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A review by arkron
Titan by John Varley
3.0
This BigDumbObject/Greek mythology in space mashup won the Locus Award in 1980 and was nominated for Hugo and Nebula. It is the start of a trilogy.
A scientific exploration team finds a hollow, 1000 kilometers huge, Standford torus-like BDO near Saturn. This [b:2001: A Space Odyssey|70535|2001 A Space Odyssey (Space Odyssey, #1)|Arthur C. Clarke|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1386608704s/70535.jpg|208362] intro changes rapidly to a more fantasy oriented narrative: The spaceship gets destroyed and the team members pass through some psychedelic scenes and find themselves within the BDO. The members' psyche was changed, since they are now capable to communicate with the BDO's inhabitants, e.g. whistling to intelligent zeppelins. A couple of them have a different personality, e.g. from strict scientist to emotional.
They get involved in a war between centaur-like beings who speak a language based on music and humanoids similar to angels.
And they decide to ascend hundreds of kilometers to the middle of the torus to speak to the BDO's captain or god or engineers. An epic and heroic deed!
One of the main themes is the recurring notion of sex variants - not that it is explicit but it seems to be very important for Varley: You'll find lesbians, naked-climbing and nude-parachuting ("nice angle", lol), the usual rape scene and sex in space descriptions, here.
There are lot of references to movies and books. I wonder about the mentioning of a [b:Dune|234225|Dune (Dune Chronicles, #1)|Frank Herbert|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1385263142s/234225.jpg|3634639] movie when they talk about that gigantic sandworm: The movie came out in 1984 (ah, Sting as Feyd Harkonnen was hilarious) whereas Titan was published in 1979. Which means that the Dune movie was SF at that time, right?
The world-building is entertaining but not as good as in the similar but much earlier [b:Rendezvous with Rama|112537|Rendezvous with Rama (Rama, #1)|Arthur C. Clarke|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1357153807s/112537.jpg|1882772]. The crazy setup with the fantasy elements comes to a logical conclusion.
Characterizations and character development are excellent, the dialogues and interactions believable.
I only found some of the technical world descriptions confusing and had to google some pictures of the BDO.
In summary, I enjoyed and liked this novel and I'll read at least the second part of the trilogy later on.
A scientific exploration team finds a hollow, 1000 kilometers huge, Standford torus-like BDO near Saturn. This [b:2001: A Space Odyssey|70535|2001 A Space Odyssey (Space Odyssey, #1)|Arthur C. Clarke|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1386608704s/70535.jpg|208362] intro changes rapidly to a more fantasy oriented narrative: The spaceship gets destroyed and the team members pass through some psychedelic scenes and find themselves within the BDO. The members' psyche was changed, since they are now capable to communicate with the BDO's inhabitants, e.g. whistling to intelligent zeppelins. A couple of them have a different personality, e.g. from strict scientist to emotional.
They get involved in a war between centaur-like beings who speak a language based on music and humanoids similar to angels.
And they decide to ascend hundreds of kilometers to the middle of the torus to speak to the BDO's captain or god or engineers. An epic and heroic deed!
One of the main themes is the recurring notion of sex variants - not that it is explicit but it seems to be very important for Varley: You'll find lesbians, naked-climbing and nude-parachuting ("nice angle", lol), the usual rape scene and sex in space descriptions, here.
There are lot of references to movies and books. I wonder about the mentioning of a [b:Dune|234225|Dune (Dune Chronicles, #1)|Frank Herbert|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1385263142s/234225.jpg|3634639] movie when they talk about that gigantic sandworm: The movie came out in 1984 (ah, Sting as Feyd Harkonnen was hilarious) whereas Titan was published in 1979. Which means that the Dune movie was SF at that time, right?
The world-building is entertaining but not as good as in the similar but much earlier [b:Rendezvous with Rama|112537|Rendezvous with Rama (Rama, #1)|Arthur C. Clarke|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1357153807s/112537.jpg|1882772]. The crazy setup with the fantasy elements comes to a logical conclusion.
Characterizations and character development are excellent, the dialogues and interactions believable.
I only found some of the technical world descriptions confusing and had to google some pictures of the BDO.
In summary, I enjoyed and liked this novel and I'll read at least the second part of the trilogy later on.