The story begins with a scientific expedition to Saturn aboard the ship Ringmaster. Titan, published in 1977 was the first of the trilogy.

But while Heinlein, who gave us Starship Troopers as well as Stranger in a Strange Land veered between authoritarian and libertarian themes and some pretty creepy misogyny, Varley has always grounded his fiction in the liberation philosophy he learned at the corner of Haight and Ashbury in 1967. Both authors shared a canny ability to describe the previously unforeseen, from technology to sexual relations. Varley could be rightfully considered the hippy version of Robert Heinlein. But for the first installment in our “Please Not Another Dune Movie,” series we are fortunate to have the writer still with us, proud son of Austin John Varley and his SF trilogy Titan, Wizard, Demon. Unfortunately this exposure often comes long after the author is around to enjoy the experience due to our unfortunately mortal condition.

Sales of JRR Tolkien’s Middle Earth stories skyrocketed when Peter Jackson finally brought The Lord of the Rings to cinemas, a book a lot of folks thought couldn’t be filmed. One of the great things that happens when a SF/F classic is adapted to the big or small screens is that there is a renewed interest in their works.

Wizard by John Varley