Blue Champagne

Rating:
Summary: All his short stories are must-reads; novels are optional
Review: By Ed Burkhead

John Varley is a truly excellent author of short stories -- the best. His short stories are mostly set in a future in which some aliens have taken exception to mankind's use of Earth. They destroyed civilization and most of mankind then left. And it's not possible to return to Earth. That's just the backdrop, the situation.

Civilization off Earth, on the planets and moons of the solar system, has recovered and has a dynamic vibrancy. Technology has advanced. Cosmetic surgery has matured. A true, reversable sex change takes a day off work. A space suit is a force field a millimeter from your sking with the power pack and air supply replacing one lung. And Varley tells of people I care about.

Varley's short stories are written in a way that lets you clearly see the story and the places. Several other readers have described his stories to me in the words I choose also: "clarity of vision." Varley also has enough imagination for five authors.

Big WARNING about this book, Blue Champaign. Most of Varley's stories are upbeat. A minor percentage of the stories Varley has written have sad, unhappy, or somewhat depressing endings. "Blue Champaign" is all of his down-beat stories collected into a single volume. They are excellent but be warned. Don't read them when you are feeling down.

I recommend all his other books with no reservations at all.

Rating:
Summary: Book of really excellent short stories, but...
Review: By Ed Burkhead

John Varley is a truly excellent author of short stories -- the best. His short stories are mostly set in a future in which some aliens have taken exception to mankind's use of Earth. They destroyed civilization and most of mankind then left. And it's not possible to return to Earth. That's just the backdrop, the situation.

Civilization off Earth, on the planets and moons of the solar system, has recovered and has a dynamic vibrancy. Technology has advanced. Cosmetic surgery has matured. A true, reversable sex change takes a day off work. A space suit is a force field a millimeter from your sking with the power pack and air supply replacing one lung. And Varley tells of people I care about.

Varley's short stories are written in a way that lets you clearly see the story and the places. Several other readers have described his stories to me in the words I choose also: "clarity of vision." Varley also has enough imagination for five authors.

Big WARNING about this book, Blue Champaign. Most of Varley's stories are upbeat. A minor percentage of the stories Varley has written have sad, unhappy, or somewhat depressing endings. "Blue Champaign" is all of his down-beat stories collected into a single volume. They are excellent but be warned. Don't read them when you are feeling down.

I recommend all his other books with no reservations at all.

Rating:
Summary: All his short stories are must-reads; novels are optional
Review: I've read almost all John Varley's books and give my highest recommendation to ALL his collections of short stories: this one, Tango Charlie, Barbie Murders, etc. I loved the world he created and the way he continued it throughout all his short story collections. Read together, they present such regular features as symbs, an alien lifeforce that enters its human, after which the two coexist symbiotically in a most tender and intimate manner; their thus-transformed biochemistry is how both can work around Saturn's moons, where there's a continuing subplot of eco-monkey-wrenchers who are painting the rocks. Characters in the culture change their sex, not without soul searching, and experience their surroundings and relationships in enlightening new ways, and sometimes change back. I read everything I could get my hands on in one stream, and recommend your doing the same with all his short stories. They are wonderful read collectively. A couple of stand outs: Blue Champagne, about a gold cybernetic prostetis body for a paraplegic; Press Enter, about a unrelentingly evil computer; Tango Charlie, about a child who for years, with her pets, is the sole survivor on a space ship. (And it's been a decade since I read them). Enjoy!

Conversely, I found his trilogy to be mediocre, tolerable, okay sci fi fare. Fun if you need something to read.

Steel Beach gave me an ache. Without knowing a thing about the author's personal life, my immediate hit on it was that he's had too much psychotherapy, or something. I missed the brilliant voice of the short stories and could sense it there throughout Steel Beach, but it was as if the creative metaphors had been analyzed too much, taking most of the life out of them, or the talking cure was still going on but now in writing. The remaining glimmers and my respect for his past work kept me reading.

Still and all, a great sci fi writer. Don't miss the short stories, one more time!

