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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,
By
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,
By
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,
By
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!
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