Status
Available
Collection
Publication
Berkley (1984)
Description
When Cirrocco Jones, captain of the spaceship Ringmaster, and his crew are captured by Gaea, a planet-sized creature that orbits around Saturn, they find themselves inside a bizarre world inhabited by centaurs, harpies, and constantly shifting environment.
User reviews
LibraryThing member theWallflower
As I expected with “classic” science fiction, this stuff is just weird. A group of space explorers (including a set of incestuous test-tube twins) find a Dyson sphere that’s part living, part machine. Inside the sphere, our heroes find giant landscapes, geographical features akin to
It reminds me of “Jitterbug Perfume” and “The Demolished Man” — critically acclaimed and difficult to understand. And like those books, there’s a lot of unncessary sex in there. It’s really obvious, like the sex was put in there to sell the book.
I’ll be honest, I came here for the centaur sex. But there isn’t any. There’s naked centaurs who have both man junk and horse junk. But that takes the fun out of it. And that’s when the book is going off on weird tangents. You can tell this guy is a gardener, not an architect, but there’s nothing here to sell it.
There’s really no reason to read this book. I didn’t get what I wanted out of it and neither will you. It’s too ridiculous to be considered sci-fi and too scientific to be considered fantasy. I do not recommend it.
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Avatar’s Pandora, and a war between centaurs and angels (their names for these alien beings).It reminds me of “Jitterbug Perfume” and “The Demolished Man” — critically acclaimed and difficult to understand. And like those books, there’s a lot of unncessary sex in there. It’s really obvious, like the sex was put in there to sell the book.
I’ll be honest, I came here for the centaur sex. But there isn’t any. There’s naked centaurs who have both man junk and horse junk. But that takes the fun out of it. And that’s when the book is going off on weird tangents. You can tell this guy is a gardener, not an architect, but there’s nothing here to sell it.
There’s really no reason to read this book. I didn’t get what I wanted out of it and neither will you. It’s too ridiculous to be considered sci-fi and too scientific to be considered fantasy. I do not recommend it.
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LibraryThing member edgeworth
This is possibly the oldest book I own – oldest in the sense that I bought it ages ago and still hadn’t read it, not actually physically old. It’s a cheap paperback reprint that I purchased from Borders on the Hay Street Mall sometime when I was in university, so 2008 at the latest. Borders
Not worth it! Well, it’s not terrible, but it was a very different man who wrote Titan (and The Ophiuchi Hotline, and The Barbie Murders) than wrote The Golden Globe, one of my favourite rollicking sci-fi adventures of all time. Titan is a clear-cut case of a Big Dumb Object story, in which NASA Captain Cirocco Jones and her crew have their exploratory mission to Saturn disrupted by the sudden discovery of an enormous ringlike object (which they later dub ‘Gaea’) in orbit around the planet. Titan was published in 1979, the same year the Pioneer probe entered Saturn’s orbit; I suppose publication predated this, but I found it odd that in the fictional 2025 the book takes place in, NASA has never thought to send an unmanned probe – or even discovered more powerful telescopes – which would have discovered Gaea long before a manned vessel arrived.
In any case, the usual stuff happens upon arrival, with the astronauts exploring the interior of the structure, encountering bizarre creatures and trying to uncover what it is and where it’s from. There is a slightly new twist to the sub-genre, which is only discovered towards the end but is completely given away by my edition’s blurb. This appears to be a recurring problem with Varley books. Don’t read blurbs, ever.
I’m not sure what happened to Varley in the 1980s, but he somehow became a much better writer. Titan’s dialogue and characterisation is clunky and awkward, in direct contrast to the much more polished prose of Steel Beach and The Golden Globe. And the story is flat-out ludicrous, the kind of science fiction you could really only get away with in the 1970s. There are occasional flashes of Varley’s coming brilliance – jokes, wisecracks, amusing similes – but for the most part this novel is indistinguishable from any of the other camp, forgotten paperbacks of the 1970s and 1980s that you’ll find yellowing away in the sci-fi/fantasy section of a second-hand bookstore.
It’s the first part of a trilogy, though, and since I already own the second volume, Wizard, I’ll probably continue reading it.
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has long since gone bankrupt and I now live on the other side of the country, but somehow this book followed me to Melbourne, patiently waiting to be read.Not worth it! Well, it’s not terrible, but it was a very different man who wrote Titan (and The Ophiuchi Hotline, and The Barbie Murders) than wrote The Golden Globe, one of my favourite rollicking sci-fi adventures of all time. Titan is a clear-cut case of a Big Dumb Object story, in which NASA Captain Cirocco Jones and her crew have their exploratory mission to Saturn disrupted by the sudden discovery of an enormous ringlike object (which they later dub ‘Gaea’) in orbit around the planet. Titan was published in 1979, the same year the Pioneer probe entered Saturn’s orbit; I suppose publication predated this, but I found it odd that in the fictional 2025 the book takes place in, NASA has never thought to send an unmanned probe – or even discovered more powerful telescopes – which would have discovered Gaea long before a manned vessel arrived.
