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The Barbie Murders
A collection of John Varley's shorter works: a short story, a novella and seven novelettes. Amazing and creative pieces of imagination and wonder from an articulate and very human science fiction writer. On the Moon, they're altering bodies so everyone can look exactly alike; they're turning Pluto into an amusement park; a cult of zealots is painting the second ring of Saturn red; a man is enjoying his second childhood; there's a living black hole; and on Earth, they're reading...
Contents:
Bagatelle [Anna-Louise Bach] (1976) / novelette by John Varley · Galaxy Oct ’76
The Funhouse Effect [Eight Worlds] (1976) / novelette by John Varley · F&SF Dec ’76
The Barbie Murders [Anna-Louise Bach] (1978) / novelette by John Varley · IASFM Jan/Feb ’78
Equinoctial [Eight Worlds] (1977) / novella by John Varley · Ascents of Wonder, ed. David Gerrold, Popular Library, 1977
Manikins (1976) / short story by John Varley · Amazing Jan ’76
Beatnik Bayou [Eight Worlds] (1980) / novelette by John Varley · New Voices III, ed. George R. R. Martin, Berkley, 1980
Good-Bye, Robinson Crusoe [Eight Worlds] (1977) / novelette by John Varley · IASFM Spr ’77
Lollipop and the Tar Baby [Eight Worlds] (1977) / novelette by John Varley · Orbit 19, ed. Damon Knight, Harper & Row, 1977
Picnic on Nearside [Eight Worlds] (1974) / novelette by John Varley · F&SF Aug ’74
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Contents:
Bagatelle [Anna-Louise Bach] (1976) / novelette by John Varley · Galaxy Oct ’76
The Funhouse Effect [Eight Worlds] (1976) / novelette by John Varley · F&SF Dec ’76
The Barbie Murders [Anna-Louise Bach] (1978) / novelette by John Varley · IASFM Jan/Feb ’78
Equinoctial [Eight Worlds] (1977) / novella by John Varley · Ascents of Wonder, ed. David Gerrold, Popular Library, 1977
Manikins (1976) / short story by John Varley · Amazing Jan ’76
Beatnik Bayou [Eight Worlds] (1980) / novelette by John Varley · New Voices III, ed. George R. R. Martin, Berkley, 1980
Good-Bye, Robinson Crusoe [Eight Worlds] (1977) / novelette by John Varley · IASFM Spr ’77
Lollipop and the Tar Baby [Eight Worlds] (1977) / novelette by John Varley · Orbit 19, ed. Damon Knight, Harper & Row, 1977
Picnic on Nearside [Eight Worlds] (1974) / novelette by John Varley · F&SF Aug ’74
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260 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published September 1, 1980
24 people are currently reading
497 people want to read
About the author
John Varley
234 books603 followersFull name: John Herbert Varley.
John Varley was born in Austin, Texas. He grew up in Fort Worth, Texas, moved to Port Arthur in 1957, and graduated from Nederland High School. He went to Michigan State University.
He has written several novels and numerous short stories.He has received both the Hugo and Nebula awards.
John Varley was born in Austin, Texas. He grew up in Fort Worth, Texas, moved to Port Arthur in 1957, and graduated from Nederland High School. He went to Michigan State University.
He has written several novels and numerous short stories.He has received both the Hugo and Nebula awards.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews
August 11, 2023
Picnic on Nearside (previously published as the Barbie Murders) is a collection of nine short stories by Hugo-award winning science fiction author John Varley. Stories in this volume include:
(1) Bagatelle (originally published in Galaxy, August 1976) is a fascinating experiment whereby a cyborg arrives at a city on the moon and announces that he has a fifty to neutron bomb and that no one can approach any closer. Naturally, you need a hostage negotiator to talk to the cyborg and figure out why he wants to blow everyone up. Part of that is, of course, figuring out that there’s a human operator in there somewhere and he’s really enjoy a birthday party. But notice as you read this one that all the characters are goofy like the bomb expert who tries to fondle the police chief while waiting for the train car to move. It’s as if even in a science fiction environment, you still end up with flawed people who act in surprising and illogical ways.
(2) The Funhouse Effect (orig. published in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Dec. 1976) is a crazy off-kilter exploration where at first you the reader are told that the voyage is on a comet hollowed out and filled with engines. But, it’s the last voyage and everything is being stripped off the ship including the engines and the lifeboats. Of course, the only natural reaction is mutinies and space aliens.
(3) The Barbie Murders (orig. published in Issac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Feb. 1978), which was the original title of the collection, is a top-notch, thought-provoking murder mystery set on the Moon. More particularly, it is set in the Barbie colony cult, named because all 7,000 inhabitants look like Barbie (down to the absence of genitalia), but what’s more they given up individuality and think alike, having adopted the “we” pronoun in place of the “I.” How do you solve a murder when all identical inhabitants have the same hive memories and randomly pick one to confess, not caring whether it was those particular hands did the deed? What’s remarkable about the story is how well it captures that longing for conformity and groupthink and how vividly it captures what a society would look like where everyone looked and thought the same.
(4) Equinoctial (org. pubd. in Ascents of Wonder, 1977) is set on one of Saturn’s rings. It’s subject matter is a humanoid who has experimented with body modifications leading up to symbiosis with a tentacled artificial intelligence that enveloped her from head to toe.
(5) “Manikins” (org. pubd. in Amazing Stories, Jan. 1976) is one of the shorter pieces in this collection and is set in a psych facility.
(6) Beatnik Bayou (org. pubd. in New Voices III, 1980) is a science fiction tale about another world where if you are rich enough you can recreate a bayou and gender can be fluid and subject to change.
(7) Good-bye, Robinson Crusoe” (org. pubd. in Issac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine (Spring 1977)) is a story about a tropical resort on another world, but if you are really going to stay and enjoy it, you better get some gills and fins.
(8) Lollipop and the Tar Baby (originally published in Orbit 19, 1977) is a brilliant piece of writing about the time Xanthia, who by the way is a clone, heard a black hole talk to her. She doubts her sanity because it couldn’t possibly have happened but it did. The black hole feeds on all kinds of energy, gobbling it up, just like what would happen to the hole if Xanthia reported in with what took place. Everyone needs power!
