The John Varley Reader: Thirty Years of Short Fiction. 2004
THE JOHN VARLEY READER
RATED 83% POSITIVE. STORY SCORE 4.06 OF 5
18 STORIES : 7 GREAT /6 GOOD / 4 AVERAGE / 1 POOR / 0 DNF
There are two reasons you might want to read The John Varley Reader …. and one reason why you might want to stay away..
+ John Varley is one of the masters of the science fiction story. His world-building is rich and detailed. His plots are complex and fulfilling. His characters are real and believable. You never know where you are headed in a Varley story, but it is always serious science fiction.
+ The introductions to these stories are long autobiographical looks at John Varley’s life … and he’s had an interesting one. In typical Varley fashion, this is eminently readable and feels like he is truly pouring his life onto the page. You could remove these introductions and mold a publishable biography out of them. I didn’t think I cared about John Varley’s life. I’m still not sure I do, but I couldn’t tear myself away from the writing.
- John Varley has an obsession with writing about sexual relationships between adults and children. It isn’t in every story, but it happens so frequently that it feels like every story. Almost always between adult men and teenage girls who are “mature for their age.”
I want to make clear that I haven’t heard even a suspicion of Varley DOING anything awful with children, but many people will point to a movie review on his blog that appears to be very sympathetic to men that abuse children. https://varley.net/movie_review/woodsman/ and I’ll quote from the blog post a segment that many people consider a confession of his feelings.
“Pedophilia is something that runs the gamut from John Wayne Gacy to guys (like me) who look at a nubile 15-year-old and feel a hot flash of guilt because she is so sexually attractive. What makes Walter different from me is that he feels that flash for 10-year-olds, and he acts on it. He has spent 12 years in prison for having sex (no real details given, but it sounds like fondling) with a 10-year-old and a 12-year-old. He knows what he does is wrong and he wants to change. But the compulsion is still there.”
I look at Varley’s writing with a bit more grace. He had seen massive transformation is what was acceptable regarding race and gender and sexuality. It would only be rational to imagine that in the future anything deemed “immoral and unacceptable” today would eventually be seen as “acceptable and moral.” Even sexual relationships with children.
I’ll quote John Varley again from one of the story introductions.
grew up in Texas in the 1950s, where there were segregated restrooms and drinking fountains. In my life I have gone from referring to a certain minority group as something we now call “The N-word,” which I didn’t even know was pejorative, to Negroes, to “spades” when that was fashionable in the Haight-Ashbury, to Afro-Americans, to black people, to people of color, to the current usage of African-American. My racism was of the unconscious, liberal variety. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was praised from the pulpit of my Lutheran church for the work he was doing in the South, but nobody in the pews, or in the pulpit for that matter, would have wanted him to marry their daughter.
When I began writing, we were in the most exciting years of the feminist movement. A few women somewhere burned a few bras as a lark, someone took a picture of it, and people started calling feminists bra-burners. That, or women’s-libbers, lesbians, ball-busters, or harpies. A favorite word to describe them was “strident.” I read a lot of the literature, saw their point, and did my best to shake off my sexism as I had shed myself of racism.
The gay rights movement was just getting started, hadn’t really made a lot of noise yet. No need to go through the terms that were thrown around at them.
We have come such a long way. Consider, in this day and age when Queer Eye for the Straight Guy is a big hit on television, that in my high school days it would have been about the deadliest insult you could hurl. Fightin’ words. Now it is a word of pride. Sure, there are still toothless rednecks who feel themselves superior to Nelson Mandela because they are white. There are those who love to beat the crap out of people because of who they choose to go to bed with. There are those like a certain big fat lying hypocritical junkie crybaby felon who calls progressive women “feminazis.” There is much still to do and I don’t know where it will all end up, but compare today in America to 1955 in Texas, like I do, and you will know there has been much progress.
