than the titillation of 14-year old boys.

In short, Titan is among the best of the "adventure while exploring alien landscape" space operas of yesteryear. It surpasses most of that genre in terms of both coherency and imagination, and only falls down where it tried to run a path many books like it would not even try to tiptoe.

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining pulp
Review: These books are nominally sci-fi but really have more of a fantasy flavor, especially the second and third installments in the trilogy. Heroes, gods, monsters, epic quests, nukes, and lots of human-human and human-alien sex. In other words, all the ingredients of a pulp space opera. The series makes good beach reading but parts of it are not for the squeamish, so be warned. The dust jacket of my copy of "Titan" compares it with Frank Herbert's Dune books, which is ridiculous, but all in all these novels aren't a complete waste of time.

Rating:
Summary: Not worth it
Review: Varley's short story "Persistence of Vision" is one of my absolute favorite stories, so when I saw _Titan_, I thought I would be in for an interesting ride. This story, while moderately hard-SF, does explore themes of relationships (both in terms of sexuality-homo, hetero and incest-and companionship; of first contact of human to alien; and creatures to their God). However, I thought the writing fell flat during what is ultimately a quest and exploration story. The main female character, Cirocco, is sometimes more caricature than character (though I do agree that Ripley bears some resemblance in character). The plot was ultimately the driving force of the book, and many of the sequences felt forced. There is a definite feel that this was written in the 70s and the prevailing conventions and attitudes of the times are reflected and explored here.