John Varley was one of the first writers to be called "The New Heinlein." "This flattered and troubled him, since the Old Heinlein was a major role model - and not yet dead." (from his website) He has won many awards, including four for "Press Enter []."
He has written stories and novels about his Eight Worlds, where aliens kicked humans off Earth, and the surviving humans live on Luna, Mars, and other places in the Solar System except around Jupiter, where the aliens came from. Humans have undergone various modifications to adapt, and gender changing is relatively easy and common.
In the late '70s and early '80s Varley wrote the Gaea trilogy, Titan, Wizard, and Demon about a moon of Saturn that turned out to be an intelligent, and not entirely sane, alien space habitat with creatures influenced by Gaea's reception of radio and TV transmissions from Earth. An exploration vessel commanded by Cirocco "Rocky" Jones is captured and destroyed, with the crew taken into Gaea. Rocky, after exploring Gaea, becomes the Wizard, and later Gaea's adversary.
He has also written about the colonization of Mars in Red Thunder, Red Lightning, and Rolling Thunder.
John Varley's Latest Novel
"Rolling Thunder" has several surprises for readers
Rolling Thunder
Amazon Price: $18.21 (as of 12/21/2009)
List Price: $24.95
This book is the third book in a series that started with an unlikely group of people, including a Cajun ex-astronaut and his genius brother, who beat the Chinese in being the first humans on Mars, using a radical new technology even its inventor doesn't fully understand. (Red Thunder and Red Lightning are the first two books.)
Lieutenant Patricia Kelly Elizabeth Podkayne Strickland-Garcia-Redmond, a third-generation member of the Martian pioneer family, narrates the story. She goes by only one of her many names, Podkayne. She says she's never read Robert A. Heinlein's Podkayne of Mars because she doesn't care much for science fiction. She's 18 as the book begins, a third-generation Martian whose grandparents were among the first to reach Mars. She's in the Music, Arts and Drama Division of the Martian Navy, and as the book opens, she's enduring Earth gravity (Mars has a gravity that's 38% of Earth's) in Pismo Beach, California weeding out people who want to emigrate to Mars.
But soon Podkayne's on her way back to Mars because her great-grandmother, close to dying, has elected to go into a time-suspending bubble. After her extended family sees off their matriarch, Podkayne heads off to Europa, one of Jupiter's moons to entertain Martian Navy personnel and scientists there and at other scientific outposts in the Jovian system. She's a singer/songwriter/composer, and teams up with other musicians in Podkayne and the Pod People. It seems a safe enough, and even creative, way to spend her mandatory time in the service. Safe, that is, until she's in the wrong place at the wrong time.
John Varley uses the breezy, informal and often humorous style of Podkayne to tell of sweeping events that shape the history of Earth and Mars. It's a troubled history, and global warming on Earth turns out to be only part of the trouble. Podkayne is very articulate, but she's no rocket scientist, so things get explained pretty much in layman's terms. She's an entertainer, and events propel her to the heights of fame, something Varley appears to have learned a lot about during his years in Hollywood. Podkayne's journey through the part of her life told in the book takes several unexpected turns, eventually taking her further than she'd ever imagined.
Order the book from Amazon.co.uk: Rolling Thunder
Release Date: 12/31/1969
The Gaea Trilogy
Titan, Wizard & Demon
(1979)The first novel in the Gaean trilogy was nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula awards. Cirocco 'Rocky' Jones and her crew discover one of Saturn's moons isn't a moon. It's Gaea, an intelligent alien space habitat and it's home to rather bizarre beings influenced by radio and TV transmissions from Earth. Cirocco and surviving crewmembers explore the new world after Gaea pulls her ship apart and takes them aboard.
Titan won the Locus Award for Best SF Novel in 1980.
Order the book from Amazon.co.uk: Titan
(1980)In the second book of the Gaean trilogy, Cirocco Jones is now the Wizard of Gaea. But she's troubled, and leads a revolt against Gaea, the mad goddess.
Order the book from Amazon.co.uk: Wizard
(1984)Gaea, both world and goddess, is insane, and Cirocco and her allies set out to rescue the son of the witch Robin.
Order the book from Amazon.co.uk: Demon
The Red Thunder Series
Red Thunder, Red Lightning & Rolling Thunder
(2003) (winner 2004 Endeavour Award)In an adventure reminiscent of Heinlein's juvenile novels, a group of Americans construct a spacecraft using old tanker cars to beat the Chinese at being the first people on Mars.
Red Thunder won the Endeavour Award for 2004. The award is for a distinguished science fiction or fantasy book by a Pacific Northwest author and is presented annually at OryCon in Portland, Oregon.
Order the book from Amazon.co.uk: Red Thunder
(2006)In this sequel to Red Thunder Ray Garcia-Strickland, son of two of the first people on Mars, travels back to Earth after something traveling at near-lightspeed strikes the planet, creating a huge tsunami in the Atlantic.
