pat (04/30/83)
#N:uiucuxc:12400005:000:483 uiucuxc!pat Apr 29 08:12:00 1983 I've just finished reading a wonderful collection of short stories by John Varley called "The Persistence of Vision". Contains some very bizarre but well written "speculative fiction" . My favorite was "Air Raid", where skyjackers from the future ... ... um, better read it for yourself . If the copyright was not 1977 I'd call it "Punk" S.F. . In another story "In the Hall of the Martian Kings" nature invents plastic wheels . Pat Kane, U of I, Urbana-Champaign, IL.
earle (05/02/83)
Another collection of John Varley's excellent short stories is "The
Barbie Murders", about a cult who submerge individual identity through
rigid conforrmism, including plastic surgery to make them all look alike -
but murders are occurring, and of course nobody can identify the victims, or
the murderer... "The Persistence of Vision" collection, especially the
title story, is my favorite, though.
His longer works include "Titan" and "Wizard", about humans in contact with
a living space habitat (They're more interesting than this makes them sound.)
These two volumes cry out for a third - does anybody know if/when it will
be released?
John Varley is an outstanding sf author of the type where "s" is for science -
but his characters are fully developed, powerful and believable, and even
his science gets advanced enough to look like magic to me. ("The Ophiuchi (sp?)
Hotline", another novel, is a good example, as well as being good reading)
Earle T. Fettig
GenRad Concord, MACHER@WASHINGTON.ARPA (12/14/83)
From: Cher Gunby <CHER@WASHINGTON.ARPA> According to our book-buyer at the campus bookstore, Varley's MILLENNIUM is indeed going to be a movie. In fact, he contracted to write MILLENIUM and its screenplay, before he could finish DEMON, the third book in his Gaia trilogy. -------
kalash@ucbcad.UUCP (12/24/83)
#R:sri-arpa:-1456400:ucbcad:23400009:000:470 ucbcad!kalash Dec 16 09:38:00 1983 > According to our book-buyer at the campus bookstore, Varley's MILLENNIUM > is indeed going to be a movie. In fact, he contracted to write MILLENIUM > and its screenplay, before he could finish DEMON, the third book in his > Gaia trilogy. MILLENNIUM is indeed the novelization of his movie script, but I had heard that the movie was NOT going to be made (also that Varley was feed up with Hollywood and all that). Joe Kalash kalash@berkeley ucbvax!kalash
boyajian@akov68.DEC (JERRY BOYAJIAN) (10/26/85)
> From: caip!Lubkin > By the way, John Varley is also a pseudonym. Sorry, but you're wrong. John Varley has *used* a pseudonym, Herb Boehm (only once, for the original magazine appearance of "Air Raid" because he had another story in the same issue under his real name), but John [Herbert] Varley is his real name. --- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC, Acton-Nagog, MA) UUCP: {decvax|ihnp4|allegra|ucbvax|...} !decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-akov68!boyajian ARPA: boyajian%akov68.DEC@DECWRL.ARPA