The Persistence of Vision

by John Varley

Introduction · Algis Budrys · in
The Phantom of Kansas · nv Galaxy Feb ’76
Air Raid [as by Herb Boehm] · ss IASFM Spr ’77
Retrograde Summer · nv F&SF Feb ’75
The Black Hole Passes · nv F&SF Jun ’75
In the Hall of the Martian Kings · na F&SF Feb ’77
In the Bowl · nv F&SF Dec ’75
Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance · nv Galaxy Jul ’76
Overdrawn at the Memory Bank · nv Galaxy May ’76
The Persistence of Vision · na F&SF Mar ’78

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Speculative Fiction, Anthologies, Fantasy

288 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published February 1, 1977

About the author

Full 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.

Reviews

[Peter Tillman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Varley's first collection, when he was writing stories at white heat. 6 of the 8 stories are from his "Eight Worlds" universe. The Jim Burns cover art is for "Retrograde Summer," on Mercury. Overall, not quite as good as I remembered them -- but both "The Phantom of Kansas" (free copy online) and "In the Hall of the Martian Kings" are wonderful: 5+ stars! Collection overall, 3.5-ish stars.

• Introduction (The Persistence of Vision) • essay by Algis Budrys. This has already repaid my reread time. Budrys was an uncommonly astute critic. He writes, regarding forewords and afterwords, “A story that needs to have words said about it, is a story that does not contain all its own right words."

• The Phantom of Kansas • [Eight Worlds] • (1976) • novelette. Hugo nominee, 1977. Fox, a composer of weather symphonies, is being stalked by a serial killer -- of herself. Fox-4 is determined to survive, and is writing her masterwork. Very strong story, an easy 5+ stars. You can read it here, https://varley.net/excerpt/the-phanto.... Varley writes about his unsold screenplay here, https://varley.net/nonfiction/varleyl...
Sample:
"I felt thirty meters tall with lightning in my hair and a crown of shimmering frost. I walked through the Kansas autumn, the brown, rolling, featureless prairie before the red or white man came. It was the way the real Kansas looked now under the rule of the Invaders, who had ripped up the barbed wire, smoothed over the furrows, dismantled the cities and railroads and let the buffalo roam once more. ... The Kansas disneyland has two million head of buffalo and I envisioned up to twenty-five twisters at one time. How do you keep the two separate?"

All this plus a great, teary, romantic ending. And the CC turns out to be a big softy. What a great story!

• Air Raid • (1977) • short story. Hugo & Nebula nominee, 1978. Filmed as "Millenium." Story online at https://www.baen.com/Chapters/9781625... Not reread, but it's a unique & very cool story. Don't miss!
• Retrograde Summer • [Eight Worlds] • (1975) • novelette. Nebula nominee, 1976. Life on Mercury. Clone sisters visit the quicksilver grotto. Eh. 3 stars or less. I used to like this one, but the Suck Fairy has come by....
• The Black Hole Passes • [Eight Worlds] • (1975) • novelette. Romance at a distance, between two observers on the Ophiuchi Hotline, out beyond Pluto. Then the titular event.... I used to like this one, but it hasn't aged well.

• In the Hall of the Martian Kings • (1977) • novella. Hugo & Ditmar nominee, 1978. This is a *wonderful* story, starting with a tragedy, which leads to a great discovery, and evolves, seemingly by accident, into the first successful Human colony on Mars. Except it's not really an accident... A classic, 5+ stars. So much better than "The Martian"! This might be my favorite Varley standalone.

• In the Bowl • [Eight Worlds] • (1975) • novelette. Nebula nominee, 1976. Um. I think I'll let you read James Nicoll's comments on this one (link in Comment 3). OK story, icky ending. Suck Fairy, again!
• Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance • [Eight Worlds] • (1976) • novelette . Hugo nominee, 1977. Barnum & Bailey, a symb pair from the Rings, stop in the studio to record their music. Good story, 3.3 stars.

• Overdrawn at the Memory Bank • [Eight Worlds] • (1976) • novelette. Good story, though not as good as I remembered. 2.5 stars.

• The Persistence of Vision • (1978) • novella. Won the Hugo, Nebula & Locus awards. Finally! Not reread, and I've never much liked it. But you should read it, and decide for yourself.

This and "Blue Champagne" have the core of the classic Varley shorts. It's probably easier to find the 2004 reprint collection, "The John Varley Reader" TOC: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?3... --a fine omnibus too.

[Story notes from my 2018 reread.]

[Christopher Paolini · Rating 5 out of 5]

Varley has written a number of excellent books – The Golden Globe being one of my favorites – but I’d recommend starting with this short story collection. Each story is beautifully written, and the titular entry won both the Hugo and the Nebula. Deservedly so, in my opinion. As a writer, Varley manages to capture the weirdness of humanity without losing the ability to write believable characters. He also does a great job of evoking a sense of wonder about the possibilities of our future . . . You know, after writing that, I think I have to go read his work again!

