The Golden Globe [Mass Market Paperback]

John Varley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 27, 2004

Sparky Valentine makes his way from planet to planet as part of a motley theater troupe--the perfect guise for an interstellar con man wanted for murder.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Sparky Valentine is a former child star turned down-on-his-luck thespian who's just reached the grand old age of 100. Not that you could tell by looking at the old ham, who for some reason never seems to age--or stay out of trouble. Sparky's in the midst of a whirlwind theatrical tour designed to bring a bit of culture to the frozen desolation of the outer solar system when bad luck strikes in the form of a gumshoe hot on his tail. Sparky decides to skip the outer burgs for the more hospitable environs of Pluto, but things only get worse when he runs afoul of the notoriously unforgiving Charonese Mafia. As he's making his getaway, he learns something astonishing. The famous director Kaspara Polichinelli of Luna is planning a performance of King Lear, and he's short a lead to take on the title role. Sparky wires Polichinelli that he's interested, and Polichinelli tells him the part is his. Now all Sparky has to do is find a way to scrape together enough cash to get to Luna before the play starts while avoiding a seemingly unstoppable (and unkillable) Charonese hitman. --Craig E. Engler --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Sparky Valentine grew up on stage. He'd memorized all of Shakespeare by age six and was the star of a hit TV show at eight. His father, actor John Barrymore Valentine, was famous throughout the solar system. But John was also an abusive monster who used torture to help his son learn his lines. Now, nearly a century later, Sparky, a rootless outcast, wanders the outer reaches of inhabited space, sometimes acting in legitimate theater, sometimes working small-scale con games. Although his acting skills are still well honed, virtually all of his theater work must be done under various stage names because he's wanted for a variety of crimes, some minor, some serious. Then two events change Sparky's life. First, he's given a chance to play Lear in a new production being mounted on Luna by the finest director in the solar system. Second, he finds himself the intended victim of an implacable, surgically enhanced professional killer. Fleeing the assassin and a number of local constabularies, risking his life to reach Luna and the opening of King Lear, Sparky little knows what revelations about his family's secrets await him. Hugo and Nebula winner Varley (Steel Beach) is not so much a writer of ideas as one of character; the gradually emerging portrait he offers here of an abuse survivor seems right on the money. There's a lot of humor in evidence too, and plenty of theatrical extravagance, but they're invariably tinged with the melancholy that infuses Sparky's life. Although a tad wordy (as one might expect of a book narrated by a Shakespearean actor), this is an engrossing novel by one of the genre's most accomplished storytellers.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: Ace (July 27, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0441006434
• ISBN-13: 978-0441006434
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (56 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #585,061 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another excellent, if too infrequent, work from Varley, October 24, 1999

By 

Glenn H. Reynolds "Instapundit" (Knoxville, TN USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Golden Globe (Mass Market Paperback)

I find John Varley frustrating because he writes so slowly. Well, maybe not. But his books come out with huge gaps between them, which is too bad because they're all good. (Yeah, I know, another of my favorites is Harry Turtledove, who probably writes too much. Maybe these two should exchange some blood or something.) This book returns to the universe of "Steel Beach" and has some slight character overlap (Hildy Johnson, the Heinleiners) at the end. But it's a fundamentally freestanding story set in a very interesting place. The leading character, "Sparky" Valentine, is believable for those of us who've been around theatre, and has just the sort of brilliantly one-sided personality that makes for lively reading. Varley does a first-rate job of getting inside Valentine's head -- even to producing such actorly malapropisms as "coriolanus force." Well worth the money and time.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the most memorable protagonists you'll ever meet, June 18, 2000

By 

J. Moskowitz "The Unknown Composers Page: ht... (Swarthmore, PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Golden Globe (Mass Market Paperback)

A new novel from John Varley is a cause for celebration, as well as a reminder that it's probably time to get your booster shots renewed--every five or six years is their typical spacing nowadays. The wait is well worth it, however: _Globe_ is thrilling, richly-detailed, inventive, memorable... and occasionally science fiction. Only occasionally.

Even though it's set in John Varley's universe, where one's body is as easy to change as one's makeup, and humans live almost everywhere in the solar system because they were kicked off the Earth, this book is much less involved with the ramifications and repercussions of nifty technologies than some of his previous stories and novels are. Instead, Globe is more concerned with characters. Most of them are the main character. Kenneth Valentine, alias K.C., alias Sparky, alias Dodger, alias Carson Dyle, alias Eustace McGargle, is one of the more memorable figures you're ever likely to find in science fiction, an actor/businessman/actor/con-artist/actor, and _Globe_ is a tale of the Stage Life. From frantic backstage disaster-recovery to stupid omnipotent studio heads, the book shows off the extremes encountered in the life of a star of stage and screen. There's a fair number of future features tossed in for verisimilitude, but most of this book could have been a work of regular old fiction, a journey told in flashbacks and side-jaunts leading to Sparky's Performance of a Lifetime.

Along the way, we encounter the Bank Examiner swindle, the ghost of Jimmy Stewart, a formidable hit man from a planet of psychopaths, and the most enviable piece of furniture since Terry Pratchett's Luggage. It's a fantastic story, and one that's over much too soon--in fact, too soon for its own good. The last hundred pages feel rushed, as if an editor were holding Varley to a page limit (or, more likely, as if Varley was bound and determined to get this book finished and published and out of his In Progress pile already... maybe he realized he was approaching his next vaccination appointment). Still, what's here is wonderful enough to ease regrets over what is missing. Highly recommended.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A slightly different take on trademark Varley, June 27, 2005

By 

Ashley Megan "amazonfox" (Vernon, CT United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Golden Globe (Mass Market Paperback)

At first read, I didn't like this book as much as I did "Steel Beach". I'm not sure why, but I suspect it was Varley's decision to have this book entirely narrated by a male character. I've become so impressed by Varley's heroines, including Hildy Johnson, the narrator of "Steel Beach," that I guess I just started expecting them. Ken Valentine, aka Sparky, just wasn't doing it for me.

On second- and third-reads, however, darned if the little bugger didn't start to grow on me. Sparky's an actor, who really does see life as a stage and himself merely a player. He's a damn good player, but still. When we first meet him, Ken/Sparky is hiding out in the far reaches of the solar system, doing third-rate community theater and running cons. Almost simultaneously, he learns his oldest, dearest friend - and the best director in the system - is staging "King Lear" back on Luna; that the long arm of the law is onto him; and that the Charonese Mafia, a race of super-devoted assassins, has put out a hit on him. Seems like a good time to hit the road, and Sparky does, starting him on a long journey back towards Luna.

Along the way, we learn in flashbacks about Sparky's history as a child star, his abusive actor father, who seems eerily invested in living his life through his son, and the events which sent him into exile. We pass through several other worlds, such as Pluto, Oberon II (which bears some resemblance to Gaia from Varley's "Titan" series), and, of course, Luna. It's on Luna that Sparky runs into Hildy Johnson, and a post-Glitch Luna CC, picking up where "Steel Beach" left off.

"Golden Globe" is more personal than "Steel Beach", more focused on the particular life of the narrator rather than the general society of the Eight Worlds. There's still plenty of Varley's fantastic imagination on display, however, and tons of his trademark humor and cynicism. The more I read this book, the better I like it!