Help offset server costs by donating. This is totally optional. Any overages will go to library fines or new books.
Titan Q7: The Epic Journey
The journey of Cirocco and Gaby from (internal) surface up to the hub was for me both one of the most striking and also the most unconvincing facets of the book! Yes, the Greek myth elements of the book demanded a heroic journey as part of it, sort-of comparable to the Odyssey but with a trying-to-get-answers theme rather than trying-to-get-home. And Gaia (apparently) would only be persuaded to chat if there was something heroic to grab her attention.
However, did I believe that such a near-vertical journey of hundreds of kilometres was reasonable? Well, not really. I just couldn't suspend my disbelief enough for this to ring true. Maybe if the two had been more biologically morphed so that the trip was more "natural"? Or if they really had found the in-cable lifts that they kept expecting? Or an in-world beast able to carry them kind of like a super-Pegasus? (The latter two depending if yo wanted a mechanical or living answer). But as it was, the almost-literally-endless trudging up the cable and through the tunnels failed to grab me - the temperature problems were talked about, but what about atmosphere?
Did anyone else have thoughts about this?
Comments
Didn't bother me either. Gaia is a closed system with an air circulation mechanism. Varley went into a great deal of detail in discussing how Gaia works aside from whatever the hell those cables a remade from to withstand that stress... Check out the link I posted in Q8