[Erik Graff · Rating 5 out of 5]

While "Overdrawn at the Memory Bank" is good, "The Persistence of Vision" is extraordinarily good.

Although set in the near future, "Persistence" has no other science fiction elements. The story is about a vagabound moving from one countercultural community to the next in the southwest, then ending up to stay quite a while with one qualitatively different than the rest. On land leased from the Navaho, this community was set up by several dozen deaf-blind persons who had grown up institutionally together after a fictional rubella outbreak. Granted money by the government after a series of law suits initiated after they reach their majority, they are able to hire professional help and acquire the land and equipment they need for a self-sustaining community. Established when the protagonist arrives, his entry into the community is facilitated by the fact that their children, the eldest of whom is now thirteen, are hearing and sighted.

I dated and eventually wed a hometown girl who was going deaf when I met her and had become completely deaf by the time of our marriage. Consequently, I learned American Sign Language, Signed English and enough hand-to-hand method to be able to speak to deaf-blind persons. Thus, Varley's tale made some immediate sense to me, particularly as the protagonist is just beginning to adapt to the world of the deaf-blind.

The world of these people is one of total, body-to-body communication whereby secret keeping and deception are impossible and interactions occur three-dimensionally between people. We, the protagonist learns, are the cripples, our reliance on denotative languages and logics lacking a dimension while allowing not only social but self-deception. Lines that bound our lives intertwine in theirs, including sexual and gender lines.

This novella not only made me think very critically about my personal limitations but inspired me to some enthusiasm about untapped human potentials.

[Lyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

“I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that” - Meatloaf

John Varley’s 1978 multiple award winning novella (Hugo, Nebula, etc) was sort of science fiction, sort of fiction about science. And it gets lots of attention due to some scenes of sex with a minor.

Many fans of Varley, and Heinlein, join with the writers in their celebration of free love - until actual descriptions of unorthodox practices.

I’ve read Lolita and several works by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and this is not that. But -

Anyway, our protagonist, is roaming around being a hippy, visiting communes and exploring whatever he can find. He discovers a collective in New Mexico populated by blind and deaf folks - called Heller - and they have developed a unique way of communicating called body talk. Most everyone is naked and they talk to one another by intricate touching and feeling that includes what we call sex. For them it is all a part of the communication and Varley explores the freedoms associated with tossing out social mores in this context.

A ubiquitous theme in Varley’s cannon is gender fluidity and experimentation with sexual customs, usually with the idea of demolishing conservative ideas about sexuality. This was technically more about communication and how language effects the way a population interacts, but the sex scenes are the most memorable, if nothing else just because of the unusual nature of the interchanges.

I love his writing and this has received oodles of accolades but this was not my favorite of his.

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[Michael Finocchiaro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really hard to get past the author’s Lolita obsession. Some of the stories were great, but sexually active 11- and 13-year olds just put me off.

[Olethros · Rating 3 out of 5]

-Desde las ideas, abrumador y original para su tiempo.-

Género. Relatos.

Lo que nos cuenta. Seis relatos de Ciencia-Ficción, escritos entre 1975 y 1978, todos publicados previamente en dos conocidas revistas de género y uno de ellos multipremiado, con tres relatos menos que la edición original (vaya usted a saber la razón), que tratan temas tan dispares como los efectos de determinados tipos de música a través de la tecnología, las consecuencias de un accidente en una colonia en Marte, el manejo de un incidente por el cual la conciencia de un hombre queda separada de su cuerpo, la vida en una comunidad de ciegos, mudos y sordos, la búsqueda de unas extrañas joyas minerales de sorprendentes propiedades y otro incidente entre conciencias de un mismo individuo.

¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...

[Jamie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title piece, The Persistence of Vision, 1979 Hugo and Nebula award winner for best novella, is a beautifully written tale of a wanderer who discovers an enigmatic, isolated desert community for the blind and deaf. More speculative fiction than sci-fi, reminiscent of Theodore Sturgeon. There is however a VERY disturbing thread of the story concerning a sexual relationship between the main character, a 47 year old man, and a 13 year old girl. Although consensual, and considered acceptable within the society the author constructs, which is primitive in many ways, having shed modern socio-cultural norms, it's of course an absolutely abhorrent notion.

[Kat Hooper · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a post-apocalyptic near-future, a middle-aged drifter roams from commune to commune in the Southwest United States. Each of these groups has its own culture and he stays a while at each, doing whatever he needs (e.g., going nude, praying, chanting “Hare Krishna”) to fit in while he’s there. This works well for him — he stays fed and sheltered and moves on when he’s ready for a change of scenery.

