| John Varley | |
| Birth Name: | John Herbert Varley |
| Birth Date: | August 9, 1947 |
| Birth Place: | Austin, Texas, U.S. |
| Occupation: | Novelist, short story writer |
| Alma Mater: | Michigan State University |
| Period: | 1974–present |
| Genre: | Science fiction |
John Herbert Varley (born August 9, 1947) is an American science fiction writer.
Varley was born in Austin, Texas. He grew up in Fort Worth, moved to Port Arthur in 1957, graduated from Nederland High School—all in Texas—and went to Michigan State University on a National Merit Scholarship. He started as a physics major, switched to English, then left school before his 20th birthday and arrived in Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco just in time for the "Summer of Love" in 1967. There he worked at various unskilled jobs, depended on St. Anthony's Mission for meals, and panhandled outside the Cala Market on Stanyan Street (since closed) before deciding that writing had to be a better way to make a living. He was serendipitously present at Woodstock in 1969 when his car ran out of gas a half-mile away. He also has lived at various times in Portland and Eugene, Oregon, New York City, San Francisco again, Berkeley, and Los Angeles.
Varley has written several novels (his first attempt, Gas Giant, was, he admits, "pretty bad") and numerous short stories, many of them in a future history, "The Eight Worlds". These stories are set a century or two after a race of mysterious and omnipotent aliens, the Invaders, have almost completely eradicated humans from the Earth (they regard whales and dolphins to be the superior Terran lifeforms and humans only a dangerous infestation). But humans have inhabited virtually every other corner of the solar system, often through the use of biological modifications learned, in part, by eavesdropping on alien communications.
Varley's "Overdrawn at the Memory Bank" was adapted and televised for PBS in 1983. In addition, two of his short stories ("Options" and "Blue Champagne") were adapted into episodes of the short-lived 1998 Sci-Fi Channel TV series Welcome to Paradox.
Varley spent some years in Hollywood but the only tangible result of this stint was the film Millennium. Of his Millennium experience Varley said:
Varley is often compared to Robert A. Heinlein. In addition to a similarly descriptive writing style, similarities include a libertarian political perspective and advocacy of free love. Two of his connected novels, Steel Beach and The Golden Globe, include a sub-society of Heinleiners.[1] The Golden Globe also contains a society evolved from a prison colony on Pluto and a second society evolved from it on Pluto's moon, Charon, similar to the situation found in Heinlein's The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. Unlike Heinlein's lunar society, Varley's convict society on Charon maintains its criminal ways and is similar to the Mafia or the yakuza. His Thunder and Lightning series plays on his connection with Heinlein by deriving its main characters' names from many of Heinlein's characters, including Jubal, Manuel Garcia, Kelly, Podkayne, Cassie, and Polly, and by frequently dropping titles of Heinlein's novels in the dialogue.
| Year | Title | Series | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1977 | The Ophiuchi Hotline | Eight Worlds | Locus SF Award nominee, 1978[2] |
| 1979 | Titan | Gaea Trilogy | Nebula Award nominee, 1979;[3] Locus SF Award winner and Hugo nominee, 1980[4] |
| 1980 | Wizard | Gaea Trilogy | Hugo and Locus SF Awards nominee, 1981[5] |
| 1983 | Millennium | Philip K. Dick Award nominee, 1983;[6] Hugo and Locus Awards nominee, 1984[7] | |
| 1984 | Demon | Gaea Trilogy | Locus SF Award nominee, 1985[8] |
| 1992 | Steel Beach | Eight Worlds | Hugo and Locus SF Award nominee, 1993[9] |
| 1998 | The Golden Globe | Eight Worlds | Prometheus Award winner, 1999; Locus SF Award nominee, 1999[10] |
| 2003 | Red Thunder | Thunder and Lightning | Endeavour Award winner, 2004; Campbell Award nominee, 2004[11] |
| 2005 | Mammoth | ||
| 2006 | Red Lightning | Thunder and Lightning | |
| 2008 | Rolling Thunder | Thunder and Lightning | |
| 2012 | Slow Apocalypse | ||
| 2014 | Dark Lightning | Thunder and Lightning | |
| 2018 | Irontown Blues | Eight Worlds | |
Varley has won the Hugo Award three times:
and has been nominated a further twelve times.
He has won the Nebula Award twice:
and has been nominated a further six times.
He has won the Locus Award ten times:
Varley has also won the Jupiter Award, the Prix Tour-Apollo Award, several Seiun Awards, Endeavour Award, 2009 Robert A. Heinlein Award and others.