Gaea — (1979-1984) Publisher: Titan: a world inside a world. Outside it was a vast, wheel-shaped construct orbiting Saturn; inside — it was impossible, bizarre, an endless landscape inhabited by creatures out of legend. And it had captured the crew of a NASA probe.
Red Thunder — (2003-2014) Publisher: In the highly anticipated new novel by John Varley, a manned mission to Mars becomes a personal mission for an unlikely bunch of astronauts: seven suburban misfits who have constructed a spaceship built out of old tanker cars and held together with all-American ambition. They call her Red Thunder. They plan to be the first people on the Red Planet… despite China’s big head start. If it didn’t sound so crazy, it would be history in the making…
Millennium — (1983) Publisher: In the skies over Oakland, California, a DC-10 and a 747 are about to collide. But in the far distant future, a time travel team is preparing to snatch the passengers, leaving prefabricated smoking bodies behind for the rescue teams to find. And in Washington D.C., an air disaster investigator named Smith is about to get a phone call that will change his life… and end the world as we know it.
Blue Champagne — (1986) Publisher: This story collection contains: The Pusher (1981), Blue Champagne (1981), Tango Charlie and Foxtrot Romeo (1986), Options (1979), Lollipop and the Tar Baby (1977), The Manhattan Phone Book (Abridged) (1984), The Unprocessed Word (1986), Press Enter [] (1984).
The Golden Globe — (1998) Publisher: Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards, John Varley is truly one of the “greats” of science fiction, comparable only to Heinlein, Herbert, Asimov, and Clarke. Now the all-time master returns — with his long-awaited epic novel of life beyond the great beyond… All the universe is a stage, and Sparky Valentine is its itinerant thespian. He makes his way from planet to planet as part of a motley theater troupe, at could put the universe back to square one. And it is not terrifying. It is tempting…
The John Varley Reader — (2004) Publisher: From the moment John Varley burst onto the scene in 1974, his short fiction was like nothing anyone else was writing. His stories won every award the science fiction field had to offer, many times over. His first collection, The Persistence of Vision, published in 1978, was the most important collection of the decade, and changed what fans would come to expect from science fiction. Now, The John Varley Reader gathers his best stories, many out of print for years. This is the volume no Varley fan — or science fiction reader — can do without.
Mammoth — (2005) Publisher: Not content with investing his fortune and watching it grow, multibillionaire Howard Christian buys rare cars that he actually drives, acquires collectible toys that he actually plays with, and builds buildings that defy the imagination. But now his restless mind has turned to a new obsession: cloning a mammoth… In a barren province of Canada, a mammoth hunter financed by Christian has made the discovery of a lifetime: an intact frozen woolly mammoth. But what he finds during the painstaking process of excavating the huge creature baffles the mind. Huddled next to the mammoth is the mummified body of a Stone Age man around 12,000 years old. And he is wearing a wristwatch. It looks like Howard Christian is going to get his wish — and more…
Slow Apocalypse — (2012) Publisher: Despite wars with Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as 9/11, the United States’ dependence on foreign oil has kept the nation tied to the Middle East. A scientist has developed a cure for America’s addiction — a slow-acting virus that feeds on petroleum, turning it solid. But he didn’t consider that his contagion of an Iraqi oil field could spread to infect the fuel supply of the entire world… In Los Angeles, screenwriter Dave Marshall heard this scenario from a retired US marine and government insider who acted as a consultant on Dave’s last film. It sounded as implausible as many of his scripts, but the reality is much more frightening than anything he could have envisioned. An ordinary guy armed with extraordinary information, Dave hopes his survivor’s instinct will kick in so he can protect his wife and daughter from the coming apocalypse that will alter the future of Earth — and humanity…
Good-Bye, Robinson Crusoe: And Other Stories — (2013) Publisher: This stellar collection by John Varley contains eleven provocative, utterly distinctive stories and novellas. None of them are currently available in any other book. Some have been unavailable in any form for twenty-five years or more. The result is a publishing event that no admirer of Varley — or of first-rate imaginative fiction — can afford to miss. The bulk of these stories comprise what the author calls a ‘Grand Tour of the Solar System,’ moving from one thoroughly imagined setting to another with deceptive ease. ‘The Funhouse Effect’ is a tale of mystery, intrigue, and illusion that takes place on a mechanized comet moving toward the sun s corona. ‘Retrograde Summer’ is an account of gender reversals and family secrets set against the radically unstable backdrop of Mercury. ‘Bagatelle’ pits a recurring Varley character — Police Chief Anna-Louise Bach–against a living bomb that threatens to devastate Luna’s Dresden City. Other stories range from Venus (‘In the Bowl’) to an underground ‘disneyland’ on Pluto (‘Good-Bye, Robinson Crusoe’) to the unexplored reaches of deep space (‘The Black Hole Passes’). The collection ends with two very different offerings that are nonetheless vintage Varley. ‘The Unprocessed Word’ is a whimsical reflection on one writer s relationship with a ubiquitous, constantly evolving technology, while ‘The Manhattan Phone Book (Abridged)’ is a brief, absolutely chilling meditation on the consequences of nuclear proliferation. Whatever the tone, style, or subject matter, Varley remains in complete control of this impressively varied material. Good-Bye, Robinson Crusoe and Other Stories provides intellectual stimulation and pure entertainment in equal measure, and bears the unmistakable hallmark of a master storyteller on every page.
We’re updating our theme, so things may be a little messy or slow until we’re finished. Thank you for being patient with us!
Recent Discussion