With Gaea, author Robina Williams joins the latest trend and goes green.

 

The book begins with a man dragging and kicking the body of a woman inside a ditch. Gaea, the Earth goddess, is unconscious, weak, and in severe distress due to men's constant brutal abuse and disrespect regarding nature's cycles and equilibrium. The animals of the forest are in awe at the scene unfolding in front of their eyes.

 

Quant comes into the scene disguised as Leo. He observes Gaea's condition and decides to help her. Together they go for a walk to the friary. During their walk Gaea complaints bitterly to Quant about men's selfish and reckless behavior and the suffering of her plants and animals. She also shares with Quant her idea of “how to teach men a lesson” they won't forget. Men must be stopped or better still get rid off once and for all!!!!! After all, the world was a better place before the Almighty created His beloved creatures, humans.

 

Quant listens to Gaea and tells her he shares her concerns for nature, too. However, he will show to her that not all men are reckless and disrespectful, and that some do care about nature and are doing their best to makes amends for the mistakes of the entire human race. Their visit to the friary was a refreshing experience for Gaea.

 

Gaea and Quant go to heaven where she has a meeting with the Almighty. There she continues her bitterly protest against humans. She states her case and requests permission to avenge her animals and nature. She wants humans wiped out of the entire planet! God reminds her that vengeance belongs to Him alone and he will not allow her or any of her family members to interfere with His plans for humanity. However, He grants her some lead way to teach men a lesson without causing too much damage.

 

Meanwhile, at the friary, Father Polycarp (Poly), the new guardian, announces his planned “green campaign” for the friary to the other brothers after one of their meals. This idea of having a garden with their homegrown fruits, vegetables, and some flower beds, at first, is not well received by the brothers. Most of them grumble, but are reminded by Fr. Polycarp of their vow of obedience. They all complied and adhered to Poly's guidelines for their “green campaign.” However, once they started to enjoy the fruit of their labor, the fuss is replaced with joy and gratitude.

 

During the rest of the story the reader will be taken to worlds known to humans only through tales, legends and myths. Or are they truly hidden from humans? The author's creativity shows an image of heaven never seen before. A place where saints have dragon pets that keep them busy and alert; Saints and other departed ones using their talents to fulfill the tasks assigned to them by their Creator, and Saints telling tales of their experiences as guardian angels and humans' silliness.

 

But not all places are pleasant like heaven. Gaea and Quant will be traveling to deep and frightening places where the condemned souls are constantly tortured with no way out, except upon the termination of their sentences. However, those places are inhabited also by some of Gaea's beloved family members. Together with Quant she travels from one pantheon to the next gathering allies and developing a plan that will satisfy her desires to take care of men and stay within the boundaries established by the Almighty. During their traveling Quant accompanied Gaea in his angelic form, a Seraph. Everywhere they go, Quant is looked at with suspicious eyes by the others. They know who he is and are wondering: why is he traveling with Gaea? How much authority do they really have on the scheme? Will Quant be influencing their decisions or maneuvers? All these questions will be answered as the reader travels along with Gaea and Quant through mysterious places and meet Gaea's family.

 

The end of the book is a celebration of victory and a waking call to humanity. I applaud the clever way in which the author incorporates today's concerns for the environment and weaves them into a story with elements from the world we know and the forces governing it, which are beyond our human understanding and comprehension.

 

Gaea is different from the two previous books in the Quant series. This one is an entertaining and innovative story that creates awareness of how our human behaviors affect other life forms sharing the planet with us. If we all do our part and measure up to the task, maybe we will receive an invitation to join the celebration at the end of the book.

A short first book in a series. Sci-fi and strong woman lead, what’s not to like? Oh, and it’s actually M/F, and it’s been a long while since I read that.

 

The world building is stellar, and I am amazed at how much you can show in such a short story (some 45 pages).

Here’s from the blurb:

 

Chosen to lead Gaea's Ark, humanity's first deep space settlement ship, Gemma is awakened from 19K years in stasis to find her mission gone horribly wrong.

