The Ophiuchi Hotline (Sf Collector's) (Gollancz Sf S.) [Paperback]

John Varley (Author)

Book Description

Series: Gollancz Sf S. | Publication Date: October 28, 2003

Following the effortless capture of Earth by vastly superior aliens, humanity was left to fight for existence on the Moon and other lumps of airless rock. Survival was greatly facilitated by the interception of the Hotline, a constant stream of data from the direction of a star in the constellation Ophiuchus, which enabled the development of amazing new technologies. Four hundred years on, and everything is about to change again because humanity's unknown helpers have just sent what appears to be a bill. It shouldn't matter to Lilo, since she's been caught experimenting with human DNA and sentenced to permanent death for crimes against humanity. But she is rescued by the maverick ex-president of Luna and finds herself - and several illegal clones of herself - caught up in a crazy attempt to liberate Earth from the vast inscrutable entities who have conquered it, and in the sudden emergency that the enigmatic bill presents to all of human civilization...

Editorial Reviews

Review

""This is a novel rich in societies, setting, and technological wizardry. It's a tough-minded, yet playful book."

About the Author

John Varley was born in Texas in 1947. After spending time as a 'confirmed drifter' he settled in Portland, Oregon and became a full-time writer. He has won the Hugo and Nebula awards a number of times, and has also received the prestigious Prix Apollo. His acclaimed novels include Titan, Wizard, Demon (the Gaea trilogy), Millennium and Steel Beach.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Gollancz (October 28, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0575072830
• ISBN-13: 978-0575072831
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,015,066 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Great Hard Idea oriented SF novel, October 8, 2000

By 

Omer Belsky (Haifa, Israel) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Ophiuchi Hotline (Paperback)

The Ophiuchi Hotline is the first John Varley novel I've ever read. Before I've read three Varley short stories: The Exellent 'Press Enter' which was one of the finest novellas I've ever read, and a Hugo award winner, 'Air Raid' which was the basis for the movie 'Millenium', which was pretty good, and 'Goodbye, Robinson Crusoe' which was an unsuccesful 8 Worlds short story.

The consensus amoung SF fans seems to be that Varley is a great short story writer, but not a terrific novelist. When thy talk about his novels, the only one that is REALLY appreciated seems to be 'The Ophiuchi Hotline'. After reading it, I can testify that it is indeed a novel worth talking about.

The Ophiuchi Hotline of the title is a stream of information coming from Ophiuchius constelation. It is the basis of all human knowledge for 5 hundred years - after all, when you got all the answers supplied, why bother studying?

The Story's heroine, Lilo, does wish to study. Furthermore, she wishes to study human genetics - which is illegal. The book follows her story, mostly, as she struggles in a world filled with deception, intrigue, and some of the coolest Science Fictional explorations of many a theme, most notably cloning.

the stuff John Varley does with the idea of cloning in this story, especially at one point about 50 pages into it is brilliant and original. Varley's thoughts about cloning are striking and very clever.

The plotting and characterisation of the novel is generally very well done. Varley can truely differentiate his characters, and manages to make a very complicated plot decievingly simple to follow.

If there's a weakness to the novel it is the ending. All the plots line are resolved, which is quite a difficult and an impressive task, but the novel's end of kind of disappoint anyway. You're expecting a bang, and it goes down with a whispher. A LOUD whispher, mind you, but nonetheless.

Still, Varley is in top form here, and I would recommand this novel easily. It is out of print, but not too hard to find. Go get it.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bold explosion of ideas, March 16, 2004

By 

Michael Battaglia - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Ophiuchi Hotline (Paperback)

The only other book I've read by Varley is the relatively recent Steel Beach, which I enjoyed quite a bit, especially the opening line, which I still remember fondly to this day (if you've read the book you'll know what I'm talking about, if not, crack the book open in a bookstore and you'll see what I mean). The blueprint for a lot of the stuff in that novel can be found here, at least when it comes to Varley's worldview and his interpretation of SF. He does a clever thing in this novel and puts forward a situation that has already happened long in the book's past, so that while it informs the character's present actions, the reader wasn't really there for it, it's part of history. Here, the premise is that humanity has been kicked off Earth by the super-powerful Invaders, who apparently get along real well with dolphins and whatever lives inside Jupiter. Humanity, with nowhere left to go, spreads throughout the solar system and tries to make do with the fact that the homeworld is off limits. Over the years they've been getting all their information from something called the Hotline, a laser beam of information from an unknown source that they can only translate partially, but what they can figure out has made life interesting for everyone. In this novel, the presentation is just as important as the plot and Varley pulls out all the stops to depict his wild future history, of a human culture adapted to the stars, where sex changes and physical changes are completely ordinary . . . for all the wacky stuff, he manages to make it feel real, not an easy thing to do. The plot has to do with a man named Tweed trying to figure out how to get rid of the Invaders . . . to that end he gathers various people who have been kicked out of society and tries to use them . . . sometimes cloning them when things go slightly awry. The issues of cloning and genetics are consistently impressive and well thought out, almost surreal in a sense, especially when it focuses on the slightly rebellious main character Lilo, who keeps getting cloned more often than she'd like. Meanwhile just to make things more complicated, the Hotline seems to have sent along a phone bill, and no one is quite sure what that's supposed to mean. This is a lot of story for such a slim book and Varley manages to pull it off with a lot of skill, although the ending is still rather abrupt and the plot seems to lose focus toward the end. It can also be said that the idea of humanity playing third fiddle to just about everyone is sort of depressing and certainly not the most uplifting concept, but hey, life is like that sometimes. Not everything comes up roses all the time. His people soldier on anyway, determined to live their lives, even if in the cosmic scheme of things it's utterly pointless. Not a crowd pleasing premise, but the images and ideas he puts forward are amazing, his future is just as fully realized and complex as the real world and you won't regret any of the time you invest in both finding this book (I think it's still out of print, but far from rare) and reading it.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A science fiction classic, January 30, 2004

By 

W. Johnson (The Mile High City) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Ophiuchi Hotline (Sf Collector's) (Gollancz Sf S.) (Paperback)

John Varley for many reasons is one of the best science fiction writers of his generation and The Ophiuchi Hotline is his first major work. Unlike many writers who do setting specific books (e.g. series) Varley makes no pretense about evolving his worlds or simply writing books in worlds that are very similar to each other. This is best exemplified in the later books Steel Beach and The Golden Globe, which relate to each other closely, while The Ophiuchi Hotline shares many of the same settings and ideas.

The Ophiuchi Hotline shows off Varley's talent for writing a different kind of science fiction with a different sort of styling. If you have a used book store in your area, that is probably the best route, though this laster reprint is nice also and one edition or the the should be on your bookshelf.