But when he comes across a walled-in settlement in the middle of Native American land, he finds that he can never fit in because the group who lives there are the adult descendents of women who contracted rubella while pregnant. All of these adults are both deaf and blind, though their children are not. At first the drifter is fascinated by the ways they’ve developed to get around their “handicap,” but soon he learns that, in their community, he’s the one with the disability because he will never be able to understand their language — a language that is a lot deeper than mere spoken words could ever be.

As someone who spends a lot of time thinking about perception, I was fascinated by a culture that can’t see or hear, and I enjoyed the parts of the story that dealt with how the group overcame their obstacles. Also, the idea that communication without the masks of fake facial expressions and deceptive body language could be more informative than the “normal” methods is appealing. We get a lot of information about someone’s internal state through visual and auditory cues and it’s hard to imagine that tactile methods could compensate for missing this input, but John Varley is suggesting that people who are born blind and deaf might develop these sorts of paranormal abilities when normal sensory input is lacking. It is true that some people who are blind or deaf have sensory abilities that seeing and hearing people don’t have, or at least never realized they have (e.g., blindsight, echolocation). Perhaps Varley’s idea isn’t so far-fetched.

The Persistence of Vision, which won both the Hugo and Nebula awards, will make you think. It will make you consider what kinds of wonderful abilities might be unmasked if you lost some of your “normal” abilities. Would it be worth the price?

I listened to Peter Ganim narrate the audio version produced by Audible Frontiers. It was a great production and I’m pleased to see so many Hugo- and Nebula-awarded stories in their catalog.

[Baal Of · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the main themes that Varley explores repeatedly is that of gender fluidity and the boundaries of human identity, as well as some transgressive ideas around sexual mores. These themes are placed inside a science fiction framework which gives Varley a lot of latitude, or perhaps an excuse, to indulge in a couple particularly creepy love interests. Behind these glaring flaws there are some fascinating speculative ideas, with a lot of paranoia, isolation, and breaking down of entrenched behaviors. The title story gets a lot of attention, for good reasons. I initially found it boring, but by the second half I was more engaged partially because I had problems with a lot of the premises. Blindness is commonly romanticized in popular culture with a mythology of other senses being enhanced to the point of magic (Daredevil, et al.) Here Varley combines it with deafness to create an even more magical enhancement of total and perfect physical communication that eventually led to the people having essentially some kind of telepathic remote abilities, and then transcending. The idea that people would be unable to figure out how to lie with physical communication seems to underestimate the human capacity for deception. WRT to loss of senses, there doesn't seem to be a comparable romanticization of the lack of touch, or taste or smell for that matter; I've never heard anyone claim that someone has enhanced sight because of their loss of smell and taste. In any case, these stories sparked a lot of thoughts.

[Ric · Rating 5 out of 5]

These stories are from the early Varley, circa the Gaia series (Titan being one of them), way before the more recent Thunder and Mars books, with the author at the peak of his creative genius (IMHO). I like his work primarily for the way he paints striking and memorable images: the explorers trapped in the bowl, the blind-deaf-mutes having a meal. The title story is worth the effort if you only have time or patience to read just one. But then, like cinnamon licorice sticks, you won't be able to stop at just one.

[Oscar · Rating 3 out of 5]

‘La persistencia de la visión’ es una recopilación de relatos de ciencia ficción de John Varley, que mezcla ideas filosóficas y especulativas, con temas emocionales. Teniendo en cuenta que estos cuentos datan de la década de los setenta, resulta extraordinario el saber hacer de Varley para adelantarse en ciertos temas relacionados con el ciberpunk y la posibilidad de duplicar mentes y almacenarlas en ordenadores.

Estos son los seis relatos incluidos en esta edición de Orbis:

La persistencia de la visión (****), donde el protagonista, en su personal peregrinaje, se encuentra una extraña comuna de sordo-ciegos. Interesante relato donde sobresale la concepción del lenguaje.

En el cuenco (***), donde el protagonista, de viaje en Venus en busca de unas extrañas piedras, entabla amistad con una niña, Ascua, que acabará ayudándole. Bueno, sin más

Cantad, bailad (***), donde conocemos a una extraño simbionte de vegetal y humano que busca ayuda con su nueva composición musical. Normal.

Perdido en el banco de memoria (***), donde el protagonista, que había introducido su mente en un felino como entretenimiento, se entera de que han perdido su cuerpo y no puede regresar. Buen relato.

En el salón de los reyes marcianos (***), donde un grupo de astronautas en Marte sufre un percance que los obliga a permanecer en el planeta hasta la llegada de ayuda. El relato trata de las interacciones entre ellos, y el descubrimiento de la extraña raza marciana. Buen relato.