(9) the title piece, Picnic on Nearside (originally pub in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, August 1974) has literally a picnic scene on the mostly deserted nearside (as opposed to the farside) but mostly it focuses on gender switching (something quite novel for 1974), but more common nowadays.
(1) Bagatelle (originally published in Galaxy, August 1976) is a fascinating experiment whereby a cyborg arrives at a city on the moon and announces that he has a fifty to neutron bomb and that no one can approach any closer. Naturally, you need a hostage negotiator to talk to the cyborg and figure out why he wants to blow everyone up. Part of that is, of course, figuring out that there’s a human operator in there somewhere and he’s really enjoy a birthday party. But notice as you read this one that all the characters are goofy like the bomb expert who tries to fondle the police chief while waiting for the train car to move. It’s as if even in a science fiction environment, you still end up with flawed people who act in surprising and illogical ways.
(2) The Funhouse Effect (orig. published in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Dec. 1976) is a crazy off-kilter exploration where at first you the reader are told that the voyage is on a comet hollowed out and filled with engines. But, it’s the last voyage and everything is being stripped off the ship including the engines and the lifeboats. Of course, the only natural reaction is mutinies and space aliens.
(3) The Barbie Murders (orig. published in Issac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Feb. 1978), which was the original title of the collection, is a top-notch, thought-provoking murder mystery set on the Moon. More particularly, it is set in the Barbie colony cult, named because all 7,000 inhabitants look like Barbie (down to the absence of genitalia), but what’s more they given up individuality and think alike, having adopted the “we” pronoun in place of the “I.” How do you solve a murder when all identical inhabitants have the same hive memories and randomly pick one to confess, not caring whether it was those particular hands did the deed? What’s remarkable about the story is how well it captures that longing for conformity and groupthink and how vividly it captures what a society would look like where everyone looked and thought the same.
(4) Equinoctial (org. pubd. in Ascents of Wonder, 1977) is set on one of Saturn’s rings. It’s subject matter is a humanoid who has experimented with body modifications leading up to symbiosis with a tentacled artificial intelligence that enveloped her from head to toe.
(5) “Manikins” (org. pubd. in Amazing Stories, Jan. 1976) is one of the shorter pieces in this collection and is set in a psych facility.
(6) Beatnik Bayou (org. pubd. in New Voices III, 1980) is a science fiction tale about another world where if you are rich enough you can recreate a bayou and gender can be fluid and subject to change.
(7) Good-bye, Robinson Crusoe” (org. pubd. in Issac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine (Spring 1977)) is a story about a tropical resort on another world, but if you are really going to stay and enjoy it, you better get some gills and fins.
(8) Lollipop and the Tar Baby (originally published in Orbit 19, 1977) is a brilliant piece of writing about the time Xanthia, who by the way is a clone, heard a black hole talk to her. She doubts her sanity because it couldn’t possibly have happened but it did. The black hole feeds on all kinds of energy, gobbling it up, just like what would happen to the hole if Xanthia reported in with what took place. Everyone needs power!
(9) the title piece, Picnic on Nearside (originally pub in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, August 1974) has literally a picnic scene on the mostly deserted nearside (as opposed to the farside) but mostly it focuses on gender switching (something quite novel for 1974), but more common nowadays.
December 11, 2019
3.8 ⭐
August 23, 2018
John Varley is that mysterious kind of author whose works have rarely come to my table, either as stand-alone work, or in some anthology. But, whatever has come to me, has remained. This, I believe, is something truly astonishing. And if you can get hold of this particular work, you may also end up hunting for Varley's works full of a strange mix of uninhibited eroticism, pathos, suspense, and brutal depiction of the twisted nature of human mind.
Highly Recommended.
Highly Recommended.
September 11, 2011
This is one of Varley’s early short story collections. A number of the tales take place in his “Eight Worlds” universe (the one where Ophiuchi Hotline, Steel Beach, and The Golden Globe take place), and was likely the result of early experimentation of themes explored more fully in future novels.
Some short reviews of the individual stories follow:
Bagatelle: The story of a sentient cyborg bomb and the psychological drama to get it to defuse itself. Written long before 9/11 and the age a suicide bombers, this is the most dated story of the collection. At best, Varley can be accused of a lack of imagination here; I suspect real suicide bombers have a lot more complex and deep motivation that is described in this tale. 3 of 5 stars.
The Funhouse Effect: A story about the final voyage of a passenger liner carved out of the interior of a comet, on it’s last voyage before breaking up. It’s a crazy story of people going crazy, but the trouble with stories about confused characters is that it makes confused readers as well. 3 of 5 stars.
The Barbie Murders: This was the first edition’s titular story (the collection was first called “The Barbie Murders,” but was changed (a letter came from Mattel, perhaps?) in later editions). It’s the tale of the investigation of a murder in sub-population of people who all undergo surgical modifications to lose their identities and become visual clones of one another (thus: “barbies”). It’s an exercise of police procedural in short form, but didn’t really impress me very much. 3 of 5 stars.
Equinoctial: This was a charming story of a pair of Varley’s interplanetary symbiotic pairs (featured in a number of Eight Worlds stories), as she/it searches for her children after they’ve been stolen. I really like the human/Symb interaction with this model, and this story was no exception. Wonderful tale. 4 of 5 stars.
Manikins: I must have read this one somewhere else before, because it feels very familiar. Essentially the story of a psychiatric patient with the delusion that all humanity is female, and masculinity is a parasite passed down through the ages. Quirky and fun. 4 of 5 stars.
Beatnik Bayou: If you live in a universe where people change bodies all the time and children are rare, what is education like? Varley postulates that your one-on-one teacher takes a body the same age your are (at 7 years old) and becomes your best friend (for elementary school age, anyway). This story is about the end of the protagonist’s first stage of schooling and the beginning of the next. In other words: a coming of age story, in a strange kind of world. 4 of 5 stars.
