TITAN Review. "Opening Salvo in an Amazingly Inventive Trilogy"

Titan: Gaean Trilogy, Book 1

by John Varley

Narrated by Allyson Johnson

After having read the print version of TITAN at least four times this story is to me very familiar. There was a time when we read Science Fiction for the world building alone, or at least I did anyway. Books like Niven’s RINGWORLD, Clarke’s RENDESVOUS WITH RAMA, are in the same category as TITAN. The difference is that TITAN has aged better; and what is more, it is the opening salvo in the amazingly inventive GAEAN TRILOGY. This first novel can be considered a prolog to the series which takes on a very different, and wonderful, character, and a more ominous tone, with the second book, WIZARD. This was my introduction to John Varley and the sense of wonder that it engendered in me as a youth still lingers. And while I am a very different reader these days, I can still recapture that wide-eyed glint I got the first time I read TITAN. If you have not experienced this novel I envy you, for you are about to relive a part of your childhood, or maybe partake in an experience from which you were deprived as a youngster. 

Allyson Johnson's narration took me a few hours to warm to. Once I decided that her voice fit the character Gaby quite well, I was able to learn to like her, but it took some doing. I think that she made some questionable vocal choices for some characters. Johnson manages to find excellent voice characterizations for both Cirocco and Gaby. My chief complaint, and what proved to be the greatest obstacle in letting her voice into my head, is her choice to portray the supposedly lyrical musical voices of the mighty Titanides in a wispy monotone.