John Varley (1) (1947–2025)

There a lot to love in the second Gaia book.

I was honestly expecting a straight carryover from the first novel with its surprising end and lead, making the next title, Wizard, something much more than I might have expected, but I was surprised. Decades have passed in an eyeblink and Titan has turned herself into the goose that lays the golden eggs, opening up exploration and exploitation to her artificial moon.

Of course, with this fantastic alien landscape, there's the Titanides, the 29 show more times over ambisexual centaurs who like to do it every which way they can, even with humans, and killer blimps and vast and amazing adventurous locations full of glory and beauty. None of it is really quite easy to exploit. Nor do many people have the desire. After all, Titan herself is a god or near enough, technologically, so as to be the utter master of her domain... except for the twelve distributed ancient AI intelligences that make up her bulk. :)

Our captain is old but still looking young by this point, and since she's the Wizard and it's traditional to sing the Yellow Brick Road when they go on expeditions and status updates with all these distributed intelligences that are gods in their own rights, we're thrown into intrigue and a possible rebellion. :)

If you think all of this is pretty simple, think again. The novel is rife with questions of sexuality and cultural weirdness and lesbianism and even eye-rolling wackiness of a misinterpretation of rape that could only come out of a secluded orbital community of Wiccan lesbians who shun all men but import sperm to keep their numbers, drag one of their members out of the community, and put her into Gaia. Let sparks fly.

Is this novel nothing but sex? It feels like it. It's not horrible tho. It's weird. Vastly weird. The centaur aliens are nuts about it, and I'm just thankful there's a cheat sheet in the book that breaks down all the coupling combinations. And I thought that hind-sex and frontal sex was confusing enough when there was a profusion of multiple sexual organs.

From the standpoint of imagination and weirdness and worldbuilding and oddities, this book is brilliant and beautiful. Even the questions regarding sex and perception were sometimes clever and insightful even when it sometimes became enraging.

The fact is, for all its faults, this novel is fascinating and dense with goodies and is full of great ideas. My personal meh about the underlying story may be just me. Everything surrounding it is gorgeous. show less

I find myself flummoxed with how to describe my opinions on this mostly-forgotten oddball space opera. Perhaps it sounds strange, but this is one of the best 2.5/5 novels I've ever read. Quirky, rough around the edges, wildly creative, and exactly as uneven as one would expect from an author's first novel length work. Despite my reservations I do hold out some hope that Varley's later work can maintain his weirdness while polishing up his tendency in The Ophiuchi Hotline towards messiness. show more

Similar to Cordwainer Smith's Norstrilia, The Ophiuchi Hotline is set in a broader universe that is mostly explored through short stories. Though to be fair to Smith, it seems Varley couldn't be bothered to maintain as much chronological consistency when he returned to the universe in novels he published at the tail end of his career.

In this "Eight Worlds" universe, humanity has been evicted from Earth by an opaque higher intelligence for reasons that remain unknown. A similar species is found to live within the gas stratosphere of Jupiter, providing for consistence stress among the human colonies spread across the other planets in our solar system. Unsurprisingly, there is a contingent of humans who want to liberate Earth and return it to its former glory, though it remains unclear how they could do so. Humanity has only found the ability to traverse the solar system and inhabit the less-than-ideal niches they found because of the eponymous Ophiuchi Hotline, a stream of scientific data and technological advancements curiously beamed to us from outside our neck of the galaxy. The characters, though there are relatively few of them, are mostly clones of a few individuals; highly illegal too, since tampering with human genetics is banned with a legal punishment of death.

Varley's exploration of the ramifications of cloning was certainly solid; one of the best parts of the book for me. There's also some early-ish examples of cyberpunk technology, specifically towards the beginning of the novel, that I though were interesting and exciting. I wish I could say the same about Varley's exploration of gender fluidity (which is mostly defined/changed by cultural fads), or the curious inclusion of a reference to a corrupt political leader from 1860's New York (William "Boss" Tweed), the true purpose of which could've gone right over my head.

There's a truly sophomoric prevalence of casual sex and genital touching as is seemingly promised by any new wave SF that contains a sexually liberated culture. Most of the time this kind of thing makes me cringe, but for some reason it came off as really unintentionally funny to me in this one.