Good-bye, Robinson Crusoe: A short story about taking a years-long vacation in young body in the islands. (Well, the islands at a disneyland under the crust of Pluto, anyway.) Half engineering wonder, half psychodrama, this was actually pretty good. 4 of 5 stars.
Lollipop and the Tar Baby: Hunting for black holes with your clone outside the orbit of Pluto. Fun. 4 of 5 stars.
Picnic on Nearside: The titular story of this edition, this is the story of a runaway and his friend who find a hippie on the near side of the moon. Yeah, it sounds weird to me as well. I’m not sure why this one got the title; maybe because it’s the easiest to paint a cover for. I wasn’t all that impressed. 3 of 5 stars.
Some short reviews of the individual stories follow:
Bagatelle: The story of a sentient cyborg bomb and the psychological drama to get it to defuse itself. Written long before 9/11 and the age a suicide bombers, this is the most dated story of the collection. At best, Varley can be accused of a lack of imagination here; I suspect real suicide bombers have a lot more complex and deep motivation that is described in this tale. 3 of 5 stars.
The Funhouse Effect: A story about the final voyage of a passenger liner carved out of the interior of a comet, on it’s last voyage before breaking up. It’s a crazy story of people going crazy, but the trouble with stories about confused characters is that it makes confused readers as well. 3 of 5 stars.
The Barbie Murders: This was the first edition’s titular story (the collection was first called “The Barbie Murders,” but was changed (a letter came from Mattel, perhaps?) in later editions). It’s the tale of the investigation of a murder in sub-population of people who all undergo surgical modifications to lose their identities and become visual clones of one another (thus: “barbies”). It’s an exercise of police procedural in short form, but didn’t really impress me very much. 3 of 5 stars.
Equinoctial: This was a charming story of a pair of Varley’s interplanetary symbiotic pairs (featured in a number of Eight Worlds stories), as she/it searches for her children after they’ve been stolen. I really like the human/Symb interaction with this model, and this story was no exception. Wonderful tale. 4 of 5 stars.
Manikins: I must have read this one somewhere else before, because it feels very familiar. Essentially the story of a psychiatric patient with the delusion that all humanity is female, and masculinity is a parasite passed down through the ages. Quirky and fun. 4 of 5 stars.
Beatnik Bayou: If you live in a universe where people change bodies all the time and children are rare, what is education like? Varley postulates that your one-on-one teacher takes a body the same age your are (at 7 years old) and becomes your best friend (for elementary school age, anyway). This story is about the end of the protagonist’s first stage of schooling and the beginning of the next. In other words: a coming of age story, in a strange kind of world. 4 of 5 stars.
Good-bye, Robinson Crusoe: A short story about taking a years-long vacation in young body in the islands. (Well, the islands at a disneyland under the crust of Pluto, anyway.) Half engineering wonder, half psychodrama, this was actually pretty good. 4 of 5 stars.
Lollipop and the Tar Baby: Hunting for black holes with your clone outside the orbit of Pluto. Fun. 4 of 5 stars.
Picnic on Nearside: The titular story of this edition, this is the story of a runaway and his friend who find a hippie on the near side of the moon. Yeah, it sounds weird to me as well. I’m not sure why this one got the title; maybe because it’s the easiest to paint a cover for. I wasn’t all that impressed. 3 of 5 stars.
December 26, 2021
“But they’re actually 80 years old and just biologically age regressed.”
“But in the future, we accelerate puberty, so they’re actually really mature for their age.”
“But we can harness genetics in a way that incest doesn’t cause birth defects.”
Bro, stop. You have an astounding imagination, but more than half the stories here involve children having sex with adults, their teachers, other children, and their own parents. Writing a story about the world’s last Christian pointing this out and then calling him an old fool doesn’t fix anything.
“But in the future, we accelerate puberty, so they’re actually really mature for their age.”
“But we can harness genetics in a way that incest doesn’t cause birth defects.”
Bro, stop. You have an astounding imagination, but more than half the stories here involve children having sex with adults, their teachers, other children, and their own parents. Writing a story about the world’s last Christian pointing this out and then calling him an old fool doesn’t fix anything.
March 15, 2019
The title story of this collection won 1980 Locus Award for Best Single-Author Collection. It was a good story, but I actually liked several of the others even more. Several have female protagonists and deal with issues not normally tackled in scifi, such as pregnancy and the bond between mothers and their children. One of my favorites, the Barbie Murders, looks at a murder in a community where everyone looks identical. The female detective who is trying to solve the murder is a wonderful character, and she appears in another one of my favorite stories in the book, "Bagatelle." Both of these stories made me laugh out loud, another thing you rarely find in scifi. All are linked by the same backstory, in which humans have been forced off of Earth by an alien invasion. I guess it is the same universe as Varley's "Eight World" novels. The society Varley posits is quite interesting and I liked his writing enough that I am going to check out a couple of the novels in that series.
July 10, 2023
I picked up a copy of this at a local book shop. It contains 3 of the same short stories as *The John Varley Reader* which I picked up previously, which meant 6 stories I was not familiar with. I enjoyed the ones I hadn't read before, and caught new things in the ones I had.
I can't seem to help it, I like John Varley. I think I like his work a lot. Stories in the *Eight World Series* especially seem to catch my imagination, and a large part of that is the frank discussion and acceptance of sex changes and being trans gender. In fact, *Picnic on the Nearside* has discussions about people who haven't changed their sex (one who is deemed 'too young' by their parent, and one an ancient stubborn Christian.)
When it comes to his writing, I just... I like it. Varley may be an old white man but his works make him seem so accepting. I sincerely hope his apparent respect of trans rights isn't just something I'm projecting onto the author. And to think he wrote some of these stories back in the 1970's!
All in all, I enjoyed this collection.
I can't seem to help it, I like John Varley. I think I like his work a lot. Stories in the *Eight World Series* especially seem to catch my imagination, and a large part of that is the frank discussion and acceptance of sex changes and being trans gender. In fact, *Picnic on the Nearside* has discussions about people who haven't changed their sex (one who is deemed 'too young' by their parent, and one an ancient stubborn Christian.)