El fantasma de Kansas (**), donde la protagonista se entera del robo de memorias de su banco, y del asesinato de algunas de sus copias. Interesante.

[Thom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite a good collection of stories; one of them later expanded into the novel (and later film) Millennium. My favorites were In the Hall of the Martian Kings - which felt like Weir's The Martian only with Martians! - and the title story The Persistence of Vision. A very creative compilation, and well recommended.

[Jenn · Rating 1 out of 5]

A 47 year old man has sex with a thirteen year old girl with no consequences and no discussion of the impact. A woman who meets her clone and just HAS to have sex with him. Pass.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most acclaimed works of 20th-century science fiction, and rereading it today only reinforces its status as a landmark achievement.

Varley, a writer known for bold speculation and humanistic insight, infuses this novella with both intellectual daring and emotional vulnerability. It remains a remarkable blend of anthropological fiction, disability studies, and speculative philosophy.

The premise is deceptively simple: a drifter encounters a secluded community whose members are both blind and deaf, having created a new system of communication and culture beyond conventional norms. But Varley transforms this setup into a profound exploration of perception, identity, and the limits of empathy.

The brilliance of the story lies in the way Varley renders the community’s communication system. It is tactile, flowing, and strikingly beautiful—an embodied language that forces both protagonist and reader to rethink the hierarchy of senses.

Rather than presenting disability as a limitation, Varley frames it as an evolutionary divergence. This community is not surviving despite sensory differences; it is thriving because of them. Its members embody a unity, trust, and intimacy unavailable in mainstream society.

Varley’s prose is lucid, elegant, and quietly intense. He never lectures; instead, he guides the reader through discovery as the protagonist learns the new language, the rhythms of communal life, and the philosophical foundations that support it.

The narrative structure mirrors the protagonist’s gradual immersion, creating a powerful sense of transformation.

One of the most striking themes is the contrast between modern civilisation’s noise—literal, emotional, ideological—and the community’s serenity.

Varley suggests that the sensory overload of contemporary life leads to alienation, whereas the absence of sight and sound in this community fosters deep presence. The protagonist becomes a kind of spiritual exile, torn between the corrosive world he comes from and the inviting, structured calm he discovers.

The story’s emotional climax, understated but devastating, involves a choice between embracing this radically different life or returning to the familiar. Varley handles this moment with maturity and restraint.

The protagonist's longing to remain—and the reasons he cannot—create a haunting critique of how society shapes identity and restricts possibility.

What makes The Persistence of Vision endure is its compassionate engagement with difference. Varley neither romanticises disability nor reduces it to metaphor. Instead, he offers a speculative anthropology that respects the internal logic and dignity of the community he imagines.

This is science fiction at its finest—ambitious, humane, challenging, and deeply moving.

It is a story that transforms the reader’s understanding of perception and communication, echoing long after the final page.

Varley’s masterpiece persists because it forces us to confront the boundaries of our own vision and dares us to imagine beyond them.

[Viktor · Rating 2 out of 5]

I last read this when I was 15 or so. At the time, all the hippy nonsense and weird, 70's sex stuff was -- ahem -- "thought-provoking", but now it's just hippy nonsense and weird 70's sex stuff. You know. Sex with clones. Sex with plants. Sex with children. Yep. If there's a young girl in a story, rest assured she will offer herself sexually to the older protagonist.

It's a shame, because most of this book and most of each story is terrific. YMMV.

[Aeo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Colección de relatos muy recomendable que trata muchos temas tecnológicos y modernos como las IA, la clonación, la realidad virtual, la colonización de otros mundos o la libertad sexual. Me ha sorprendido lo adelantado que fue a otros autores más actuales en algunos aspectos en una recopilación muy entretenida. Como pega tengo que tirarle un poco de las orejas por el tratamiento de algunos aspectos sexuales bastante sensibles hoy en día.

[Mike Moore · Rating 2 out of 5]

A mixed bag. Some of the stories are interesting, but the details are almost uniformly silly ("we don't have to worry about infection anymore, because we sterilized the earth") and the narratives tend to feel locked into inevitable courses. Varley's stories fall into that brand of speculative fiction where the resolution and the premise are identical, so once you realize what's going on in any given story there's nothing left for him to say.

The author is obsessed with physicality, and the most interesting as well as the most banal elements of his stories deal with the body, presence and communion. Sex is prevalent in every story, but is curiously unexamined even when dealing with behaviors that would seem to deserve a little extra consideration (I don't think that an author should blithely posit that 12-14 year-olds be considered sexual peers of people in their 40s without a little bit of exposition). Varley is also deeply invested in ideas of the Noble Savage (in various forms). All of this leads to a repetitive quality in many of the stories here, as even stories that seem on the surface to be completely different ("The Persistence of Vision" and "Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance", for instance) end up exploring the same themes in much the same way.