After its perplexing conclusion (which highlights the importance of human culture in a crowded galaxy and introduces some properties of time that go unexplained), I found myself asking what the point of it all was. Sure, it was entertaining in a funny/ridiculous way (see any mention of pork chop trees), but in my opinion it fails to coalesce into anything of real substance. Honestly though, gun to my head, I'd be hard pressed to define why my rating is so different between this and something like The Fall of Chronopolis by Barrington J. Bayley, which has lots of the same pitfalls and strengths. Perhaps it comes down to this type of inventive pulp genre fiction needing the right moment or circumstances. That may be true for any type of media, but it might be especially true for something like weird SF that relies so heavily on reader by-in. Nonetheless, it clearly inspired some thought in me which is more than I can say for a lot of stuff, so it's probably worth a try for the right person. show less

This is book 1 of Varley's Gaea trilogy and it was nominated for both the Nebula and Hugo awards when it was published, but sadly didn't win (Dreamsnake by Vonda McIntyre won them both). This series is like comfort food for me and I've read it multiple times over the years.

It tells the story of a NASA mission to Saturn's moons uncovers an alien artifact that turns out to be a sentient torus habitat, that once they are brought inside (and not through the front door), they find an old world show more populated with lots of genetically odd flora and fauna, including gigantic living blimps, centaurs and flying creatures called angels. The crew find themselves altered/adapted to this new world in a way that allows them to interact with the inhabitants, an interesting twist on how to get around the fact that alien species wouldn't automatically speak English. (I'm looking at you Star Trek :) )

Its really an origin story and a road "movie" where the commander of the NASA ship (Rocky) makes it her mission to reach the hub of the world where she believes the god/maker/controller should live and find out what's going on. I really like the "world" that Varley creates, one that seems locked in plausible science and far fetched fantasy combined.

10/10

S: 4/25/18 - 5/6/18 (12 Days) show less

This review will contain spoilers if you haven't read the first book in the series, Titan.

Several decades have passed since Captain Cirocco Jones and her crew had their ship torn asunder and dragged aboard Gaea by one of her sub-brains. Once Cirocco and Gaby made the arduous journey up the spoke to confront her, Gaea apologized for the actions of the rebellious subordinate that committed the attack. In the interim, Gaea has negotiated peace with Earth, established embassies there, and opened show more herself up to Human tourists, albeit in limited quantity.

Two travelers have come to the world of Gaea in hopes of receiving a cure for their afflictions. One is Chris, who suffers from dissociative identity disorder and was fine until he was forced to go off his meds. The other is Robin, a judgmental epileptic from a lesbian Wiccan society that believes all men are rapists. Neither has quite the meeting they'd hoped for with Gaea and must prove their mettle as "heroes" by completing an epic journey or quest to satisfy the capricious god.

Cirocco was offered—and accepted—the role of Wizard, a position second only to Gaea herself. Cirocco would travel the world of Gaea, acting as her representative and messenger, and granted perpetual youth. But the passage of time and other unfair responsibilities have taken their toll on her, and she's fallen into alcoholism. Gaby has also been awarded perpetual youth, but hers was earned through work as a civil engineer, building and maintaining a trans-Gaean road and way stations. She hates to see Cirocco suffer and resents what Gaea has done to her friend.

Gaby and Cirocco are planning a trip to circumnavigate Gaea, a periodic responsibility, and invite Robin and Chris along in hopes that the journey will give each of them a chance to "do something heroic." Four Titanides also come along for the journey. The multi-sexual centaurs are excellent craftsmen and prove invaluable companions to the Humans. But there's more to this trip than just touring the kingdom and finding opportunities for adventure. For Gaea has far outlived her expected lifespan, and her ability to give a shit is less than her desire to be entertained.

Once again, Varley utilizes a quest as the primary story structure and, like so many journeys, the characters are not the same at the end as they were at the beginning. Robin is forced to re-examine her beliefs and prejudices while Chris must learn how to balance his opposing personalities, in essence, passion versus logic. While Varley uses him as a counterpoint for Robin, he also represents all Humans in the complex love-hate relationship the Titanides have with us.

"Humans brought alcoholism to Gaea. We have always enjoyed wine, but the beverage you call tequila and we call"—she sang a brief melody—"which translates as Death-with-a-pinch-of-salt-and-a-twist-of-lime, has addictive properties for us. Humans brought venereal disease: the only malady of Terran origin that affects us."

Varley isn't shy about using the Titanides to point out our species' faults, but he also recognizes that we are capable of so much more.

"And there are among you individuals with life burning so brightly within them that we are dazzled by your brilliance."

My one complaint would be that a scene where Gaby discovers the identity of the antagonist who has been orchestrating malevolent events against them and confronts that person took place off screen. While we are later told about the confrontation, it would've been better for the story if the reader was shown it rather than told about it.

While Titan and Wizard were published only a year apart, Varley's writing is so much better. Characterization is much stronger and he did it without sacrificing world-building. In fact, it's even better. There's less focus on numbers and more on substance. And the pacing never drags. Varley figured out how to fill the spaces between dramatic events to hold the reader's interest. The surprise ending is the icing on the cake.

4.25 stars show less