When it comes to his writing, I just... I like it. Varley may be an old white man but his works make him seem so accepting. I sincerely hope his apparent respect of trans rights isn't just something I'm projecting onto the author. And to think he wrote some of these stories back in the 1970's!
All in all, I enjoyed this collection.
October 18, 2023
There's a lot of very cool ideas in this, especially in the earlier stories in the collection. Then... well, I can psychoanalyze John Varley VERY well now and I don't like what I'm seeing. Basically, this collection devolves into a wild obsession with topics which are common in pulp sci-fi like this, but never given so much detail. Those topics being a fixation on incest and pedophilia and the combination of those, as well as a suspicious amount of fixation on pregnant bodies. I know your fetishes Varley. It's extremely gross.
I'll write a proper review soon. I'm used to pulp from this era going to these places- pretty much every sci fi man from this time seemed to collectively agree humanity WILL all be interested in sex with children it's insane- but Varley's interest is far more graphic and often disturbing.
Especially because, well, the stories also aren't any good. The titular one is one of the better ones, and again there's a lot of interesting and unique ideas, but without fail most stories completely fall flat at the ending and on reflection reflect nothing more than a weird guy's obsession with wanting to be a child again while also having sex with his mother.
(oh and obviously it's full of racism, more so than the time usually contains)
I'll write a proper review soon. I'm used to pulp from this era going to these places- pretty much every sci fi man from this time seemed to collectively agree humanity WILL all be interested in sex with children it's insane- but Varley's interest is far more graphic and often disturbing.
Especially because, well, the stories also aren't any good. The titular one is one of the better ones, and again there's a lot of interesting and unique ideas, but without fail most stories completely fall flat at the ending and on reflection reflect nothing more than a weird guy's obsession with wanting to be a child again while also having sex with his mother.
(oh and obviously it's full of racism, more so than the time usually contains)
March 6, 2018
A solid collection of stories from Varley's future-history universe. Notably, a large proportion of them explore themes of growing out of childhood, which in Varley's Seventies-inflected transhumanist society is very much a state of mind. "Goodbye, Robinson Crusoe" and the title story are standout examples. The Anna Louise Bach, policewoman of Luna, stories are also good, although taken together the Bach stories make the Moon seem like a really fucked up place. (Varley gets points for making his setting seem strange even after reading over a dozen stories about it, and even though [sex] Change ubiquity is perhaps his only sfnal innovation.)
The weak link of the bunch is "Beatnik Bayou," mostly because it has a lingering trace of the "something not okay" that made it impossible for me to recommend the first collection of his I read. Let's just say Varley's projected sexual libertinism feels weird coming off the page, though these stories seem to justify it better.
3.5 stars, rounded up to 4.
The weak link of the bunch is "Beatnik Bayou," mostly because it has a lingering trace of the "something not okay" that made it impossible for me to recommend the first collection of his I read. Let's just say Varley's projected sexual libertinism feels weird coming off the page, though these stories seem to justify it better.
3.5 stars, rounded up to 4.
February 21, 2010
Not the strongest Varley collection, but still one of my favorite short-story collections out there. I love love LOVE the story "Equinocital", not least because there's just nothing else like it: a romance between a woman and her biological sentient space suit. "Goodbye Robinson Caruso" does what Varley does best: show the interior workings of a world most people wouldn't think twice about. I wish "The Funhouse Effect" had been given a happier ending, because it's crazy-fun and nicely insane for most of it. And "Mannikins" was, eh, it was okay. I understand that Varley was trying to highlight the insane beliefs of a radical section of the population, but apparently he only added fuel to the fire.
I really wish John Varley hadn't jumped the shark with "Red Thunder", because this book is such a GREAT example of what he's capable of.
I really wish John Varley hadn't jumped the shark with "Red Thunder", because this book is such a GREAT example of what he's capable of.
November 7, 2017
Livre prit totalement par hasard dans la biblio de mes parents.
Il s'agit d'un recueil de nouvelles n'ayant que peu de liens entre elles. Certaines sont plutôt cool avec de bonnes idées mais j'ai eu un peu de mal avec le style de l'auteur que je trouve un peu daté. De même beaucoup des nouvelles partent de postulat que j'ai déjà pu lire dans d'autres livres de SF. Je ne pense pas que ces nouvelles me laissent un souvenir impérissable mais j'essaierai tout de même un autre livre de l'auteur, de préférence un roman, car dans l'ensemble je ne suis pas hyper fan de nouvelles.
Il s'agit d'un recueil de nouvelles n'ayant que peu de liens entre elles. Certaines sont plutôt cool avec de bonnes idées mais j'ai eu un peu de mal avec le style de l'auteur que je trouve un peu daté. De même beaucoup des nouvelles partent de postulat que j'ai déjà pu lire dans d'autres livres de SF. Je ne pense pas que ces nouvelles me laissent un souvenir impérissable mais j'essaierai tout de même un autre livre de l'auteur, de préférence un roman, car dans l'ensemble je ne suis pas hyper fan de nouvelles.
July 27, 2011
Leave all your preconceptions at the front door folks, just read the one story and fall over, this is a tip top masterpiece from the start to the finish, every story is as acutely put together and the writing is like a top class brain surgeon on speed.............. When I was a kid I had one thought when I first read this, it was "If I can write half as well as this geezer I will die of pride..." Seriously John Varley is one of American science fictions best kept secrets.
January 5, 2014
Very good job of addressing the police-procedural/clone problem. Varley excels at unusual angles and solutions to the problems he poses for himself, and this is no exception. Recommended.
