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The Gap CycleThe Gap Cycle is a science fiction story, told in a series of 5 books, written by Stephen Donaldson - The Gap into Conflict: The Real Story, Bantam/Spectra, 1991
- The Gap into Vision: Forbidden Knowledge, Bantam/Spectra, 1991
- The Gap into Power: A Dark and Hungry God Arises, Bantam/Spectra, 1993
- The Gap into Madness: Chaos and Order, Bantam/Spectra, 1994
- The Gap into Ruin: This Day All Gods Die, Bantam/Spectra, 1996
As explained in the author's afterword in The Real Story, this series started life as a novella in which characters representing villain, victim, and rescuer would switch places during the course of the narrative. He found the result unsatisfying, and the book was shelved until he had the idea of setting a retelling of Wagner's Ring Cycle in the same universe, and casting the characters from The Real Story in roles from Wagner's opera. The Real Story novella became Volume 1, and the rest of the series explores the Wagner theme. The series is not the Ring Cyle explicitly retold, but more an interpretation set in a future universe. Like The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever, the author's other major work, the story is very adult and can be very dark and bleak at times. There are some very nasty people in Donaldson's worlds. Plot Summary Morn Hyland, an ensign with the United Mining Companies Police, is on her first mission aboard her family's destroyer Starmaster. When they arrive at Com-Mine Station, a ship, Bright Beauty, piloted by the pirate Angus Thermopyle bolts, and Starmaster follows. When they see Angus slaughter a small mining settlement (Angus has left Com-Mine without supplies and needs air scrubbers) Starmaster attempts combat, but is blown up from within. Morn suffers from gap-sickness, a mental disorder that inflicts itself on a small portion of people who travel through the Gap (the series's analogue to hyperspace). Symptoms of gap-sickness vary wildly; in Morn, it manifests itself as an uncontrollable urge to engage self-destruct, and it is triggered by being exposed to heavy G loads. Morn, left alone in the auxillary bridge when Starmaster engaged Angus, experienced gap-sickness for the first time, and destroyed Starmaster. Angus boards the wreck seeking air scrubbers, kills Morn's father, and kidnaps Morn. In order to combat her gap-sickness and in the process render her a slave, he equips here with a zone implant, a kind of remote-control mind control device. Unauthorized use of a zone implant is a captital crime, and by so doing Angus, if caught, will be executed. On the way back to Com-Mine, Angus abuses Morn utterly, but starts to develop feelings for her. Back at the station, Morn makes contact with another pirate - Nick Succorso, captain of Captain's Fancy, who she sees as a potential rescuer. She aids Nick in framing Angus for stealing station supplies, and Angus is arrested. Before he is taken away, though, Angus gives Morn her zone implant control in exchange for her silence. With mastery of her own control, Morn is effectively a superwoman, being able to disregard fear, pain, or fatigue, but by accepting her control she is also guilty of a capital crime. She leaves with Nick in his ship. Nick turns out to be every bit as nasty as Angus. When Morn turns out to be pregnant (with Angus' child, although she tells Nick it is his) Nick takes Morn to Enablement Station, an alien-run station in Forbidden Space. The aliens are the Amnion, masters of genetic manipulation, who seek to mutate all human life into Amnion, and who are kept at bay only through the technological and military might of the UMCP. Morn's child, named Davies after her father, is force-grown into an adult and then imprinted with Morn's mind. Morn uses her zone implant to survive the process with her sanity intact, which surpises the Amnion, as normally the process of mind-imprinting leaves the participants insane - they know Morn has used some process to save herself and Davies, but don't know how. As the process means they can create a huge army of Amnion who resemble humans in every way and potentially take over the universe, Davies becomes very valuable to the Amnion and they pursue Captain's Fancy into human space. Meanwhile, the UMCP has "requisitioned" Angus from his prison on Com-Mine, and transforms him into a controlled cyborg as a tool against other pirates. Secretly though, Angus has orders to rescue Morn from Nick and return her to Earth. Warden Dios, Director of the UMCP, turns out to be playing a very deep game. His boss Holt Fasner "The Dragon", CEO of the United Mining Companies and the most powerful human in existence, is utterly corrupt, and Dios wants to end the corruption - corruption in which he has been complicit. He is using Morn and Angus to create an artificial crisis in which he can expose the Dragon's corruption and remove the UMCP from his control - destroying himself in the process. Success requires Morn to arrive at Earth to be able to testify that she helped Nick (who is an occasional agent of convienciece for the UMCP) frame Angus with the assistance of Station Security - an act that led to the passage of the Prempt Act which made the Dragon the de facto ruler of humanity. Gap Cycle
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