 

And it is just as cool as it sounds.

 

I have book 2 and 3 lined up, and will be reading them too, soon, when I hear that book 4 is out. I am terrible with Works in progress, and usually stay far away from them until they are finished. But, you see, this time I won the book! So I couldn’t very well not read it, could I?

 

And now I’m sitting here wanting and screaming for this story to be ready, so I can dive in and read until my eyes bleed.

 

I am hoping that, at one time in the future, the author will put these books together into a cohesive, single book. Because this chopping up in several installments is not my cup of tea at all.

 

Great language, great exposition, a very interesting alien world, and a strong, cool woman at the helm.

 

Yeah, I can safely say I loved this. Please, author, make more words?

 

 

***

 

I won a free copy of this book from the author, and a positive review wasn't expected. I just can't help myself. 

 

 

What I liked: I loved the setting of the story and the way everything came together by the end. Ari is a strong character who has to overcome very bad odds after an accident that leaves her in a wheelchair, though it takes a while to figure out what that accident was. There's always interesting twist to the story, characters who are not who they say they are or characters who we had no idea about. The dream aspects were really interesting as well, and the action was done fantastically in such a compelling way that I read it from beginning to end almost without pause in five hours! Everything that went into the story was compelling and the secrets that get revealed were ones that made me want to turn the pages faster to keep reading, but slow down at the same time to savor what's happening at the same time! We get the sense that not all is as it seems from the beginning but we discover things with Ari little by little as she finds out more about the people who surround her and where she comes from. Damia and Sasha are characters who stood out even when they weren't in the scenes, I was always waiting for them to show back up because they interested me quite a lot by the time the story began to pick up.

What I didn't liked: I didn't feel like in the beginning I clicked with the book, I was rather confused by what's happening, why the people had such strange names, and why a guy was called Sasha. Seriously for several pages I though Sasha was a girl because I didn't know his actual name, which only gets mentioned once, and it threw me for a loop for quite a while since I thought the masculine pronoun was a typo or there was another character who was a guy who's name I missed. I would have liked to know his actual name earlier, it would have helped. Damia was too run-of-the-mill bad, I wanted a better reason for her to be angry with Ari than the ones given. The POV also switched unexpectedly while I was reading and it would throw me off initially but I learned to just go with it after a bit.

Overall Review: I loved this book, and thought I read Victoria Escober's book Peerless first and was blown away by everything in that book, I knew I had to bring my expectations lower since this was the author's first book. I'm glad I did because it allowed this book to blow me away as well, and even though I didn't love the beginning of this book I loved the rest of the book and I'm still loving this authors writing. Seriously, the author's writing is fantastic and her stories are amazing! With characters who surprise, twist that you don't see coming, and an amazing plot this book is something everyone should read if they can get into it! The ending is explosive and parts of this book can leave you with some feels, especially during the final battle.

Recommend?: Highly. This book is wonderfully written with a plot that can and will leave you wanting more when you reach the end!

Of Gaea starts out just like any other book with a teenage girl for the main character. There is one difference, Ari, the main character of this book is in wheelchair and very much hating this fact.
Aside from Ari's bitterness and deprecation of her situation, I think she's an outstanding role model for children, who like herself, are disabled, even if that disability is different from Ari's.
Like most people in high school, Ari has a bully, Damia, the girl who is the reason behind Ari's current situation. Couple that with Damia's apparent obsession with Ari's best friend and hotty Sasha and it's a disturbing outcome.
A lot of people may have some trouble with the names.. Though they aren't too hard to pronounce even if the spelling throws you off.
Lyris is fun character. I can almost picture the fun Victoria had in creating her unique brand of "crazy" She will definitely throw the reader for a loop or two.
As things start to piece themselves together for Ari, you can sense the inner struggle she deals with. People who she's trusted her entire life she's unsure of whether or not she can still trust them. That's something every reader can relate to.
Ghita reminds me of my grandparents, always pushing their beliefs on me when it wasn't the path destined for me. I felt every shred of hurt from Ari as Ghita tried again and again to force hers on Ari.
I am very impressed with this author's knowledge of Gaea and the Pagan ways. She's got our ways down to a tee which is a rarity, though I suspect you may have pagan blood in her veins if she doesn't openly practice.
This book is not only a fascinating fictional read, it's also a great way to gain some inside into those of us who follow the old ways.
This book is amazingly written and I eagerly await the next installment of it.. I give this book 5 of 5...Victoria keep coming out with books of this magnitude and you'll go far >^.^<

