John Varley | Fantasy Literature: Fantasy and Science Fiction Book and Audiobook Reviews

SFF Author: John Varley

(1947- )
John Varley grew up in Fort Worth, Texas, went to college in Michigan, and visited San Francisco during 1967, the “Summer of Love.” He has published many short stories, novellas and novels. Varley has won three Hugo Awards, two Nebulas, and ten Locus awards for works like “The Persistence of Vision,” and “Press Enter.” His novels include The Ophiuchi Hotline and his trilogy Titan, Wizard and Demon.

The Ophiuchi Hotline: Full of interesting ideas

The Ophiuchi Hotline by John Varley

Dr. Lilo Alexandr-Calypso, a brilliant geneticist who lives on the moon, has broken the law by fiddling with the human genome. Just as she’s about to be executed, she is saved by a group of vigilantes who want to use her skills to help them free the Earth from the alien invaders who’ve taken over and kicked the humans off.

Lilo doesn’t want to serve anyone, but their leader, a former president of Earth, has captured a clone of her and says that either she or the clone will be executed for Lilo’s crime.

Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | John Varley | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

Steel Beach: Did Not Finish

Steel Beach by John Varley

I hate giving up on books I plan to review but, unfortunately, this is the second one in a month that I’ve had to abandon.

Steel Beach (1992) is the second in John Varley’s stand-alone novels set in his EIGHT WORLDS universe in which vastly superior aliens have kicked humans off of planet Earth so they can commune with the dolphins and whales (who are more intelligent, in their eyes, than humans). I liked the first EIGHT WORLDS book,

The Persistence of Vision: Fascinating

The Persistence of Vision by John Varley

In a post-apocalyptic near-future, a middle-aged drifter roams from commune to commune in the Southwest United States. Each of these groups has its own culture and he stays a while at each, doing whatever he needs (e.g., going nude, praying, chanting “Hare Krishna”) to fit in while he’s there. This works well for him — he stays fed and sheltered and moves on when he’s ready for a change of scenery.

But when he comes across a walled-in settlement in the middle of Native American land,

Press Enter: Works on so many levels

Press Enter by John Varley

IF YOU WISH TO KNOW MORE PRESS ENTER ■

Victor Apfel, a lonely middle-aged veteran of the Korean War, gets a recorded phone call asking him to come to his reclusive neighbor’s house to take care of what he finds there. The voice promises that he’ll be rewarded. Victor would like to ignore the message, but he gets another call every 10 minutes. When Victor arrives at Charles Kluge’s house, he finds Kluge dead and slumped over his computer keyboard, so he calls another neighbor — a computer operator named Hal (har,

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September 2024

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Good. The Basilisk Throne definitely left several characters in medias res at the end. I haven't seen any word about…
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It wholly works as a self-contained work with a very brief bit at the end that allows for the possibility…
Ty on The Saliva Tree: A tribute to H.G. WellsSeptember 18, 2024
I just read The Saliva Tree yesterday and loved it. A couple notes: In my copy (I read it in…
Paul Connelly on The Wind That Sweeps the Stars: Often utterly fascinatingSeptember 17, 2024
I have a hold request for this at the library, so I'm glad to hear you liked it. Does this…
Marion Deeds on The Naming Song: I absolutely loved this premiseSeptember 16, 2024
It reminded me immediately of LeGuin and also Isabel Allende's "universal matter" (I think) in Eva Luna. It's a concept…

SFF Author: John Varley

The Ophiuchi Hotline: Full of interesting ideas

Steel Beach: Did Not Finish

The Persistence of Vision: Fascinating

Press Enter: Works on so many levels

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