>
> Joshua Bell wrote:
>
> > There's a series? Cool - more books to find! Any pointers to
> > good web sites?
> > http://www.strangewords.com/archive/eightworlds.html
> > has the background (and SPOILERS), but isn't terribly detailed.
>
> There aren't very many books. It was mostly a series of short
> stories, with only a couple of novels: OPHIUCHI HOTLINE and
> STEEL BEACH. I think the TITAN trilogy is also sorta loosely
> connected with Eight Worlds. I think you can find just about
> all of the short stories in PERSISTENCE OF VISION and PICNIC
> ON NEARSIDE. BTW, that reminds me... I was going to illustrate
> the story set on Mercury... If I just slapped a chrome texture
> on a male and female Poser person, I'd be almost there... :-)
Ah - John Varley - only know that cause I recognized the titles. No, TITAN
is *not* Eight Worlds, it's a very different future and one of those books
that try to out-do Rama for Biggest Alien Artifact (or is that life
forM)? in the solar system....Varley *does* have a flair for the reeeeally
bizarre, wacky genengineered life forms or people wiith strange body
modifications. That comes across in Eight WOrlds as well as in the Titan
trilogy where a kind of mad god being was going around creating life. TIme
to change thread title if this goes on - it's the Varley sub thread.
BTW did you ever read Varley's "Press Enter<cursor symbol>" ? It came out
the same year as Neuromancer, won the Hugo the same year as Neuromancer,
but instead of cyberpunk it's pure paranoid computer phobia....one of t he
greatest paranoia stories ever written I think, as well as a love
story. Oh, and the gruesome suicide-by-microwave-oven thing isn't
something you forget.
Kristin