Back when I started writing, everyone was exploring sex roles, redefining what it was to be a man or a woman, of whatever orientation. Nature or nurture? Is testosterone or estrogen all-powerful? Is a man gay because his mother made him wear dresses, or was he born that way? I spent a long time thinking about sex, and came to the conclusion that there is not one statement you can make about all men or about all women that is valid. People are now seeking equal rights for “gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and the transgendered.” I’m not even sure if that includes hermaphrodites, or the small minority of people who just plain don’t have any interest in sex at all. Neuters.
So what would things be like in … two or three hundred years? (I was always deliberately vague about dates in the Eight Worlds stories.) With the Earth subjugated by aliens who, if they weren’t actually God, could pinch-hit for him?
If you take a jump that far ahead in the world of Science fiction, you can postulate absolutely anything you want.
But also …. Varley also spent large parts is life in 1960s San Francisco counterculture and then Hollywood. Both are communities with extreme disregard for any sexual boundaries — either legal or moral.
Enough of this! There are Seven Stories that Make the All-Time Great List:
The Barbie Murders • [Anna-Louise Bach] • (1978) • novelette by John Varley
Great. What if a community used surgery and thought control to achieve perfect uniformity? How would you solve a series of murders when everyone looks exactly alike, uses we, and doesn’t acknowledge difference?
The Phantom of Kansas • [Eight Worlds] • (1976) • novelette by John Varley
Great. For some people who live beneath the surface of Luna, immortality is assured by banks that will rebuild a clone of you and fill it with your memories on file. Our protagonist, a creator of ‘environmental experiences’ awakens to find that she is the 4th recent rebirth because she’s been murdered three times. With the help of the Central Computer, a policewoman, and her memories, she tries to hunt down the killer. A wonderful science fiction mystery that plays fair within a very interesting future world.
Beatnik Bayou • [Eight Worlds] • (1980) • novelette by John Varley
Great. A young man comes of age on a lunar colony with easy sex changes, age changes, intimate individualized education, computerized justice, and an artificially recreated southern Bayou.
The Persistence of Vision • (1978) • novella by John Varley
Great. A man bumming his way through life stumbles across a communal society created by people who lost sight and hearing due to radiation. Varley obviously has fun reiventing this strange utopia from the ground up, full of nudity, strange laws, and free love. Quite emotional as well. I hate calling something “problematic,” but it is hard not to…
Press Enter ▮? • (1984) • novella by John Varley
Great. There is some AI Sci-Fi stuff here, but the heart of this story is a riveting character study of a Korean War veteran and a young Asian woman who is investigating the apparent suicide of a neighborhood computer hacker.
Options • [Eight Worlds] • (1979) • novelette by John Varley
Great. Easy and simple sex changes are made possible through cloning and are beginning to become more popular. A wife becomes more and more interested in the idea while her husband is definitely against it. Surprised this is not more widely read as it is a great feminist use of gender transition in science fiction. Probably would if it had been written by someone without Varley's "Problems".
Just Another Perfect Day • (1989) • short story by John Varley
Great.. A note to yourself. You haven’t been able to make new memories for decades. Each day you reset your memory and this letter will help you through it. Also there is a UFO hovering over New York City.
18 STORIES : 7 GREAT / 6 GOOD / 4 AVERAGE / 1 POOR / 0 DNF
Picnic on Nearside • [Eight Worlds] • (1974) • novelette by John Varley
Average. A young man wants a sex change - which doesn’t have any gravitas in this future - but his mother thinks he’s too young. So he goes on a ‘road trip” with a buddy who is now a girl.
Overdrawn at the Memory Bank • [Eight Worlds] • (1976) • novelette by John Varley
Good. A man finds himself having to deal with life trapped in VR while the outside world tries to find his body.
In the Hall of the Martian Kings • (1976) • novella by John Varley
Good. A Martian expedition finds themselves stranded after a disaster and must come up with a way to survive together for years until help can arrive.
Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance • [Eight Worlds] • (1976) • novelette by John Varley
Average. A story of part man / part plant music composers from the rings of Saturn. Forgot this one almost as soon as I read it.
The Barbie Murders • [Anna-Louise Bach] • (1978) • novelette by John Varley
Great. What if a community used surgery and thought control to achieve perfect uniformity? How would you solve a series of murders when everyone looks exactly alike, uses we, and doesn’t acknowledge difference?
The Phantom of Kansas • [Eight Worlds] • (1976) • novelette by John Varley
Great. For some people who live beneath the surface of Luna, immortality is assured by banks that will rebuild a clone of you and fill it with your memories on file. Our protagonist, a creator of ‘environmental experiences’ awakens to find that she is the 4th recent rebirth because she’s been murdered three times. With the help of the Central Computer, a policewoman, and her memories, she tries to hunt down the killer. A wonderful science fiction mystery that plays fair within a very interesting future world.
Beatnik Bayou • [Eight Worlds] • (1980) • novelette by John Varley
Great. A young man comes of age on a lunar colony with easy sex changes, age changes, intimate individualized education, computerized justice, and an artificially recreated southern Bayou.
Air Raid • (1977) • short story by John Varley
Good. Leaving a future where the world and her body is falling apart, a woman steps into the present day and takes over the life of a stewardess. Once aboard the flight, she begins shunting passengers unknowingly through other portals.
The Persistence of Vision • (1978) • novella by John Varley
Great. A man bumming his way through life stumbles across a communal society created by people who lost sight and hearing due to radiation. Varley obviously has fun reiventing this strange utopia from the ground up, full of nudity, strange laws, and free love. Quite emotional as well. I hate calling something “problematic,” but it is hard not to…
Press Enter ▮? • (1984) • novella by John Varley
Great. There is some AI Sci-Fi stuff here, but the heart of this story is a riveting character study of a Korean War veteran and a young Asian woman who is investigating the apparent suicide of a neighborhood computer hacker.
The Pusher • (1981) • short story by John Varley
Good.. A disturbing story of an alien man who targets a young girl on a playground to tell her a story that will change her future. It is too subtle and it is easy to miss why this isn’t the ‘grooming’ of a child, but I can’t tell you why without spoiling it.
Tango Charlie and Foxtrot Romeo • [Anna-Louise Bach] • (1986) • novella by John Varley
Good. A orbital space station has been quarantined to prevent an outbreak that killed every living think onboard and could have ended life on earth. But now, there appears to be a young girl and some dogs onboard. Should they try to rescue her? Or leave her there for the safety of everyone else.
Options • [Eight Worlds] • (1979) • novelette by John Varley
Great. Easy and simple sex changes are made possible through cloning and are beginning to become more popular. A wife becomes more and more interested in the idea while her husband is definitely against it. Surprised this is not more widely read as it is a great feminist use of gender transition in science fiction. Probably would if it had been written by someone without Varley's "Problems".
Just Another Perfect Day • (1989) • short story by John Varley
Great.. A note to yourself. You haven’t been able to make new memories for decades. Each day you reset your memory and this letter will help you through it. Also there is a UFO hovering over New York City.
In Fading Suns and Dying Moons • (2003) • novelette by John Varley
Good. A Lepidopterist is grab by the military to try to understand why aliens have come to earth. All they are doing is standing in a straight line and collecting butterflies.
The Flying Dutchman • (1998) • short story by John Varley
Average. A hellish descent into madness as the uncomfortable aspects of modern airline travel descend into supernatural dread.
Good Intentions • (1992) • short story by John Varley
Poor. Even a deal with the literal devil isn’t enough to overcome being bad at electoral politics.
The Bellman • [Anna-Louise Bach] • (2003) • novelette by John Varley
Average. Action packed thriller on a domed lunar city. A pregnant police officer makes herself ‘bait’ for a serial killer who is killing pregnant women.
