Demon

2 stars, Metaphorosis Reviews

Summary
Gaea, the mind controlling a huge artifact orbiting Saturn, has gone insane. She's made herself over as a giant Marilyn Monroe, and spends her time watching and making movies while her world goes to hell. Only Cirocco Jones and the ghost of her lover Gaby have a chance of fixing it all.

Review
I recall the books of this trilogy as being relatively similar. However, my memory of them is clearly suspect, and that's true with this final volume as well – unfortunately, it's nowhere near as good as its predecessors. In part, that's because Varley goes all in on a classic film mechanism, making such films Gaea's obsession, and having her create a body that's a giant clone of Marilyn Monroe. There's a lot of it, and it all left me cold.

Even more troubling, Varley take's the tough Cirocco of Titan and the pragmatic one of Wizard and here makes her a vicious sadist. He starts the story with her brutally and pointlessly torturing a man who, in an extreme and underexplained form of Stockholm syndrome, becomes (essentially, if not literally) Cirocco's slave. Yes, she eventually feels a bit bad about it, but it doesn't stop her from killing other innocent people left and right throughout the book – despite what's essentially a foreordained (and predictable) ending.

With all that – and the torture really knocked me back – I just couldn't enjoy the book. I found myself reluctant to pick it up, and eventually just skimmed the last 100 pages or so of uninteresting scheming and battles. The last handful of pages introduce some interesting elements, but in a cursory fashion that can't hope to make up for the bulk of the story. I really can't recommend this book.

The Gaea trilogy made Varley's name as a major SF writer, and he is often a good writer, but this series is nowhere near as good in retrospect as I remember, and even further from the level of praise it received. The first two books are fun and fast, but the first too obviously patched together from others' ideas. And this last one just isn't good. Interesting for historical value, but I'd suggest most read Titan and stop there.