John Varley


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While I wasn't crazy about his recent Red Thunder, John Varley is one of those authors who consistently blows my mind. Even more than his novels, his short stories are astonishing.

The John Varley Reader just hit my desk, and luckily one of our reviewers already has a copy, so I'm taking this one. The danger is that I won't be making any progress on any of the other six or seven books I'm reading this weekend.

I like the quote from William Gibson on the back cover, which reads in part: "The short story is to science fiction what the seven-inch single was to rock; the most perfect yet the most mercilessly demanding form."

That's one of the reasons why we're focusing on short stories and not novellas in Amazing. Now, if we can manage to get a John Varley short ...


Good luck getting a Varley short -- I think the whole field would celebrate if you were successful.

I think the only short fiction he's had published recently is "The Bellman," which appeared in Asimov's last year, and that wasn't even new -- it was rescued from the quagmire of THE LAST DANGEROUS VISIONS, which is apparently never going to be published yet still has the rights to a bunch of stories tied up. How Varley managed to extract "The Bellman" is unknown to me, but we should all be thankful that it's seen the light of print.


"Air Raid" was the most ungodly amazing short I have ever read.

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