[Lea · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful thought experiment any student of the senses and ethnographic writing will love. It's amazing how well it aged- written in '78, it had eerily accurate descriptions of the current economic depression. Parts of it made me uncomfortable- probably one of the best features of the book was the author's ability to honestly translate the complex emotions of stepping outside one's own culture.

[Lois Tucker · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Varley is extraordinary at the short story. Blue Champagne, Ophiuchi Hotline, Millennium, Persistence of Vision (what are the rest? include all of them) all the 70's short story collections hang together to form a sci fi world that's progressive and connected and feminist.... I loved them. Check out ALL his short stories. Skip the novels.

I read A LOT of classic sci fi, hundreds on hundreds of books in the 70s, and these are my favorite, plus some of Heinlein's.

[Erich Franz Linner-Guzmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting story. And I think that is one of the main reasons why I liked it so much. And when I say interesting, I mean weird, strange just very odd. It is about a commune where the people are deaf and blind and how they all get along with one another. John Varley does a great job at describing the community and how they all live. A fantastic tale, but like I said very odd indeed.

[Bondama · Rating 5 out of 5]

This Hugo and Nebula Award winning short novel is one of the most eye-opening and emotionally rending works that I have ever encountered in a lifetime devoted to reading. Do NOT miss this one.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a collection of short stories John Varley wrote in the 70s. Most of them take place in the same universe—the Eight Worlds universe—as his novel, The Ophiuchi Hotline. So those stories make use of memory recordings, cloning, commonplace sex changes, nullfields, AI, and humanity's exile from Earth.

Stories that aren't part of Eight Worlds universe are marked with an *.

"The Phantom of Kansas" - A woman who composes meteorological symphonies can't recall how she crafted her most successful work because she keeps getting murdered. Told not as horror or thriller, but more as a puzzle to be solved. Begs the question: Is sex with your clone considered masturbation?

"Air Raid" * - Someone hijacked the plane! Terrorists? Nope, time travelers. This story became the kernel for what would become Varley's novel, Millennium.

"Retrograde Summer" - While swimming on mercury on Mercury, a young man learns about his family's past. It was ok. I didn't care for the details revealed about families in the Eight Worlds series. While I'm not privy to the details of Varley's divorce from his wife, I suspect that this story might've been his way of processing it.

"The Black Hole Passes" - Unrequited love between a self-absorbed, lonely, whiny guy and a tech-savvy woman that goes on for too long. Not sure why she bothers with him. I guess she's bored listening in on the signals coming from 70 Ophiuchi. And then the black hole comes along to make the story interesting.

"In the Hall of the Martian Kings" * - A group of astronauts are marooned on Mars. The outcome is very different from The Martian. One of two stories in this collection where Varley explores what sort of society arises when free of the constraints imposed by our contemporary civilization.

"In the Bowl" - Rock hunting on Venus. Would've been better—believable—if the character of Ember was, say, five to ten years older. I have a difficult time believing that an eleven-year-old can have the necessary acumen to be a doctor.

"Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance" - Symbs—human - plant symbiotes that like to float around in space around Saturn—apparently make the best music composers, but need the help of a music producer to get the songs out of their heads. Maybe sex will help.

"Overdrawn at the Memory Bank" - A child's prank leads to protagonist's mind getting trapped inside a computer. Apart from that, it bears no resemblance to the PBS TV movie version that starred Raul Julia.

"The Persistence of Vision" * - In a collapsing America, a drifter wanders into a commune for the deaf-blind. At times, it takes on the tone of an anthropologist who, as he learns more about their society, wants to become accepted as one of the tribe.

There are three stories in this collection where I wish Varley had aged his female characters five to ten years. I don't get Varley's Lolita-esque flirtations with his characters. I know the sexual revolution hit sci-fi authors hard in the 70s, but this seems creepy at best. Fortunately, not a problem in his novels.

The best stories in the bunch are the ones that don't take place in the Eight Worlds universe: "Air Raid," "In the Hall of the Martian Kings," and "The Persistence of Vision." Each of these stories demonstrate how well Varley can craft an interesting story, build a world on a limited word count budget, and solid characters. The Eight Worlds stories all annoyed me in some fashion, leaving me to shake my head. And I couldn't help but put my editor's hat on and note how each story could be better.

Recommended for Varley completists or those with a Jared Diamond level of cultural objectivity.

2.5 stars rounded down for obvious reasons.

