A review by burritapal_1
Titan by John Varley

adventurous challenging dark informative mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0


Titan by John Varley was published in 1979 by Berkeley publishing corporation. On the back cover is a picture of the young John Varley. When you look up images of him on the internet, you see a bearded elderly man. How sad what time does to humans.
this ship goes to one of the moons of Saturn, because it sees something that looks like a ship attached to one of the Rings surrounding Titan. Well, it turns out it's a whole world, that is called gaia, and it's got centaurs and Angels. but the angels are bad; they kill the centaurs. and it's got sand worms that Gaea took from the story dune.
Before the story starts, there's a map of Gaia and an image of it from the top looking down, and then an image of one sector of gaia. I referred to these images of three pages constantly throughout the book, because I'm a really visual person and these images helped me visualize what was going on in the story. Thanks to the author and publishers.
Early in the book there's a part where they're approaching the edge of Themis. That's what they named the object before they realized it already had the name of Gaia. They're looking for a place to Dock and an object begins swelling on the side of it. All of a sudden things go crazy, with a buzzer sounding. the swelling becomes a long arm or a boom and begins to open out.
" 'The docking facilities!' Cirocco yelled. 'they're going to grab us! Bill, start the engine sequence, stop the carousel, and get ready to move.' " 
and grab them the object does, and brings them inside of the ship. This object utterly destroys their ship, and causes every one of them to go into a blackness and a gel surrounding them and going down into their lungs and none of them know where the others are. In fact, it takes over their minds for a while so they don't even have consciousness. Totally creepy. 
They wake up one by one, but some of them are lost for a long time. The protagonist wakes up by a river and begins to follow it, hoping that she will find another one of her crew.
They have met up with a few of the crew members, and have made crude shelter, when something really strange happens. Calvin is the crew member who was the ship surgeon. He likes to hang out with a blimp-type creature who he names Whistlestop, who allows other creatures to travel inside of his hollow stomach. He also knows how to communicate with Whistlestop. Each one of them, when they discover each other, finds out that there's some kind of ability that has been implanted in their minds. Cirocco can understand and communicate with the centaurs. 
Cirroco discovers that she's pregnant, though she's had sex with nobody and also cirocco's best female friend Gabby is pregnant. Soon they learned that august, the other half of the Clone twins is pregnant too. Her twin April remains lost for the moment. They talk Calvin into performing abortions on them, though he makes them wait a month to make sure they're pregnant.
Later on we find out that gaia, the person gaia, did this to them while they were in their dark, gel stage. She thought it would be interesting to create a new species: a hybrid of centaurs and humans.
They've been eating these docile creatures, (this is a very sad part) and eating fruit from trees, when they decide to try and eat a different type of fish. They call it a mudfish, which likes to sit in the Ooze with its snout buried, moving by flipping its tail. she and Gaby and Bill soon had one surrounded. 
"It was their first close look at one. Cirocco had never seen a creature so ugly. It was 3 m long, flat on the bottom, and bulged in the middle from its blunt snout to a wicked-looking horizontal tail fluke. There was a long gray Ridge along its back, soft and loose like a rooster's comb, but slimy. It swelled and deflated rhythmically."
Bill sticks his sword through the Flesh of the creature just behind its eye. He leaned Into The Sword and the fish jerked as Bill released the sword and danced back.
" 'Too easy,' he said. 'when is this place going to give us a challenge?' He took the hilt of the sword and pulled it out. Dark blood spurted over his hand. The fish bent, touching its snout with its tail, then swung the tail sideways and down on Bill's head. It scooped deftly under his motionless body and hurled him into the air. Cirocco did not even see where he came down. The fish arched again, this time balancing on its belly with both snout and tail in the air. She saw its mouth for the first time. It was round, Lamprey-like, with a double row of teeth that counter-rotated and clattered. The tail hit the mud and the fish jumped at her. 
She dived flat to the ground, plowing up a wake of mud with her chin. The fish plopped behind her, arched, and flipped 50 kilos of mud into the air as it lashed madly with its tail. The sharp fin sliced the ground in front of her face, then Rose for another try. She scurried on her hands and knees, slipping every time she tried to stand."
