We’ve shared John Varley’s excellent, bestselling Gaia trilogy of Science Fiction novels here before (right now, Titan (book 1) and Demon (book 3) are both on sale for $5.99 each, with Wizard (book 2) currently priced at $7.69), but today we’re digging a little deeper into Varley’s other, and in some cases, lesser known works.
The Golden Globe (4/5 stars, currently priced at $7.99)
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…
Sparky can transform himself from young to old, fat to thin, even male to female, by altering magnetic implants beneath his skin. Indispensible hardware for a career actor–and an interstellar con man wanted for murder…
This is an engrossing novel by one of the genre’s most accomplished storytellers. –Publishers Weekly
Millenium (4/5 stars, currently priced at $11.99)
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.
The John Varley Reader: Thirty Years of Short Fiction (4.5/5 stars, currently priced at $21.99, 548pp)
18 stories, including Picnic on Nearside; Overdrawn at the Memory Bank [1977 Locus Poll Award]; In the Hall of the Martian Kings [nominated, 1977 Hugo Award, 1977 Nebula Award]; Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance [nominated, 1977 Hugo Award]; The Barbie Murders [nominated, 1979 Hugo Award. Winner, 1979 Locus Poll Award, 1995 James Tiptree, Jr. Award, Classics]; The Phantom of Kansas [nominated, 1977 Hugo Award]; Beatnik Bayou [nominated, 1980 Nebula Award, 1981 Hugo Award]; Air Raid [nominated, 1977 Nebula Award, 1978 Hugo Award. Basis of film and novel Millennium.]; The Persistence of Vision [winner, 1978 Nebula Award, 1979 Hugo Award]; Press Enter [] [winner, 1984 Nebula Award, 1985 Hugo Award]; The Pusher [winner, 1982 Hugo Award, 1982 Locus Poll Award]; Tango Charlie and Foxtrot Romeo [1987 Locus Poll Award, Best Novella (Place: 3)]; Options [nominated, 1979 Nebula Award, 1980 Hugo Award]; Just Another Perfect Day; In Fading Suns and Dying Moons; The Flying Dutchman; Good Intentions; The Bellman.
The Opiuchi Hotline (4/5 stars, currently priced at $6.83)
THE BRILLIANT NOVEL THAT LAUNCHED THE VARLEY PHENOMENON
The invaders came in 2050…They did not kill anyone outright. hey said they came on behalf of the intelligent species of Earth—dolphins and whales. The Invaders quietly destroyed every evidence of technology, then peacefully departed, leaving behind plowed ground and sprouting seeds. In the next two years, ten billion humans starved to death.
The remnants of humanity that survived relocated to the moon and other planets. But they are not alone in their struggle—someone or something, somewhere in deep space, is sending them advanced scientific data via the Ophiuchi Hotline. And by the twenty-fifth century, the technological gifts from the Hotline—especially its biological and medical solutions—have created a world unlike any ever known or imagined…