[Jose Cruz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Recopilación de relatos de ciencia ficción de 256 páginas, publicada en 1977. En un futuro distópico, una comunidad de sordos, mudos y ciegos deben organizarse y comunicarse para crear una micro sociedad que les permita sobrevivir. En otro relato, un geólogo viaja de turista a Venus, allí conocerá a una muchacha que ha aprendido medicotécnica por su cuenta. Otro espléndido relato nos habla de los cubos de memoria donde se pueden hacer copias de nuestro cerebro en caso de muerte por accidente. Con una pluma ágil y atrapante, he disfrutado mucho de las historias de este autor. De lectura recomendada para los amantes del género.

[Barry Saiff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent collection of stories. The title story is one of the greatest works of short fiction ever written. It is the story of a group of people who lack sight, vision, and hearing. It depicts how they communicate and relate, and the organic culture they create based upon their own lived experience. It will enrich the soul of any reader. Reading this story is like travelling to another planet, where humans understand things we mostly forgot sometime during childhood.

[Durval Menezes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic collection of stories from the 60s/70s by an author totally new to me.

I owe the recommendation to Heavy Metal magazine, which now that I have access to the entire collection, I'm re/reading from the very first issue, and paying special attention to the parts like the interview and review columns which I tended to skip when I was younger and reading it for the first time; this author (John Varley) was mentioned as the preferred author of someone being interviewed, and in quite glowing terms, which led me to seek out this short story collection (best way I've found so far to introduce myself to a new author).

About the stories themselves, I will next just copy/paste the "reading progress" notes I made after reading each one, with some additions (GoodReads limits the length of these notes too much) and some light editing:

February 15, 2024 – 0% "Started reading this. Was recommended by Samuel R. "Chip" Delaney, as part of an interview he gave to Heavy Metal Magazine, published on their 1983/01 issue, at p.7."

February 15 -- 4% "Great introduction by Algys Budrys!"

February 18, 2024 –17% ""The Phantom of Kansas": interesting concepts (what did it mean to be "me", backing up people's minds and restoring them on cloned bodies when they die, what is "art", to mention just a few". The narrative is also nicely done. The ending is a little 'meh', but well, you can't have everything -- my rating is 3.5 for this one."

February 19, 2024 –26% ""Air Raid": One of the best time-travel stories I've read, ever -- with post-apocalypse undertones and a very unconventional airplane hijack added to the mix. Incredible it could be done so well in so few pages! Recommended without reservation, rating 5/5 -- would give it 6 stars if I could."

February 25, 2024 –29% ""Retrograde Summer": the complexities of family life in an interplanetary society where traveling to Pluto takes 9 days, multiple sex changes are common, ditto cloning, fatherhood is little more than insemination, and children can divorce their mothers. To top of off, the author adds a prediction about Mercury that Science only confirmed recently -- doesn't feel like 70s SciFi at all, but rather much more recent. Rating: 4/5."

February 26, 2024 – 37% ""The Black Hole Passes": amazing tale about a First Contact of the SETI variety. Good hypothesis as to why we haven't heard from any alien civilizations so far. Mix it with black holes as a source of both danger and riches, plus the sexual tension between lovers that have never met but see each other every day, and you have a good description for this story. Rating 4.5/5."

March 2, 2024 – 52% ""In The Hall of the Martian Kings": great short story, reads a bit like "The Martian" by Weir, but at the same time completely different. Also a First Contact story but in a very unexpected way. Ending was a bit 'meh ', partly because of a big time jump right before it (and therefore too little space to explain the latest happenings, leaving them a little 'in the air), plus a minor suspension of disbelief issue. Even so, rating 4.5/5."

March 5, 2024 – 62% ""In the Bowl": humans settling in Venus, from the perspective of a crash tourist on a clock looking to make a buck. Touches on a subject that would be (rightfully) considered taboo in today's culture (sexual interest between a very mature 13-year old girl and an adult man, initiated/instigated by the girl and resisted by the guy). Interesting ideas like force-field suits and crystal-based life forms. Overall I rate it at 3.5/5 stars."

March 31, 2024 – 83% ""Overdrawn at the Memory Bank": this must be one of the pioneer stories about Virtual Reality and brain-computer interfaces. And it has aged well, at the present time when many of its then-speculations are turning into reality, it still reads as a fresh and interesting tale. My rating: 4/5."

April 8, 2024 – 100% ""The Persistence of Vision": I've mixed feelings about this story. Eponymous with the book, it's not Science Fiction by any measure, despite being certainly speculative -- more like a 'social experiment' story. It's about a restless person (the protagonist) finding utopia; about Language (note the big L) and how it not only conditions how and what we can see of the world, but the ways a society can organize around it. Only minus is the end, kinda 'meh' -- too enigmatic and also leaves you wishing for more, but more isn't coming so it's a bit frustrating. Despite that, a fantastic story -- I rate it 4.5/5.