In any case, the usual stuff happens upon arrival, with the astronauts exploring the interior of the structure, encountering bizarre creatures and trying to uncover what it is and where it’s from. There is a slightly new twist to the sub-genre, which is only discovered towards the end but is completely given away by my edition’s blurb. This appears to be a recurring problem with Varley books. Don’t read blurbs, ever.
I’m not sure what happened to Varley in the 1980s, but he somehow became a much better writer. Titan’s dialogue and characterisation is clunky and awkward, in direct contrast to the much more polished prose of Steel Beach and The Golden Globe. And the story is flat-out ludicrous, the kind of science fiction you could really only get away with in the 1970s. There are occasional flashes of Varley’s coming brilliance – jokes, wisecracks, amusing similes – but for the most part this novel is indistinguishable from any of the other camp, forgotten paperbacks of the 1970s and 1980s that you’ll find yellowing away in the sci-fi/fantasy section of a second-hand bookstore.
It’s the first part of a trilogy, though, and since I already own the second volume, Wizard, I’ll probably continue reading it.
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LibraryThing member FicusFan
I had heard such hype about this series but was quite disappointed when I actually read the first book. This book is the poster-book for the slander that SF as a genre is mindless, adolescent male fantasy. The only reason I didn't rate it lower was the fact that it picked up a bit towards the
The characters are cardboard, and other than one (The POV) are never really fleshed out. At the very start there is a strange thread about their sex lives. In fact that is almost the most prominent feature of the story, and like High School, you can only keep track of who is who, by remembering who they are sleeping with. The focus of course is on the women, their bodies and nudity, with a dash of lesbian incest. Hell there are even crude drawings.
The story is about first contact and how a US/UN survey ship encounters a large object that is clearly not natural. It turns out to be an alien artifact, a ship. It had such potential for a story, but when they get inside its a poorer version of Ringworld. Been there, done that. And of course the nudity is back, as the crew wanders the landscape naked. When some finally meet, we are even treated to contemplation of what it looks like (from the back and below the waist) to climb behind a naked woman. There is mindless killing of what they think of as 'food' but which they never consider as possibly being the local equivalent of 'people'. So much for first contact.
3/4 of the book is spent wandering a boring and empty landscape while the characters have personal problems, and sexual crises, complete with rape and homosexual experimentation (and since this is a male fantasy - its lesbians). What a waste of time. Finally there are local 'people' and structures found. There are conflicts, there is a decision to find the creator in the Hub, and find out why the ship was attacked and sucked inside the artifact. Why the crew was eaten, re-programmed and spit out naked and changed to wander alone. The results are campy, and worthy of Hollywood or Las Vegas (think the Wizard and the Emerald City in OZ) - courtesy of the entity watching and listening to our TV and Radio.
The book ends with a rescue party arriving unharmed, and some of the original crew deciding to stay. It sets the stage for the next book in the series.
Towards the end the addition of the Centaurs and Angels make it a bit more interesting. The climb to the Hub is interesting for a while and then becomes boring. There is a lot of name dropping of other SF works, and the actual stealing of one of the worms from Dune. Sad, derivative, occasionally offensive dreck.
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end.The characters are cardboard, and other than one (The POV) are never really fleshed out. At the very start there is a strange thread about their sex lives. In fact that is almost the most prominent feature of the story, and like High School, you can only keep track of who is who, by remembering who they are sleeping with. The focus of course is on the women, their bodies and nudity, with a dash of lesbian incest. Hell there are even crude drawings.
The story is about first contact and how a US/UN survey ship encounters a large object that is clearly not natural. It turns out to be an alien artifact, a ship. It had such potential for a story, but when they get inside its a poorer version of Ringworld. Been there, done that. And of course the nudity is back, as the crew wanders the landscape naked. When some finally meet, we are even treated to contemplation of what it looks like (from the back and below the waist) to climb behind a naked woman. There is mindless killing of what they think of as 'food' but which they never consider as possibly being the local equivalent of 'people'. So much for first contact.