January 1, 2018
Aside from one story in this collection ("Beatnik Bayou"), all the stories date from the same period of time as the stories included in Varley's excellent first collection _The Persistence of Vision_. After the first 100 pages of this book I figured this was sort of a second-rate collection of that material because the first several stories don't _quite_ work as well as most of the stories in the previous collection (indeed, a few of the ones further into the book aren't as good either, particularly "Lollipop and the Tar Baby"). However, there are a couple of excellent pieces here and, overall, the collection shows Varley working through some of the history and societal details that he would put into play in his later novel _Steel Beach_. By far the best story in the collection is "Equinoctial," a revenge story about a human forcibly separated from her Symb and their children in the rings of Saturn. "Manikins" is an interesting feminist story that _almost_ could have been written by Joanna Russ (I suspect the level of paranoia might have been taken down a notch or so if Russ had written it), and the story provides some interesting insight into why feminist social critics like Donna Haraway and Katie King at first embraced Varley's fiction (while later rejecting it). "Good-bye Robinson Crusoe" has some great moments, particularly the speculative angle into the potential problems of a Common Economic Market dominated by the inner planets at Pluto's expense. This story, however, ultimately is uneven and somewhat unsatisfactory because there is literally 4 different stories going on all at the same time and Varley seems unable to decide which one he like better or wants to tell more. The other outstanding piece is the title story (of the second printing, that is) "Picnic on Nearside" which is a Heinleinian juvenile in short story form about the differences in social customs among the "Earthborn" and those people born and raised on the moon after the aliens invaded and occupied Earth.
Ultimately, what this volume demonstrates to me (despite its unevenness compared to its predecessor) is that Varley was much better at writing shorter pieces than novels early in his career. This book and its companion are easily better than any of the novels in the _Gaea_ trilogy, and stand up to the best in the (still uneven) first novel by Varley, _The Ophiuchi Hotline_.
Ultimately, what this volume demonstrates to me (despite its unevenness compared to its predecessor) is that Varley was much better at writing shorter pieces than novels early in his career. This book and its companion are easily better than any of the novels in the _Gaea_ trilogy, and stand up to the best in the (still uneven) first novel by Varley, _The Ophiuchi Hotline_.
December 31, 2020
Начну с отступления. Знакомство с Варли у меня началось с эфиров Модели для сборки - "ЗВОНАРЬ" в прочтении Влада Коппа это настоящая конфетка для любителей детектива, научной фантастики и сильных женщин.
А ещё очень спорных идей. Очень. Спорных..."В городе Нью-Дрезден на Луне начинают пропадать беременные женщины. Полиция решает ловить на живца, и за дело среди прочих берётся офицер Бах, которой уже вот-вот рожать самой, и она вызвалась быть приманкой для серийного убийцы". Привет тем, кому зашёл комикс "THE FUSE".
Затем я прочла в одном из сборников премии Небьюла его "THE PERSISTENCE OF VISION" и потом ещё год пересказывала этот сюжет всем, кого встречала - "ребята, представляете, там главный герой шляется по Штатам и живёт там в разных коммунах, то с хиппи, то с нудистами, то ещё с кем, и вот дольше всего он останавливается у слепоглухих! И там потрясающе описано их общение между собой! Есть сцена, все сидят ужинают и один человек рассказывает жестовым языком (они слепоглухие, поэтому говорят прикосновениями, прямо всеми частями тела), и рассказывает соседу про смешной случай, и тот реагирует смехом, точнее жестом смеха своими пальцами по ладони рассказчика. И главный герой наблюдает, как этот забавный случай гуляет из одного конца стола в другой, и сопровождается осязаемой волной этого смеха".
Следующим рассказом, окончательно влюбившим в Варли, стали "УБИЙСТВА БАРБИ" от все того же Коппа и МДС. Снова Луна, снова офицер полиции Бах, снова исследование того, как люди могли бы жить и менять свои тела при наличии технологий; зачем бы они вообще делали и к чему бы это могло привести.
Сборник "THE BARBIE MURDERS" для меня представляет собой идеальный пробник творчества Варли благодаря формату short story, задающим достаточный сеттинг и дающий разгуляться воображению читателя.
Внутри вы найдете много секса, фантазий о базах от Луны до Плутона, порядочное количество юмора, и так много рассуждений о беременности и перемене пола, что я в сотый раз задаюсь вопросом, как же так получилось, что Варли - мужчина.
Любимая цитата, рассказ Equinoctial:
"Say, what are your names?"
"Army," said one of the girls.
"Navy," said another.
"Marine."
"Airforce."
"And Elephant," said the boy."
А ещё очень спорных идей. Очень. Спорных..."В городе Нью-Дрезден на Луне начинают пропадать беременные женщины. Полиция решает ловить на живца, и за дело среди прочих берётся офицер Бах, которой уже вот-вот рожать самой, и она вызвалась быть приманкой для серийного убийцы". Привет тем, кому зашёл комикс "THE FUSE".
Затем я прочла в одном из сборников премии Небьюла его "THE PERSISTENCE OF VISION" и потом ещё год пересказывала этот сюжет всем, кого встречала - "ребята, представляете, там главный герой шляется по Штатам и живёт там в разных коммунах, то с хиппи, то с нудистами, то ещё с кем, и вот дольше всего он останавливается у слепоглухих! И там потрясающе описано их общение между собой! Есть сцена, все сидят ужинают и один человек рассказывает жестовым языком (они слепоглухие, поэтому говорят прикосновениями, прямо всеми частями тела), и рассказывает соседу про смешной случай, и тот реагирует смехом, точнее жестом смеха своими пальцами по ладони рассказчика. И главный герой наблюдает, как этот забавный случай гуляет из одного конца стола в другой, и сопровождается осязаемой волной этого смеха".
Следующим рассказом, окончательно влюбившим в Варли, стали "УБИЙСТВА БАРБИ" от все того же Коппа и МДС. Снова Луна, снова офицер полиции Бах, снова исследование того, как люди могли бы жить и менять свои тела при наличии технологий; зачем бы они вообще делали и к чему бы это могло привести.
Сборник "THE BARBIE MURDERS" для меня представляет собой идеальный пробник творчества Варли благодаря формату short story, задающим достаточный сеттинг и дающий разгуляться воображению читателя.
Внутри вы найдете много секса, фантазий о базах от Луны до Плутона, порядочное количество юмора, и так много рассуждений о беременности и перемене пола, что я в сотый раз задаюсь вопросом, как же так получилось, что Варли - мужчина.
Любимая цитата, рассказ Equinoctial:
"Say, what are your names?"