Overall, my rating for this book is 4.5/5, which I'm rounding up to 5 stars. And I should add that I'm very pleased with this new-to-me author and will certainly be reading more from him.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a wonderful story! It is possible to acquire it for free. The story appeared in anthologies one can "borrow" at the Internet Library. Just search on the story title and author name. I instead chose to purchase Varley's short story collection at Amazon for $4.99, and I am glad I did. For that price one gets a large collection: six novelettes (clearly Varley's preferred form), two novellas, and a short story. The novella we are reading for our group is the last one in the collection. But I suspect the other stories will be well worth reading someday too.

It's easy to see how this novella won so many awards in 1979. The concepts are startlingly original, yet completely reasonable if one considers the starting premises out to their logical conclusion. I debated, but have decided not to in any way spoil the story by indicating much about Varley's starting premise. You can read about the premise somewhat in other reviews, but I don't recommend it. Just start reading the story.

I do need to provide one caveat. The story takes a surprisingly long time to get started. I didn't like this story in the beginning. It starts out like a social studies text of a late twentieth century dystopia that Varley got completely wrong. The late twentieth century was nowhere near as dismal as Varley thought it would be. If you were alive and socially aware in 1979 you might remember the number one album of the year was the drive-one-to-commit-suicide Pink Floyd's The Wall. In the early 1980s we all anticipated being blown up in a worldwide nuclear catastrophe that would bring on Nuclear Winter for the unlucky survivors, if there were any. We had dwindling natural resources, gasoline would be all out by 2005 at the latest, runaway double-digit inflation, twenty percent unemployment in many communities, drugs everywhere, race riots, and a president wearing rose-tinted lenses for his world view. It was grim times and Varley is writing amidst these.

The story plot starts out as a depressing reminder of this 1979 world. However, once the protagonist reaches the commune in which the story takes place, it shifts gears and becomes a story well worth taking the time to read. You'll never read another like it. Highly recommended.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

There had never been a blind-deaf community operating on its own. They had no expectations to satisfy, they did not need to live as the sighted did. They were alone. There was no one to tell them not to do something simply because it was not done.

They had no clearer idea of what their society would be than anyone else. They had been forced into a mold that was not relevant to their needs, but beyond that they didn't know. They would search out the behavior that made sense, the moral things for blind-deaf people to do. They understood the basic principals of morals: that nothing is moral always, and anything is moral under the right circumstances. It all had to do with social context. They were starting from a blank slate, with no models to follow.

John Varley's novella The Persistence of Vision was published in the late 1970s, about the same time as Lucifer's Hammer. Both books examine humanity struggling in post-apocalyptic settings, of communities coming together to survive when a national government is no longer effective. The striking difference, though, is Varley's novella focuses on a large group of blind-deaf people who wish to create a community meaningful for them.

Note in my quoted passage above the insistence on the relativity of "morals." This comes into play when our intrepid narrator begins to have sexual relations (under the guise of "talking with the body") with a thirteen year old girl who, evidently, has a lot to say. Varley intentionally chooses this character to challenge readers about sexuality. The nudity, genital fondling, and orgiastic nature of this community is a bit much and is, obviously, distracting. Is this speculative fiction or soft porn? I'm not the fan who believes both necessarily elevate a work.

Varley's dystopia is fascinating. I wish his narrator had spent more time exploring the landscape instead of settling down in the blind-deaf commune. While it is certainly dated in matters of sexuality and communal lifestyles, the underlying premise--that our society is more fragile than enduring--provides enough impetus to propel the plot forward and maintain interest. Not the best speculative fiction from the time, but definitely of the time.

[Minifig · Rating 4 out of 5]

La antología "La persistencia de la visión" es una interesante colección de relatos de John Varley. Recoge seis de sus obras: dos novelas cortas, entre ellas La persistencia de la visión la ganadora del premio Nebula y que da nombre a la antología) y cuatro relatos, entre ellos tres de la saga de los ocho mundos.

El conjunto de historias escogidas permite acercarse a la obra de Varley. En ellas se aprecia un estilo sencillo, poco literario pero claro y directo que transmite con eficacia y fluidez las ideas del autor.

Aunque algunos de los escenarios (especialmente los de la saga de los ocho mundos) son típicos de la edad de oro, las especulaciones de Varley y su tratamiento del sexo son más dignas de la nueva ola. Algunas, incluso, son más modernas. Así, aquellos relatos en los que los personajes almacenan sus mentes en holocubos a modo de copia de seguridad o en los que sus consciencias viven en espacios simulados lo acercan por su enfoque (técnico y especulativo, muy diferente del de otros autores más cercanos cronológicamente a él como Philip K. Dick) a obras tan modernas como las de Greg Egan.

