When John Varley’s stories first began appearing in
genre magazines during the 1970s, he was widely
acclaimed as possibly the most promising new
writer in years, a description he largely justified in
the short run. However, his work began to appear
less frequently during the 1980s, and he was almost completely silent during the 1990s. He has
only recently begun to demonstrate some increased
energy, but his new works—although highly polished and technically superior—feel rather constrained when compared to the output of his early
career. Several of his early stories have become
minor classics, including “Overdrawn at the Memory Bank” (1976), “In the Hall of the Martian
King” (1977), and “The BARBIE MURDERS” (1978),
and he won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for
“The Persistence of Vision” (1978).
Varley’s first novel was The Ophiuchi Hotline
(1977), set many generations after technologically
superior aliens exiled humanity from Earth in order
to protect the whales and dolphins. Human civilization is now scattered through the solar system
in a variety of artificial habitats. Longevity is
achieved through a procedure reminiscent of To
Live Forever (1956) by Jack VANCE, in that the
protagonist’s personality is preserved by moving his
consciousness from one cloned body to another,
each of which has been updated with a relatively
current set of memories. Eventually we discover
that humanity is destined to abandon its home system entirely and find a new place among the stars.
Varley henceforth devoted most of his writing to
novels, interspersed with rare but invariably worthwhile short fiction.
His next project was a trilogy consisting of
Titan (1979), Wizard (1980), and Demon (1984).
An expedition to Jupiter’s moon Titan leads to the
surprising revelation that the entire satellite is in
fact an intelligent artifact, Gaea, which contains
within its structure various bizarre habitats, somewhat in the style of the RINGWORLD series by Larry
NIVEN or the Nathan Brazil stories by Jack L.
CHALKER. One of the protagonists enters into a
form of alliance with Gaea as she and her fellows
explore the interior, but in the closing volume
Gaea appears to have gone insane, with potentially
lethal consequences for anyone in her vicinity. Although often fascinating in its inventiveness, the
trilogy was not as popular as Varley’s first novel;
nor was Millennium (1983), expanded from the
shorter “Air Raid,” in which time travelers from
the future kidnap people from the present just as
they are about to die, planning to use them as
breeding stock in their own time, where various
factors have led to the corruption of human DNA.
A not particularly successful film version followed.
Although Varley’s novels did not live up to his
early promise, his shorter work was excellent. “The
Pusher” (1981) won a Hugo, and “Press Enter”
(1984) won the Hugo as well as the Nebula Award.
Almost all of his short fiction had been collected by
now, in The Persistence of Vision (1978), The Barbie
Murders (1980, also published as Picnic on
Nearside), and Blue Champagne (1986). His next
novel, Steel Beach, did not appear until 1992, but is
set in the same future as The Ophiuchi Hotline. One
of the scattered remnants of humanity occupies a
large settlement on the Moon, but the complexity
of the technical requirements to sustain that environment are becoming too difficult to maintain
without support from outside. The Golden Globe
(1998) is even more conventional. An actor who
entertains on a variety of worlds uses implants to
enhance his performance, advantages that come in
handy when he is unjustly accused of murder. Varley’s most recent novel is Red Thunder (2003),
something of a throwback to the earlier days of science fiction. When the U.S. government abandons
the space program, a group of private citizens pool
their resources in an attempt to beat the Chinese
in putting men on Mars.
Varley’s fiction from the 1990s to the present
is the work of a mature and skilled writer, but his
novels lack the impact of his short fiction and
have moved toward safer themes and settings than
was the case during the early part of his career. He
has recently become more prolific at shorter
length, and stories like “In Fading Suns and Dying
Moons” (2003) may indicate that he will be more
willing to explore new possibilities there than at
book length.