Magnificat (novel)
Magnificat is a novel by Julian May published in 1996. It is the third novel in the Galactic Milieu Series.
Plot summary
By the third book in the series, Marc has matured into a highly capable metapsychic and is regarded as a Paramount. Through manipulated dreams, Marc conceives an idea called 'Mental Man' which would create a new subspecies of Man called Homo [sapiens] summus. It would use
By this time, only two out of the original five Hydra units remain, Parnell Remillard and Madeleine Remillard — Marc's cousin and sister (it is revealed that the Hydra heads were the unborn children present at the vigil around Victor, where Fury corrupted their infant minds). One wet night, Denis' favorite daughter, Anne Remillard — a staunch loyalist and advocate of Unity — visits Rogi's bookshop. She has deduced that Denis is Fury. Rogi doubts this but when Anne is attacked and nearly killed, he realises that he must inform Jack and Dorothea of the identity of Fury. The only opportune moment seems their upcoming wedding.
After Rogi divulges the information on Fury/Denis to Jack and Dorothea, the Remillard dynasty assembles in order to '
Marc, previously totally chaste, falls madly in love with Cyndia Muldowney, the daughter of Rory, an opponent of Paul's, and the two marry.
After several events, Denis manages to briefly gain control from his Fury persona, and communicates with Cyndia. He reveals that the Mental Man babies (which were created from Marc and Madeleine's sperm and eggs) have become hundreds of Hydra by Madeleine's influence. Denis D-Jumps inside the complex and destroys all the children. Marc is dumbstruck, yet finds a way to terminate the Hydra-infested project while retaining the possibility of a new start. He mind-lasers Madeleine, aided by the CE, and has her frozen so that her
Denis travels to
Marc in the meantime, continues his quest for Mental Man, but realises that the Metapsychic rebellion is too near for Mental Man to be present to ensure victory. Cyndia discovers Marc's plans, is horrified, and decides to remove all available sources of the new Mental Man. She acquires a sonic apparatus that will render Marc sterile, and triggers it by a telepathic command. However, Marc detects this impulse, realises what the device has done, and kills Cyndia by reflex.
Paul, father of Jack and Marc, is the leader of the Pro-Unity camp, and Jack decide to campaign against the rebels. As tension builds and several children start to co-adunate, the rebels' long-laid plans move into action. Marc has equipped hundreds of individuals with his CE devices, and his colleagues arm many ships. The rebels decide to demonstrate their power by destroying a planet — Molakar: the Krondaku planet from which the intervention was staged. Billions die in several seconds as the joined minds of the Rebels superheat the crust of the planet. A massive wave of metapsychic suffering and grief overwhelms the minds of the entire milieu. The response is not what Marc expects. Jack, Dorothea and his father, Paul, decide to confront him peacefully and will not let him take war to the galaxy. Marc decides to fight regardless, but the three pacifists call out to all the metapsychics in the galaxy to help join in Unity and stop the Rebels.
One of Marc's main allies is Patricia Castellane, the Dirigent (planetary leader) of the cosmopolitan planet Okanagon. During the attack, the rebels accidentally lose control of another explosive device and it explodes, setting off Okanagon's unstable crust. The resultant geological catastrophe kills the entire population of two billion people. Jack telepathically asks his once-idolized brother, "What have you done?!"
Jack and Dorothea manage to halt the rebel fleet, thanks to their ability to conjoin the powers of all the pro-Milieu operant humans. But these two and Paul die as a result. Many of the Rebels are also killed when their CEs overload, and Marc and a number of the leaders are badly hurt. The deaths of the people of Okanagon, however, propel humanity into the state of mental co-ordination (called "coadunation") which is the precursor to a benevolent joining of minds across the galaxy which the member races of the Milieu refer to as Unity.
After the rebel faction is defeated, their leaders flee through a unique one-directional gate in
Reception
Paul Pettengale reviewed Magnificat for Arcane magazine, rating it a 9 out of 10 overall.[1] Pettengale comments that "The book is unrelenting in its pace, as May hurries to get down everything that the reader wants to see happen, and yet it never becomes overly rushed."[1]
Reviews
- Review by Faren Miller (1996) in Locus, #423 April 1996[2]
- Review by Chris Togenza (1996) in SFX, July 1996
- Review by Ken Brown (1996) in Interzone, #109 July 1996
- Review by Andrew A. Adams [as by Andrew Adams] (1997) in Vector 194
References
- ^ a b Pettengale, Paul (July 1996). "The Great Library". Arcane (8). Future Publishing: 80.
- ^ https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?290