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ASAIK, me too.
podrock — (archived)

My Brother turned me onto Varley with Titan. I was reading it when I met my wife. Literally. I'm sitting at a table, flipping pages, when she walked up and sat down into my life.

On the nightable right now is the John Varley Reader (Thirty Years of Short Fiction), a collection put out in 2004. It's great, because I don't have to further damage my very old copy of the Barbie Murders with the old cover. All the great VarleyYarns are there, "Picnic on Nearside", "The Barbie Murders", "Persistance of Vision", and the always creepy "Press Enter". In this collection, Varley has an introduction to each story, so that's fun to read too. He's one of these authors that seems to have effortless prose and great stories.

What made me pick up Varley again was looking for a story he wrote about the Last Man On Earth Plot so common in Science Fiction (recently discussed in a lengthy thread here at HZ). But I can't find the book with the story, damnit. The story goes through the beginning of the NY phone book, describes the people, then kills them all in a nuclear blast and nobody survives. Nobody.

Novel-wise, I'd go with Ophiuchi Hotline. Been a while since I read Steel Beach, too. Oh, hell, now I want to read 'em all again.

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