Republished with modification.
Now reviewing science fiction
novel by John Varley. Its title: Titan and it is first novel in a
trilogy. It is about human expedition to Saturn. There they encounter an artificial satellite that contains unusual organic life
forms.
It is not clear who build this satellite or when,
though it is quite ancient. It is ruled by entity that is part supercomputer, part organic life form. Her name is Gaea.
She
was left in charge of this organic satellite by intelligent beings called Builders. She
created all other organic life forms. Interestingly some of them she
designed very recently after watching TV broadcasts from Earth. But
by the time, Earth expedition arrived to investigate her dominion,
her "brain" was split into several semi-autonomous modules,
each of them with its own intentions for this satellite.
One creature
I liked in this book is a long air-floating intelligent gasbag blimp named Whistlestop. Blimp communicates through whistles and
transports other organic creatures across large distances like a
dirigible. Some of these small native passengers have a symbiotic
relationship with the Blimp. They help Blimp to digest her
food.
Still, the book disappoints in the end. This is
supposed to be a first contact with alien life forms but book is
totally missing that feeling. It could be because human members of
this initial expedition are altered by Gaea or her semi-autonomous
brain networks.
posted by David Usharauli
Tweet
No comments:
Post a Comment