Monday, February 03, 2020

Wizard by John Varley


(pb; 1980: second novel in the Gaea Trilogy)

From the back cover

“. . . Human minds have entered the sprawling mind of Gaea. Now they must fight her will. For she is much too powerful. . . and definitely insane.”

Review

Set seventy-five years after the events of Titan, this second Gaea novel finds Cirocco Jones and Gaby in positions of considerable power within Gaea’s sphere, even as Jones battles alcoholism, Gaby battles her own demons, and Gaea, that mercurial alien being─cruel even when kind─creates crazy and often deadly events within her realm. Will Jones fall under the chemical yoke of Gaea’s machinations, or will her compressed apostasy finally burst into open revolt? And will new, key-to-Gaea’s-plans human arrivals try to thwart Jones’s possible rebellion?

Varley delivers on this ripe-with-promise setup in his usual excellent fashion, maintaining the all the virtues of its one-of-a-kind source novel, while expanding on the Gaea-based legends and twisted histories. Like Titan, Wizard did not disappoint this not-usually-into-hard-science-fiction, action-oriented reader. Worth owning, if you are not a prude about frank sex or not open to hybrid-genre science fiction. Followed by Demon.

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