"Army," said one of the girls.
"Navy," said another.
"Marine."
"Airforce."
"And Elephant," said the boy."
July 26, 2024
I can see why this collection and some of the stories within have won so many awards. As a collection each of the stories (though wildly different) take place in the same universe, but more importantly each is concerned with body manipulation/modification and the resulting psychological effects that follow. Most of the stories are patterned after coming-of-age stories, and a few of the protagonists are even pre-teen, but in every case the true psychological change is born out from what happens when we make a conscious decision to change the body we inhabit of our own volition. This is science fiction at its best when it explores a real scientific principle (the resulting development changes caused by puberty) and then extrapolates a future where that principle evolves or changes and how we as a race must evolve or change along with it. It's also writing at its best when the thematic center of the stories is tightly focused and each story is allowed to stand alone while adhering to the central concept that makes the stories significant and resonant.
August 22, 2024
“He showed me how to fertilise the egg plants and how to tell when they were ripe without breaking the shells to see. He told us the secrets of how to grow breadfruit trees so they’d yield loaves of dark brown, hard, whole wheat or the strangely different rye variety by grafting branches. I had never had rye before. And we learned to dig for potatoes and steakroots. We learned how to harvest honey and cheeses and tomatoes. We stripped bacon from the surface of porktree trunks.”
Nine science fiction stories written between 1974 and 1980, set in a universe where humans have been driven from Earth to live on the moon and the other planets, where changing sex is a normal part of growing up, indulged in more than once. In one story a couple have a child then exchange genders so they can both experience childbirth. Cloning and memory transfer enables people to re-live childhood and growing up.
He’s one of my favourite writers, a man of great imagination and humour.
Nine science fiction stories written between 1974 and 1980, set in a universe where humans have been driven from Earth to live on the moon and the other planets, where changing sex is a normal part of growing up, indulged in more than once. In one story a couple have a child then exchange genders so they can both experience childbirth. Cloning and memory transfer enables people to re-live childhood and growing up.
He’s one of my favourite writers, a man of great imagination and humour.
August 31, 2020
Like several of Varley's works, I've ready this collection many times. The stories are short but intense, not a moment of boredom even though few are "action" titles. I enjoy his world of the "Invasion" and the people that populate a post-Earth solar system where humanity has been permanently exiled from its birthplace. The short stories are very good, and of course "The Ophiuchi Hotline" is essential reading if you enjoy them.
Aside from that group of stories, Varley has a knack of creating convincing worlds peopled by a humanity that has moved far beyond today's, casually embracing technology that can change a person's appearance with little or no effort, and governed by benign machine intelligence (well, usually benign...).
This is an excellent introduction to Varley's earlier work. If you like it, there's plenty more to follow.
Aside from that group of stories, Varley has a knack of creating convincing worlds peopled by a humanity that has moved far beyond today's, casually embracing technology that can change a person's appearance with little or no effort, and governed by benign machine intelligence (well, usually benign...).
This is an excellent introduction to Varley's earlier work. If you like it, there's plenty more to follow.
February 17, 2021
A collection of standalone stories but all set in the same future, humans were kicked off the earth and now live on the moon and scattered around the solar system. Curiously, the exodus from earth is just treated as a past event, and humanity has pretty much moved on from there. Sexuality has changed a great deal, and humans generally seem to be doing OK, most of the time. In the final story we meet a character who was actually born on earth, and still holds some very strange views based on his weird religion, including a symbol like a plus sign with an extended leg. He's very concerned with sin, especially as he can't repent of his sins if he doesn't have the chance to commit any.
I enjoyed all these tales, and couldn't pick a favorite, they each have something to make the reader think and to question, and challenge our morality very nicely. I enjoyed it a lot.
I enjoyed all these tales, and couldn't pick a favorite, they each have something to make the reader think and to question, and challenge our morality very nicely. I enjoyed it a lot.
November 17, 2023
Fun collection of sci-fi short stories by John Varley. I’ve read a couple of his novels and enjoyed them and I found this collection just as enjoyable. Creative, weird, humorous & sad…..the stories run the gamut. Some of the stories are somewhat dated but still entertaining. This is one of my favorite speculative/sci-fi collections!
February 1, 2020
Just when I thought that Varley was about to disappoint me for the first time, as I couldn't really get into the first two or three stories from this collection, he shifts towards an excellent back half full of playful possibilities in symbiotes, clones, and gender-shifting.
March 27, 2023
4.5. Another great short story collection by Varley that exhibits his incredible imagination. Some of these stories like The Barbie Murders and Equinoctial were incredibly creative and show off what Varley does best. His stories, especially in his Eight Worlds universe in which most of these are set, touch on so many fascinating subjects and his writing is endlessly engaging. He often experiments with sexuality in ways that I find interesting, but unfortunately sometimes—like in the case of his story Beatnik Bayou—he goes too far by “experimenting” with sex and perceived ages (to put it generously). It all feels super icky, and while I can MAYBE see what he was going for back in the context of the 70s era of free love and his extrapolations to an ethically ambiguous transhumanist future, it certainly does NOT come across well in this decade.
October 26, 2017
A bit dated now.
December 24, 2021
-Gregory Kerkman
February 14, 2025
This is a collection of gripping stories. Four of them I remembered vividly, even though I read them in 1980 when the mass market paperback was published. I highly recommend it.
July 10, 2016
John Varley is my favourite science fiction author. This is largely due to "The Golden Globe," a light-hearted, whimsical tale of a dashing actor/conman named Sparky Valentine who attempts to make it from Pluto to Luna in under ten months to land a lead role in a production of King Lear, all the while trying to outrun a nigh-invicible mafia hitman. I read it last year and it was not only the best science fiction book I ever read, but one of the best books in general.
The problem is that I've subsequently read his bibliography in reverse order, and have watched his writing style decline rather than develop. The Barbie Murders is a collection of short stories written between 1974 and 1980, and while they're still very enjoyable, they're clearly the work of a much younger man.