SPOILER WARNING: As I’m combining the reviews of all the books in The Gaean Trilogy in this entry for Demon, there may be spoilers ahead (though I’ll keep them to a minimum). With that in mind, I’ll get my solid recommendation to read these books out of the way. The story and characters are interesting; Gaea is a fascinating concept, and definitely a place I’d love to visit; and the Titanides are one of the coolest alien races ever invented.

I first read Titan when I was a teen-ager. I can remember the hardcover library copy I checked out multiple times, and I can remember the illustrations that accompanied the text. Some of them were naked women! (Or centauroids, which was just as good to a newly pubescent adolescent. Fortunately, the paperback edition that I now own – printed in the days when PBs sold for $2.50 – preserves the illustrations.*) Having reread the trilogy and being a better reader, I find myself reversing my original ratings (4-3-4 to 3-4-3) for – like the original Star Wars trilogy – the middle book is the better one. In fact, I was strongly reminded of Star Wars: Titan is like “A New Hope” in that we have a straightforward quest tale. The crew of DSV Ringmaster must journey from Gaea’s rim to her hub and discover a way home (there are elements of “The Wizard of Oz” here, too, which Varley explicitly exploits). In Wizard, we get a more nuanced view of the world. The characters’ motivations are less clear and the lines between right and wrong blurrier, and – as in “The Empire Strikes Back” – our actors are more fully realized and interesting. In Demon, the story is brought to a dramatic end but at the expense of the closeness we felt to the continuing characters from the first two books and any new ones. And though they were never Ewoks, the Titanides in Demon lose some of their charm because their capabilities become too good to believe. (If Lucas had substituted Titanides for Ewoks in “Revenge of the Jedi,” it would have been a far better film – Titanides whipping Stormtrooper ass being more believable than ambulatory advertisements for plush toys. And Titanide Jedi would have been AWESOME!) The other downside for some to the final volume is that we get far more exposition about Varley’s thoughts on politics and philosophy, especially the chapters dealing with the taming of Bellinzona (sort of Heinlein-lite: A lot of emphasis on individual liberty & responsibility and the negatives of government and the pitfalls of having power but more nuanced than Heinlein and his clones usually are). I have a fair amount of sympathy (if not total agreement) with Varley so it didn’t distract or annoy me as it might other readers.

Despite its flaws, The Gaean Trilogy remains a favorite for two reasons. The first, as I’ve alluded to above, are the Titanides:



You can learn all about Titanide sex in the comment thread on my Titan page. I think they represent everything Varley sees as worthwhile in humans with just the right tweaks to make them better (what we should be like). That wish-fulfillment aspect is taken to an extreme in Demon, as I mentioned, and it weakens the story but I like them, and riding with (note, not on) a Titanide is in the top ten of my fantasy “bucket list.”

The second – and chief – reason I love these books is Cirocco Jones, erstwhile captain of Ringmaster (Titan), erstwhile Wizard of Gaea (Wizard), and finally the Fury who brings her down (Demon):



She ranks up there with my favorite SF characters like Signy Mallory (Downbelow Station), Pyanfar Chanur (The Pride of Chanur), Jean-Luc Picard, Spock, Tavore & Trull Sengar (Malazan Book of the Fallen), etc.

The common thread is that they’re all smart, compassionate people who struggle to do what’s right in the face of individual and institutional evil whatever the personal cost.

* The illustrations aren't that salacious. PG-13 at most.