Diminishing returns
Gaia’s Revolution: Book 1 of the Icaria Trilogy
by Nina Munteanu
Calgary: Dragon Moon Press, 2026
$6.88 [ebook] / 9781774000762
Reviewed by Sophia Wasylinko
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The Earth is dying.
Facing government opposition for their environmental activism in Germany, Eric and later Damien Vogel move to Canada to create a new world, one that will reverse and eventually eradicate humanity’s impact on the environment.
Unfortunately, once the brothers cross paths with Deep Ecologist Monica Schlange, things get messy. Both for them and for the book.
Gaia’s Revolution is the newest novel by Delta-based limnologist-ecologist, educator, and prolific writer Nina Munteanu. Well, technically Gaia’s Book 1 of the Icaria Trilogy. Books 2 (Angel of Chaos, 2010) and 3 (Darwin’s Paradox, 2007) were previously published as the Darwin Duology and are now being re-released.
Excluding flashbacks, the novel spans over six decades, starting in contemporary Germany and ending in Canada of 2085. While the narrative initially follows the Vogels and Monica, it also keeps watch on Ben Hardy, a scientist working for Eric’scompany BioGen, his daughter Janet, and her cousin Leonard Crane. Leonard’s daughter Julie is the protagonist of the Darwin Duology.
Gaia’s Revolution asks a pertinent question: how do you fix a hurting planet? Eric’s answer is ruthless, utilizing behaviour engineeringto force people to adapt to climate change, or, in most cases, eradicating them.
He explains his approach to Damien: “We must first destroy before we can create. We must be unruly like climate. We must be relentless like climate. We must ride that wave before we can become the wave.”
Damien isn’t a saint either, thanks to his fascination with Stable Chaos theory and his willingness, if reluctant, to adopt Eric’s ideas: “[This] is all part of the imperative of creative-destruction: a recursive natural cycle that humanity cannot escape, one that creates chaos in order and order in chaos.”
If anything, Gaia’s Revolution shows how quickly a utopia becomes a dystopia. Nowhere is this more evident than the Gaian Army adopting the Technocratic government’s weapons, including terrifying clones, and the book burning that happens at the novel’s start and conclusion. Perhaps Icaria was never a utopia to begin with. Maybe the disaster it devolves into was inevitable or even intended.
Monica defends their actions this way: “We do this to keep the people happy and on track, willing to build a world inside. To keep us safe from a harsh and angry environment that’s only getting angrier.”
The book hooked me at first with its look at a world hostile to environmentalists and Deep Ecological concepts. But it lost me with Monica. She’s pitched as a scientist who manipulates the Vogels, fuelled by her fanatical love for the environment. “Brother against brother: how delicious! The universe is unfolding as it should,” she exclaims.
But Monica never inspired my respect. In her introduction, she gets turned on by Damien’s university lecture and then makes out with Eric, whom she mistakes for Damien (twins, you know). After clearing up that confusion, she joins forces with Eric, though Damien is never far from her mind: “The raw power he exudes is something she craves, something she feels compelled to wield. But Damien has this power, too, she thinks; he just doesn’t realize it yet.”
Eventually, Monica leaves Eric and joins Damien and his partner Christian Isabo in their Triad, a threesome both politically and physically. Ultimately, it’s all part of a long game to get Monica to the top.
We’re told that Monica cares for the environment and that she feels sympathy for Leonard, Janet, and Leonard’s brother Bobby: “Monica sighs at the ego-driven tragedy and mourns the price children often pay for adult follies.”
I was given no evidence of either, however. As the story progressed, the more irritated I became with her sexual antics and Tears for Fears references. While I probably wasn’t supposed to like her, I didn’t care for her at all.
It wasn’t just the writing that doomed the novel for me. Gaia’s Revolution tries to cram too much in 400+ pages, which still ends up being too long. Is it a villain origin story? A cautionary tale? A family saga? The book tries to be all three and fails.
There are too many threads to grasp and too many characters to keep track of. Folks like Damien and Leonard, who I initially empathized with, become more unlikable as the story progresses.
The cousins’ plot starts out compelling, given Ben’s work and the strife it creates. Steadily, though, it goes into shockingly dark places. Monica swoops in to save the kids, earning Janet’s devotion, but we don’t get these scenes of them growing closer. Then there’s the uncomfortable bond Damien (in his seventies) forms with Janet (in her twenties). We hardly see what they work on, and we don’t get the thought process behind her decision to assist the brother of the man who destroyed her family.
Finally, Gaia’s Revolution only partially works as a science fiction novel. For the first three-quarters of the novel, we get only snippets of the research conducted by Eric’s and Damien’s groups, lots of talking heads, and retellings of disasters such as the “accidental” release of the so-called White Plague.
In the final quarter, Munteanu pulls out all the stops for life in the Icaria colonies, describing everything from children’s IQ testing to fashion choices denoting workplace and sexual orientation. It would have been lovely having more of those details at the beginning.
Going into Gaia’s Revolution, I was intrigued to see the lengths Monica and the Vogels would go to reverse Earth’s devastation. The farther I went, the more disgruntled I became.
Needless to say, I won’t be continuing with the trilogy. Perhaps Julie’s story has greater cohesive than this prequel. But, honestly, I cannot cope with any more of Monica’s crooning Tears For Fears’ big hit of 1985, “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.”
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Sophia Wasylinko graduated from VIU, where she contributed to student publications. She was also one of the founding members of GOOEY Magazine and edited its Fall 2025 issue. Sophia works as a library page and freelance content writer for Ichigo and spends much of her free time reading and revising one of her novels. She’s also on Bookstagram. While Sophia’s relocated to be with family in the Thompson-Nicola region, she hopes to return to the place that captured her heart: Vancouver Island. [Editor’s note: Sophia reviewed recent books by Donna M. Henningson, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Daniel Kalla, Matthew Hughes for BCR.]
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The British Columbia Review
Interim Editors: Trevor Marc Hughes (nonfiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction and poetry)
Publisher: Richard Mackie
Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an online book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.
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