Se trata, en definitiva, de una antología fácil de leer, muy interesante en las ideas que plantea y que ofrece una buena perspectiva sobre la obra de su autor.

Muy recomendable.

[+] Reseñas completas de la antología "La persistencia de la visión" y de sus relatos en Alt+64 wiki: http://alt64.org/wiki/index.php?title...

[Cristina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a nice little compilation of John Varley's early short stories. If you don't know who John Varley is, you should know a few things. First, he's one of those classic 70s and 80s sci-fi writes who tackle those ubiquitous "science fiction" issues that still define the genre today: artificial intelligence, the role of computers in humanity, and societal issues. When I read the collection, I was truck how elemental sci-fi used to be--how authors used to truly explore how technology affected humanity. I was left wondering how sci-fi had become a more gimmicky genre nowadays. But I digress.

John Varley is an unusual writer in hard sci-fi for two nortable reasons. First, he has an affinity for female protagonists, a nice change of pace from the usually male-dominanted genre. All of his female characters that I've read so far are real--John Varley has little use for female archetypes. Second, he deals, either indirectly or directly, with sexuality in his writings. In all of the stories I've read, our human sexual urges are interweaved into the story in a very natural and non-patronizing way. Varley definitely espouses a more sexually liberated society (hey, the dude was in the Haight-Ashbury district in its heyday, so i guess we can't blame him!) but he always acknowledges the difficulty of achieving such liberation.

Now, on to "The Persistence of Vision," the titular short story (and the final one in the book). The other stories are often good, sometimes even very good, but this one is the one you should definitely read. It won the Hugo and Nebula awards for a reason.

The story starts off with the simple premise of a middle-aged drifter put on the unemployment roster once again in the depression-prone America. He decides to hitchhike his way from Chicago to California, passing through the famous communes of New Mexico. When he comes upon a walled-off settlement in the remote countryside, his curiosity is piqued. When a Native American tells him that the commune is full of deafblind people, the legacy of a Rubella outbreak in the 60s, the man decides to meet them.

What he finds is a sort of utopia, one painstakingly designed for the deafblind, not adaptations of sighted or hearing habits. Their language is a fully tactile one that requires so much bodily contact that people become so well attuned to one another that they become ... well, read and you'll see. Varley exhibits a great amount of sensitivity to the deafblind, often pointing out well-thought-out details. (Such as the deafblind having to learn nearly everything from books, not from anyone else ... and the problems within the solution.)

Varley writes in his signature plan and unpretentious style, which adds credence to the seemingly preposterous idea (I speak as someone who actually is deafblind. And trust me, a community of the deafblind would be hard to set up.) The unnamed drifter describes the community--called Keller, a rough translation--as an outsider, but he isn't judgmental or critical. He simply wants to undersatnd, which makes him a good narrator in this case.

The one quibble, and I always seem to have one, is that the narrative gets clunky and choppy at times. The narrator sometimes jumps back and forth between explaining the backstory of Keller and the story at present. This isn't the smoothest story in terms of technique, but the content of it is definitely worth reading.

[Stephen Gallup · Rating 4 out of 5]

Back in my first real job after college, a coworker urged me to read this then-new collection of stories. At the time, I naively supposed that familiarity with the "old masters" of science fiction (Asimov, Bradbury, et al.) was sufficient. Varley was one of the authors who made me realize how much more great stuff was out there.

In a gap between other titles, I've just revisited this, and it's still very good. The first story, "The Phantom of Kansas," is the one I remember most clearly and the one I still like most. At the time it came out, the idea was just so deliciously original and yet plausible that I felt it deserved an award. Since then, other good writers have played with the same material (Lexi Revellian springs to mind), and now I see where the subject (uploading one's memory and consciousness to a computer for subsequent download into another body) may actually become reality. Prophesy/forecasting is one of sci-fi's extra claims to legitimacy, as if it needed 'em.

If Varley can predict what's coming, the outlook may not be so good for Mother Earth. There doesn't seem to be anything particularly interesting or nice happening on the Earth of his future (the clearest depictions of which, in the title piece, are unnervingly familiar). The good news is that humanity has moved beyond its confines--finding comfortable (and to a certain extent virtual) havens in tunnels carved out of the Moon and even on the surfaces of Mars, Venus, Mercury, and a moon of Saturn. In that respect, this is a sunny, optimistic take on life some centuries hence. All the stories are about overcoming limitations through novel means, which are themselves really the most interesting aspect of what's happening. (I'll go along with another reviewer who said the plots themselves aren't particularly important. At least, I generally found what happens to be less interesting than the depictions of alternative ways of living.)

Another key point to be made is that all of these stories are really about intimacy, and more specifically about how intimacy creates something greater than the individual--something that's even called an "organism" near the end.