Most of the stories are set in his Eight Worlds universe, in which humanity has been evicted from Earth by the omnipotent Invaders, left to survive on the remaining worlds of the solar system. In order:
"Bagatelle," about a police chief trying to negotiate with an intelligent nuclear bomb that has been placed on the main thoroughfare of Luna's biggest city;
"The Funhouse Effect," about an ill-fated cruise to the sun inside a converted comet;
"The Barbie Murders," about a detective trying to solve a murder committed by a woman from a cult-like community of 7,000 people who are exactly identical;
"Equinoctial," a bizarre story about a society of space-dwelling people who drift through the rings of Saturn;
"Manikins," an even more bizarre story about a woman in a mental ward claiming that all men are controlled by parasites (and the only story not set in the Eight Worlds);
"Beatnik Bayou," about growing up in the unusual education system of Luna;
"Good-Bye, Robinson Crusoe," about a kid living in an enormous underground biome on Pluto modelled to recreate the Pacific Ocean;
"Lollipop and the Tar Baby," about a spacer on the edge of the system who is disturbed to find a black hole talking to her;
and "Picnic on Nearside," the first story Varley ever wrote for the Eight Worlds, about a kid who takes a joyride to the abandoned "nearside" of the moon and discovers a hermit living among the empty ruins.
On the whole, the stories are good, just not quite as good as "The Golden Globe." They're almost up to scratch with "Steel Beach," though, and a whole lot tighter. On the whole, this is a book I bought out of a desire to read the author's entire catalogue, and not something I'd reccomend to the average reader. Do go out and buy the Golden Globe, though.
The problem is that I've subsequently read his bibliography in reverse order, and have watched his writing style decline rather than develop. The Barbie Murders is a collection of short stories written between 1974 and 1980, and while they're still very enjoyable, they're clearly the work of a much younger man.
Most of the stories are set in his Eight Worlds universe, in which humanity has been evicted from Earth by the omnipotent Invaders, left to survive on the remaining worlds of the solar system. In order:
"Bagatelle," about a police chief trying to negotiate with an intelligent nuclear bomb that has been placed on the main thoroughfare of Luna's biggest city;
"The Funhouse Effect," about an ill-fated cruise to the sun inside a converted comet;
"The Barbie Murders," about a detective trying to solve a murder committed by a woman from a cult-like community of 7,000 people who are exactly identical;
"Equinoctial," a bizarre story about a society of space-dwelling people who drift through the rings of Saturn;
"Manikins," an even more bizarre story about a woman in a mental ward claiming that all men are controlled by parasites (and the only story not set in the Eight Worlds);
"Beatnik Bayou," about growing up in the unusual education system of Luna;
"Good-Bye, Robinson Crusoe," about a kid living in an enormous underground biome on Pluto modelled to recreate the Pacific Ocean;
"Lollipop and the Tar Baby," about a spacer on the edge of the system who is disturbed to find a black hole talking to her;
and "Picnic on Nearside," the first story Varley ever wrote for the Eight Worlds, about a kid who takes a joyride to the abandoned "nearside" of the moon and discovers a hermit living among the empty ruins.
On the whole, the stories are good, just not quite as good as "The Golden Globe." They're almost up to scratch with "Steel Beach," though, and a whole lot tighter. On the whole, this is a book I bought out of a desire to read the author's entire catalogue, and not something I'd reccomend to the average reader. Do go out and buy the Golden Globe, though.
June 2, 2012
Original review from 2004
A book of short stories by one of my favourite authors, set in the same world as other stories of his that I have read, a world where humans have spread throughout the solar system, but are exiled from the earth which has been invaded by aliens. People routinely change sex many times in a lifetime and other surgical body modifications are common - such as replacing your feet with peds (large handlike appendages) as an adaptation to free-fall.
The title story is a murder mystery set in a town populated by a religious sect all of whom have been surgically altered to look identical (like genderless barbie dolls), so that the police coming from a neighbouring town find it very hard to investigate a crime where the victim, purpetrator and witnesses are all identical. The barbies make things even harder for the police since they don't think of themselves as individuals and don't see why it matters if the wrong person is charged with the crime since they are all interchangeable.
Added after 2012 re-read
"I think we're being followed."
"Wha'?" He looked behind him as he bounced along in her wake. There was someone back there, all right. They turned a corner and Solace hauled Quester into a dimly lit alcove, bumping his head roughly against the wall. He was getting fed up with this business of being dragged. If this was an adventure, he was Winnie-the-Pooh following Christopher Robin up the stairs. He started to object, but she clapped a hand around his mouth, holding him close.
"Shhh," she hissed.
I found the stories in this collection much less memorable than those in " Persistence of Vision", as the only two that I remembered at all from my previous read were the title story and "Picnic on Nearside". In the case of "Bagatelle", when I heard an audio version on a podcast a few months ago, it didn't ring any bells at all and I had no idea that I had ever read it before (even though you'd think that a cyborg bomb threatening to blow up a city on Luna would be fairly memorable). "Manikins", which isn't set in the Eight Worlds, was one of the most interesting (I always knew there was something odd about men!), but my favourites were probably "Bagatelle" and "Picnic on Nearside".
A book of short stories by one of my favourite authors, set in the same world as other stories of his that I have read, a world where humans have spread throughout the solar system, but are exiled from the earth which has been invaded by aliens. People routinely change sex many times in a lifetime and other surgical body modifications are common - such as replacing your feet with peds (large handlike appendages) as an adaptation to free-fall.
The title story is a murder mystery set in a town populated by a religious sect all of whom have been surgically altered to look identical (like genderless barbie dolls), so that the police coming from a neighbouring town find it very hard to investigate a crime where the victim, purpetrator and witnesses are all identical. The barbies make things even harder for the police since they don't think of themselves as individuals and don't see why it matters if the wrong person is charged with the crime since they are all interchangeable.
Added after 2012 re-read
"I think we're being followed."
"Wha'?" He looked behind him as he bounced along in her wake. There was someone back there, all right. They turned a corner and Solace hauled Quester into a dimly lit alcove, bumping his head roughly against the wall. He was getting fed up with this business of being dragged. If this was an adventure, he was Winnie-the-Pooh following Christopher Robin up the stairs. He started to object, but she clapped a hand around his mouth, holding him close.