Rating:
Summary: Varley's best collection.
Review: If you're tired of namby-pamby upbeat SF in "future perfect" tense, this book is for you. I can't believe it is out of print! It should be required reading for any true fan of science fiction. The stories are enthralling; the characters' lives are compelling. You'll lose yourself in Varley's vision.

Rating:
Summary: Sip Carefully
Review: Like most short story collections, this is something of a mixed bag. But as it contains some examples of Varley at his best, and his best is at the top of the field, it is an important collection for any serious fan of his, and good reading for everyone.

"The Pusher" is a very quiet story that will bring to the fore some unconscious assumptions most people have when hearing about an adult male interacting with an pre-adolescent female. In this case, those assumptions are exploded by the story's middle, and there is a serious investigation of just what types of emotional stress a near-light speed traveler would be subjected to, and what he can do about it. A unique look at a problem that just might be somewhere in humanity's future.

The title story, "Blue Champagne", didn't do very much for me, though it shows a remarkable imagination in its construction of a very unique champagne 'glass' and a very different approach to help for nerve damage that the medical profession is only now beginning to attempt. But it should be read before the next story "Tango Charlie and Foxtrot Romeo" both for some common background elements and a shared character. "Tango" is the best story here, an achingly emotional story about a girl raised in isolation by a computer on a space station that had been decimated by a plague so virulent that it was projected to wipe out all human life if it ever escaped from the station. Now the station's orbit is deteriorating and it must be destroyed, and the girl can't be rescued. Finely written, with some twists that are not expectable, and not overplayed.

"Press Enter " is the Hugo and Nebula Award winning story that will make all the believers in world-wide conspiracies, mystery fans, and the computer nerds very happy. This is a more plot driven story than some of the others here, but with more than enough character to engage your heart as well as your mind.

The only truly insignificant story here is "The Manhattan Phone Book (Abridged)", which is a compilation of very short vignettes of representative people from that book, who no longer exist. Happily it's a really short story. The rest of the stories are what I call average; quite readable and enjoyable, but not ones that will make you sit up and take notice or remember for very long.

There is something of a theme that runs through many of the stories here, that of the alienated, isolated individual trying to cope with the world, which gives these stories a feeling of darkness, a somberness tempered by Varley's resolutions to his character's problems.

A good introduction to Varley for those who haven't read any of his other work, with enough excellent stories to make you want to come back for more, and will repay your time spent reading with an expanded view of both the world and the human condition.

--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

Rating:
Summary: a title
Review: Some Science fiction has great ideas, others have great characterizations. The best stories in Blue Champagne stand out in my mind because they have both. Real emotional depth of character and a well-formed extrapolation of technology and its related issues. There are a couple stories which are throw aways/filler - manhattan phone book and varley yarns - but even these 'stories' are amusingly ironic and worthy additions

Rating:
Summary: a title
Review: Some Science fiction has great ideas, others have great characterizations. The best stories in Blue Champagne stand out in my mind because they have both. Real emotional depth of character and a well-formed extrapolation of technology and its related issues. There are a couple stories which are throw aways/filler - manhattan phone book and varley yarns - but even these 'stories' are amusingly ironic and worthy additions

Rating:
Summary: Varley at his peak, don't miss Titan and Wizard as well.
Review: When I read the Titan trilogy some years ago I was bowled over by Varley's creativity. His complex metaphors based on biblical images, his mathematical logic with the Titanide runes and reproduction, and his development of relationships that transcended like-species. These things and more all combined to make me scour the bookstores for more of his work. When I found Blue Champagne, I was delighted. It is, as the previous reviewer mentioned on the down-side, but haunting. The title-piece has stayed in my memory and continued to tease me with unanswerable questions. From that time on I watched for new Varley releases. Steel Beach ended my watching for new works. The title is apt, it was a grey/grey book. Strange beyond sad, no one to care for, and the sorrow for this reader was very real. Savor the Blue Champagne. It is a fine vintage.