Order the book from Amazon.co.uk: Red Lightning
Lieutenant Patricia Kelly Elizabeth Strickland-Garcia-Redmond - otherwise known as Podkayne - is a third generation member of Mars' pioneer family assigned to the Music, Arts and Drama Division of the Martian Navy (aka the Maddmen). Her travels with Podkayne and the Pod People to entertain Navy and science personnel at various outposts in the Jupiter system put her in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Order the book from Amazon.co.uk: Rolling Thunder
Other Varley Novels
(1977)Varley's first novel is set in his Eight Worlds. Humans have been benefiting from a data stream arriving from the direction of the constellation Ophiuchus, and after 400 years they get what appears to be a phone bill.
Order the book from Amazon.co.uk: The Ophiuchi Hotline (Gollancz S.F.)
(1983)Time travelers from a very messed-up future travel to the past to rescue airline passengers just before crashes. It's not done out of altruism; the future world needs people who are healthy enough to keep the human race going. The book was made into a movie Varley himself doesn't like. If you want to find out how the movie was supposed to end, read this book.
(1992)The setting is Luna, one of Varley's Eight Worlds. Used to creature comforts and instant sex changes, the people are bored, restless, and suicidal. So is the computer monitoring their existence.
Order the book from Amazon.co.uk: Steel Beach
(1998) (winner 1999 Prometheus Award)The adventures of Sparky Valentine, itinerant thespian, con-man, and wanted for murder, as he (she? - with Varley, this is never a constant) travels around the Eight Worlds.
Order the book from Amazon.co.uk: The Golden Globe
(2005)A multibillionaire is set on cloning a mammoth from an intact specimen found frozen in Canada. Then it's discovered there's a 12,000 year old mummy of a man with the mammoth, and the man is wearing a wristwatch.
Order the book from Amazon.co.uk: Mammoth
Short Story Collections
Click on book titles to link to the Amazon pages
(1978)Introduction by Algis Budrys. Stories: The Phantom of Kansas, Air Raid, Retrograde Summer, The Black Hole Passes, In the Hall of the Martian Kings, In the Bowl, Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance, Overdrawn at the Memory Bank, The Persistence of Vision
"The Persistence of Vision" won the Hugo, Nebula and Locus Awards for Best Novella in 1979. The collection The Persistence of Vision won a Locus Award in 1979 for Best Single Author Collection.
Varley won a special Locus Award for having four novelettes in the top 10 in 1976: "The Phantom of Kansas," "Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance," and "Overdrawn at the Memory Bank" (included in The Persistence of Vision) and "Bagatelle" (included in Picnic on Nearside).
Order the book from Amazon.co.uk: Persistence of Vision
Picnic On Nearside
First published as The Barbie Murders. Stories: Bagatelle, The Funhouse Effect, The Barbie Murders, Equinoctial, Manikins, Beatnik Bayou, Good-bye Robinson Caruso, Lollipop and the Tar Baby, Picnic on Nearside
"The Barbie Murders" won a 1979 Locus Award for Best Novellete and the collection The Barbie Murders won a Locus Award for Best Single Author Collection.
Order the book from Amazon.co.uk: Picnic on Nearside
Blue Champagne
Stories: The Pusher, Blue Champagne, Tango Charlie and Foxtrot Romeo, Options, Lollipop and the Tar Baby, The Manhattan Phone Book (Abridged), The Unprocessed Word, Press Enter []
"Press Enter []" won the Hugo, Nebula and Locus Awards for Best Novella in 1985. "The Pusher" won the Hugo and Locus awards for Best Short Story in 1982. "Blue Champagne" won the Locus Award for Best Novella in 1982. The collection Blue Champagne won the Locus Award in 1987 for Best Collection.
Order the book from Amazon.co.uk: Blue Champagne
Superheroes
An anthology edited with Ricia Mainhardt, introduction by John Varley. This is a collection of 25 tales of superheroes you won't find in comic books. Included is John Varley's tale of a Soviet "Bolshoiman" and other tales ranging from serious to humorous, from Captain Cosmos to Captain Housework.
Order the book from Amazon.co.uk: Superheroes
: Thirty Years of Short Fiction (2004)It's a great place to start if you've heard of Varley but haven't read him yet. Even if you have his other collections, you'll want this one as well, not only for the new material, but for the author's extensive comments that precede each story.
The stories: Picnic on Nearside, Overdrawn at the Memory Bank, In the Hall of the Martian Kings, Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance, The Barbie Murders, The Phantom of Kansas, Beatnik Bayou, Air Raid, The Persistence of Vision, Press Enter [], The Pusher, Tango Charlie and Foxtrot Romeo, Options, Just Another Perfect Day, In Fading Suns and Dying Moons, The Flying Dutchman, Good Intentions, The Bellman
Order the book from Amazon.co.uk: The John Varley Reader
John Varley Links
- John Varley on Wikipedia
- Wikipedia's entry for John Varley with a biography and list of awards.
- John Varley's official website
- Biography, bibliography, awards, photos, yarns and more.
- SF authors and awards lenses by Mobyd
- A lens listing lenses I've made for science fiction authors and the winners and nominees of the Hugo and Nebula awards.
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- dannystaple dannystaple Sep 7, 2008 @ 5:33 am
- Superb lens. I read a lot of Sci-Fi but have not read Varley yet, but I am not intrigued and will have to give him a go. Currently reading a classic non-sf - Catch-22. Take care with the spoilers though!
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