"Shhh," she hissed.
I found the stories in this collection much less memorable than those in " Persistence of Vision", as the only two that I remembered at all from my previous read were the title story and "Picnic on Nearside". In the case of "Bagatelle", when I heard an audio version on a podcast a few months ago, it didn't ring any bells at all and I had no idea that I had ever read it before (even though you'd think that a cyborg bomb threatening to blow up a city on Luna would be fairly memorable). "Manikins", which isn't set in the Eight Worlds, was one of the most interesting (I always knew there was something odd about men!), but my favourites were probably "Bagatelle" and "Picnic on Nearside".
September 9, 2007
A re-read, I picked up a used copy of Picnic on Nearside sometime last year.
John Varley writes most of his short stories in the same "universe" - Earth was invaded a few centuries ago and humankind has dispersed to Luna, the moons of Jupiter and various other locations around the solar system. Most of the population on Luna lives in large subterranean urban enclaves, with occasional visits to environments that imitate regions of Old Earth. "Goodbye, Robinson Crusoe" is set in a South Seas disneyland.
Gene manipulation has become an art; some individuals choose to join with a symb, a plant-like creature that melds with the human to allow them to live in the rings of Saturn. The story "Equinoctial" explores this concept quite well.
Cloning and the recording of memories not only allows for near-immortality, but also for switching genders, pretty much at a whim. Needless to say, this puts some interesting twists on sex and love, which Varley is all too willing to explore. Most of the stories tie into this concept in some way.
This collection does have one recurring character, Municipal Police Chief Anna-Louise Bach - she appears in "Bagatelle" and "The Barbie Murders" (the original title of the book; Mattel must've thrown a fit & it was changed).
IMHO, Varley does a good job at making the technology secondary to the plot and character development, showing how individuals and society have adapted to the new environment. I'm personally a little more fond of his short stories than his novels, but I'd recommend most any of his writing to open-minded skiffy fans.
John Varley writes most of his short stories in the same "universe" - Earth was invaded a few centuries ago and humankind has dispersed to Luna, the moons of Jupiter and various other locations around the solar system. Most of the population on Luna lives in large subterranean urban enclaves, with occasional visits to environments that imitate regions of Old Earth. "Goodbye, Robinson Crusoe" is set in a South Seas disneyland.
Gene manipulation has become an art; some individuals choose to join with a symb, a plant-like creature that melds with the human to allow them to live in the rings of Saturn. The story "Equinoctial" explores this concept quite well.
Cloning and the recording of memories not only allows for near-immortality, but also for switching genders, pretty much at a whim. Needless to say, this puts some interesting twists on sex and love, which Varley is all too willing to explore. Most of the stories tie into this concept in some way.
This collection does have one recurring character, Municipal Police Chief Anna-Louise Bach - she appears in "Bagatelle" and "The Barbie Murders" (the original title of the book; Mattel must've thrown a fit & it was changed).
IMHO, Varley does a good job at making the technology secondary to the plot and character development, showing how individuals and society have adapted to the new environment. I'm personally a little more fond of his short stories than his novels, but I'd recommend most any of his writing to open-minded skiffy fans.
October 22, 2014
This is a pretty solid collection of shorts, most set in the same universe (post-alien invasion, the remains of humanity inhabit the moon and outer planets--a concept I'd like to see explored itself in more detail, which it apaprently is in one of the novels set in the universe). The stories vary from SF crime drama--including the title story, one of the best in the collection--through humour/satire, space opera, and in one case a sort of slipstream story that may be SF or may be delusion. This latter one is the least interesting in the book, except perhaps the humour one, which comes across as rather forced. All are concerned with the post-human to some degree; the one recurring motif is the plasticity of the human body and therefore of human identity. The title story is to me the most successful, as an exploration of the intractibly perverse natur eof humans: in a world in which one can choose any body type and gender, choosing to join a sect in which the belief system insists on everyone being as close to the same as possible, in order to create a scenario in which yuo can perversely pretend ot have a unique identity, is a fascinating concept. other of the stories, though, just fall flat, to me, anyway, though all ar einventive and involve some pretty extreme ideas of what constitutes the human and of what constitutes normative behaviour.
June 4, 2009
So much fun. Reading short Sci-Fi stories from the 70's. I especially love the one of the opposing religious factions waging war over painting Saterns' rings red. >.> delightful.
Now that i;ve finished the book:
intrigued by the concept of medical science allowing sex changes at a whim, to the point that experincing both sides of gender is a regular part of puberty. little bit distubed with the casual references to incest. Equionoxcial? is that right? i dont have the book handy to refernce struck a cord with me as a mother going to any lenghts to reclaim her babies. love the names too. i like how the author pulls you into a different world and life each storie, even though the most all take place in the same universe, and the way he addresses basic humananity in suce bizarre ways. the confusion of puberty, the need to escape adulthood and feed the inner child, makes us question our grasp on reality, the desire to conform or rebel in secret (barbies), and in lollipop and the tar baby, i liked to idea of do we really make the only choice avalable to us or do we just choose to see it that way as an excuse to do what we want?
much much more than just a collection of simple sci-fi stories. will read again probally very soon
Now that i;ve finished the book:
intrigued by the concept of medical science allowing sex changes at a whim, to the point that experincing both sides of gender is a regular part of puberty. little bit distubed with the casual references to incest. Equionoxcial? is that right? i dont have the book handy to refernce struck a cord with me as a mother going to any lenghts to reclaim her babies. love the names too. i like how the author pulls you into a different world and life each storie, even though the most all take place in the same universe, and the way he addresses basic humananity in suce bizarre ways. the confusion of puberty, the need to escape adulthood and feed the inner child, makes us question our grasp on reality, the desire to conform or rebel in secret (barbies), and in lollipop and the tar baby, i liked to idea of do we really make the only choice avalable to us or do we just choose to see it that way as an excuse to do what we want?
much much more than just a collection of simple sci-fi stories. will read again probally very soon
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