They have a close call but they manage to escape. Gaby and Cirocco Carry bill to their shelter. He eventually gets better, but Bill will never be the same again, having suffered a concussion.
They meet a centaur, who turns out to communicate with a song-like speech. cirocco names her C-sharp because that's the key that she sings in, I guess. When they see a male centaur, cirocco names him B flat.
The really interesting thing about centaurs is their genitals.
"When the other Titanide joined them, the disturbing difference cirocco noted earlier was abundantly clear, and even more disturbing. Between the front legs, where C sharp had a patch of hair, B flat had a completely human penis. 
'holy god,' Gaby whispered, nudging cirocco's elbow.'
'will you be quiet? This makes me very nervous.'
'you, nervous? What about me? I can't understand a note you're singing. But it's pretty, rocky [Cirocco's nickname]. You sing real nice.'
Other than the male genitals in front, B flat was almost identical to C sharp. Both had high, conical breasts and hairless, pale skin. Their faces were both vaguely feminine, wide-mouthed and beardless. B flat had more paint on his body, more flowers in his hair. Aside from that and the penis the two would have been hard to tell apart."
They experience a battle between the angels and the centaurs. It comes out of nowhere, seemingly, but Angels descend from the heavens, and begin to attack the centaurs. two of the centaurs, named Hornpipe and Panpipe take Gaby and cirocco on a journey to explore the part where one of the cables comes down to the ground.  When the angels descend, on their way back home, They tried to tie them up so that they don't go into battle and get themselves killed. It's a bad experience, and panpipe becomes Savage and escapes the ropes tying him. When the Angels go back.. 
" she cried when they released her; the helpless Sobs of a child who doesn't understand what has happened to her. That turned into petulance and complaints, chiefly about her sore legs and ears. Gaby and cirocco rubbed her legs where the ropes had chafed. Her cloven Hooves were as clear and red as cherry jello. 
She seemed confused as to the whereabouts of panpipe, but not distressed when she understood he had gone into battle. She gave them sloppy kisses and pressed herself against them amorously, causing Gaby some concern even when ciRocco explained the titanides rigidly divided frontal and rear intercourse. The frontal organs were for the production of semi-fertilized eggs, which were then manually implanted in a rear vagina and brought to fecundity by a rear penis."
you don't say? Interesting.
Gaby and cirocco and Gene, one of the other crew members, make a plan to climb one of the cables to the center where the spokes come out of, hoping to encounter Gaia and get some answers as to why they have been brought here. Gene turns out to be a typical man, and there's a terrible scene where he rapes Gaby and cirocco. They manage to subdue him and throw him over the side, attached to one of the parachutes from whistlestop, which is more than what he deserves. We never hear from him again.
After a terrible ordeal, Gaby and cirocco arrive at the hall at the top. Gaia puts on a great show, just like The Wizard of Oz.
" 'Speak, or return from whence you came.'
Cirroco squinted, saw a round head set on a thick neck, eyes that blazed like coals, thick lips. Gaia was 4 M tall, standing erect before her throne on a 2 m pedestal. The body was round with a monstrous belly, huge breasts, arms and legs that would have awed a professional wrestler. She was naked, and the color of green olives. 
The pedestal changed shape abruptly, became a grassy hill covered with flowers. Gaia's legs became tree trunks, her feet firmly rooted in the dark soil. Small animals stood around her while flying creatures circled her head. She looked directly at cirroco, and her huge brow began to cloud."
after she scares Gaby and cirocco half to death, she brings them into a her living space, and shows herself as a plump, dumpy, elderly woman. She offers them food and drink, and even cocaine, which totally cracked me up. It is cirocco's only vice. 
I'm not going all the way to the end. I just want to say that this was a totally enjoyable book. The creativity of the setting, the characters, was so admirable, I visualized this in my head throughout the whole book, and, like the cover of the book of the edition that I read, it was truly a paradise, even given the violence of some scenes. Kudos to John Varley, for his creativity.