3/4 of the book is spent wandering a boring and empty landscape while the characters have personal problems, and sexual crises, complete with rape and homosexual experimentation (and since this is a male fantasy - its lesbians). What a waste of time. Finally there are local 'people' and structures found. There are conflicts, there is a decision to find the creator in the Hub, and find out why the ship was attacked and sucked inside the artifact. Why the crew was eaten, re-programmed and spit out naked and changed to wander alone. The results are campy, and worthy of Hollywood or Las Vegas (think the Wizard and the Emerald City in OZ) - courtesy of the entity watching and listening to our TV and Radio.
The book ends with a rescue party arriving unharmed, and some of the original crew deciding to stay. It sets the stage for the next book in the series.
Towards the end the addition of the Centaurs and Angels make it a bit more interesting. The climb to the Hub is interesting for a while and then becomes boring. There is a lot of name dropping of other SF works, and the actual stealing of one of the worms from Dune. Sad, derivative, occasionally offensive dreck.
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LibraryThing member clong
This is an interesting book. It starts out like a traditional Big Dumb Object book, but over time we start to realize that there is more to the object than initially meets the eye. And then in the end it morphs into a sort of Greek Mythology meets The Wizard of Oz pastiche. Much of the book is
I found the characters and how they interact to be somewhat superficial, especially the men, who are one dimensional. I had a hard time developing much empathy for the protagonist, but by the end I genuinely cared about what happened to Cirocco and her sidekick Gabby. There was plenty of gratuitous sex, but at least it wasn't offensive (although the idea that the captain of ship would have "relationships" with every opposite sex crew member on the ship is a bit appalling).
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spent exploring Gaea, and I found this to be the best part of the book (more so, for example, than the comparable storyline in Rendezvous with Rama). Varley populates Gaea with an intriguing mix of flora and fauna, intelligent alien species, varied topography and massive mechanical constructs. The maps were very helpful and the illustrations were marginally helpful. I found the characters and how they interact to be somewhat superficial, especially the men, who are one dimensional. I had a hard time developing much empathy for the protagonist, but by the end I genuinely cared about what happened to Cirocco and her sidekick Gabby. There was plenty of gratuitous sex, but at least it wasn't offensive (although the idea that the captain of ship would have "relationships" with every opposite sex crew member on the ship is a bit appalling).
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LibraryThing member betula.alba
Moderately paced throughout book till the last few pages, with some surprising plot twists. Depiction of intimate relationships could have been left out; too much emphasis on the characters as sexual beings. Fairly large scope, but not as detailed world-building as Vernor Vinge for instance.
LibraryThing member datrappert
The first volume in Varley's stupendous trilogy. What set Varley apart for me was that his stories start with premises that other writers would write whole books about. But in Varley, they are just part of everyday life. Titan is an adventure story that is, in many aspects, in the Edgar Rice
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Burroughs tradition (think John Carter of Mars), but of course Varley takes it far far beyond anything Burroughs wrote or could have published in the early 20th century. For his sensibility and unrestrained look at sex and all its variations, Varley is most reminiscent of Heinlein. Sad to say that after this trilogy his subsequent work has not been terribly interesting. Show Less
LibraryThing member Jasignature
John Varley was a good example of a 'drug-induced' (imagination) Writer amongst many. None-the-less, he made a real good read of it. His sexual inputs were near-perfect in their amount and variety without overdoing it. Do I sense a early 'Ripley' (Alien)? His writing style definately emphasises the
I can say that these books are good to read if you need to learn how to not take Sci-Fi/Fantasy ...toooooo seriously.
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'visual' aspect of all things - sometimes to the ridiculous. I can say that these books are good to read if you need to learn how to not take Sci-Fi/Fantasy ...toooooo seriously.
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LibraryThing member meghancochrane
Ripping good Sci Fi. How could you not like centaurs with three sets of genitalia? I was hooked instantly when the first scene is zero gravity sex. I was house ridden for a few days with a sinus infection and it made for perfect awake-at-2am reading. I thought Gaea was deliciously funny and
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original "God" and the fact that she stole all her ideas from American television really funny (I do have a few questions about electronic speed of light travel v.s. how far into the future things are) Some times it's better to just roll with the story though. The main character Rocky and her relationship with Gaby seemed like a riff on Frodo and Sam, but then again I think most Sci-Fi is a rif on that because it's so heavily grounded in archetypes. Which doesn't mean it doesn't make for great reading. I enjoyed the authors imagination in making up the world and characters. Genetically engineered incestuous twins? All in all a good read. Show Less
LibraryThing member revslick
Varley is an old-school sci-fi writer. Old school sci-fi writer are those that push the boundaries of societal norms to such a degree that you can't helped being stretched by the end. He uses several mythological references to explore the notion of divine reenactment as if god purposely creates
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bizarre conflict just to see the chaos ensue. Unfortunately, it reminded me of a patchwork of several familiar stories and left me liking the stretching tidbits but feeling bored through 3/4s of the book. Warning... the book is definitely NOT for children. Show Less
LibraryThing member Black_samvara
Enjoyed reading it AGAIN. This is a mixed blessing, I now have to find Wizard and Demon and re-read them too.
Science Fiction bleeding into Fantasy - Captain Cirocco Jones and her crew are investigating some moons when they make an astounding discovery and their ship gets eaten.
Science Fiction bleeding into Fantasy - Captain Cirocco Jones and her crew are investigating some moons when they make an astounding discovery and their ship gets eaten.
LibraryThing member bhabeck
This was a very interesting story. It is the first in a trilogy and I have already purchased the other 2 books.
As the synopsis on the book jacket says "It {the story] begins with humankind's exploration of a massive satellite orbiting Saturn. It culminates in a shocking discovery: the satellite is
There were parts of this book that I really enjoyed such as the determination of the Captain and some of her crew to continue their exploratory mission (as well as attempting some type of rescue) and some of the creatures that lived in the satellite (the Titanides, the Smilers). Other things such as the humans' casual willingness to kill potentially sentient beings for food and the almost "Wizard of Oz" reveal of the alien being were a bit troubling.
The alien being, Gaea, has some very interesting insights into human nature in part because...well, I can't say how, since it would be a spoiler...that make the reader think.
In addition to the category I used it for in the SF Reading Challenge (Multiple non-human intel in contact with humans), it would also satisfy Locus Award Winner, First Contact (it appears) and Feminist SF
As the synopsis on the book jacket says "It {the story] begins with humankind's exploration of a massive satellite orbiting Saturn. It culminates in a shocking discovery: the satellite is
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a giant alien being."There were parts of this book that I really enjoyed such as the determination of the Captain and some of her crew to continue their exploratory mission (as well as attempting some type of rescue) and some of the creatures that lived in the satellite (the Titanides, the Smilers). Other things such as the humans' casual willingness to kill potentially sentient beings for food and the almost "Wizard of Oz" reveal of the alien being were a bit troubling.
The alien being, Gaea, has some very interesting insights into human nature in part because...well, I can't say how, since it would be a spoiler...that make the reader think.
In addition to the category I used it for in the SF Reading Challenge (Multiple non-human intel in contact with humans), it would also satisfy Locus Award Winner, First Contact (it appears) and Feminist SF
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LibraryThing member gypsysmom
Titan looks like a world but is actually a sentient being. It is filled with marvelous places and beings. And it is lonely.
LibraryThing member mahsdad
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
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)
It tells the story of a
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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 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)
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LibraryThing member majackson
A watered down version of Ringworld: a living satellite eco-system of immense proportions.
LibraryThing member Scoshie
Introducton to Capt Cirroco "Rocky" Jones an friends!!!
"Titan is first in Varley's epic Gaean Trilogy. It was finalist for both Hugo and Nebula awards.---Gaea is a world within a world – impossible, bizarre, an endless landscape inhabited by creatures out of legend. Gaea is a goddess, sometimes
"Titan is first in Varley's epic Gaean Trilogy. It was finalist for both Hugo and Nebula awards.---Gaea is a world within a world – impossible, bizarre, an endless landscape inhabited by creatures out of legend. Gaea is a goddess, sometimes
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whimsical, sometimes malign and always terrifying. But she is also three million years old and her powers are increasingly capricious and uncertain." Show Less
LibraryThing member rampaginglibrarian
i liked this first installment, although the descriptions sometimes threw me, not being a visual person, yet being someone who DOES have to map out things if diagrams and desriptions are explicitly laid out (which they very much are in this book) i had a very hard time picturing Varley's
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descriptions. Show Less
LibraryThing member electrascaife
A spaceship gets, literally, swallowed whole by what the crew had thought was an undiscovered moon of Saturn. As it turns out, it's a planet-sized living creature with a penchant for Greek mythology.
Weird? Yeah, but surprisingly entertaining. There's a lot of time spent on describing the strange
Weird? Yeah, but surprisingly entertaining. There's a lot of time spent on describing the strange
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landscape, which I neither liked nor completely understood, but the plot is inventive and fun, and the characters are interesting, with a healthy supply of strong females who contain a refreshing amount of complexity. Show Less
Subjects
Awards
Hugo Award (Nominee — Novel — 1980)
Nebula Award (Nominee — Novel — 1979)
Locus Award (Finalist — Science Fiction Novel — 1980)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1979-01 (Analog Science Fiction)
Physical description
7 inches
ISBN
0425073203 / 9780425073209