What do you think?
Rate this book
In The Hall Of The Martian Kings
=In the Hall of the Martian Kings
El mundo en el que se mueven los personajes de JOHN VARLEY es un mundo lógico, coherente, en el que los avances de la ciencia y de la técnica no han restado nada de humanidad a los seres que viven en él. Y así, en los disneylandias subterraneos de la Luna, una mujer puede crear una gran sinfonía climatológica mientras su cuerpo muere y resucita una y otra vez, o los seres de un lejano futuro degradado buscan sangre nueva «capturando» en el pasado a personas a punto de morir de accidente, o -en el relato que da título al volumen- los expedicionarios varados en Marte tras un accidente pueden llegar a descubrir que la vida marciana es algo muy distinto a lo que la humanidad ha creído siempre.
Contiene los siguientes relatos:
-En el Salón de los Reyes Marcianos
-El Fantasma de Kansas
-Incursión Aérea
-Verano Retrógrado
-El Paso del Agujero Negro
El mundo en el que se mueven los personajes de JOHN VARLEY es un mundo lógico, coherente, en el que los avances de la ciencia y de la técnica no han restado nada de humanidad a los seres que viven en él. Y así, en los disneylandias subterraneos de la Luna, una mujer puede crear una gran sinfonía climatológica mientras su cuerpo muere y resucita una y otra vez, o los seres de un lejano futuro degradado buscan sangre nueva «capturando» en el pasado a personas a punto de morir de accidente, o -en el relato que da título al volumen- los expedicionarios varados en Marte tras un accidente pueden llegar a descubrir que la vida marciana es algo muy distinto a lo que la humanidad ha creído siempre.
Contiene los siguientes relatos:
-En el Salón de los Reyes Marcianos
-El Fantasma de Kansas
-Incursión Aérea
-Verano Retrógrado
-El Paso del Agujero Negro
316 pages, Paperback
Published October 5, 1978
67 people want to read
About the author
John Varley
233 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.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
October 14, 2014
El presente volumen incluye cinco relatos, entre ellos los tres que me faltaban por leer del original y no venían en ‘La persistencia de la visión’:
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.
Incursión aérea (*), donde unos extraños humanos hacen su aparición en pleno desastre aéreo en une especie de rescate. Muy flojo.
Verano retrógrado (**), donde el protagonista, en Mercurio, recibe la llegada de su hermana procedente de la Luna, y al poco sabremos de sus secretos familiares. Flojo.
El paso del agujero negro (**), donde los protagonistas, un hombre y una mujer, mantienen una relación holográfica, pese a estar separados millones de kilómetros. Flojo.
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.
Incursión aérea (*), donde unos extraños humanos hacen su aparición en pleno desastre aéreo en une especie de rescate. Muy flojo.
Verano retrógrado (**), donde el protagonista, en Mercurio, recibe la llegada de su hermana procedente de la Luna, y al poco sabremos de sus secretos familiares. Flojo.
El paso del agujero negro (**), donde los protagonistas, un hombre y una mujer, mantienen una relación holográfica, pese a estar separados millones de kilómetros. Flojo.
June 17, 2015
Interesting speculation by a wildly inventive author writing in the 1970's, but I found the male middle-aged protagonists lusting after mostly naked pubescent girls, um, well, creepy, yeah that's it, creepy.
September 2, 2024
Part of my birthday present last year was two collections of John Varley's short fiction, and I was excited to dig into them because his short story "Options," which I had just read, was much better than his novel *Mammoth* or his novella "Charlie Tango and Foxtrot Romeo" and actually got me interested in his work. Now - over a year later - I've finally read some of it, and I have to say, it didn't disappoint. It wasn't amazing, and most of these stories had their warts, but there was also some inventive concepts and enough entertainment value for a few good days of reading.
--It kicks off with "The Phantom of Kansas," an Eight Worlds story where the main character is an ecological artist who creates immersive art experiences out of storms and other simulated weather activities. She starts off getting her mind scanned shortly after her "bank" - where they keep not only money but recordings of their clients' minds to be used in case they die, which is revealed brilliantly through some paradigm shift in the first couple pages - is robbed, but she wakes to find she's been killed twice since that scan, and now she, technically a clone, must figure out who killed her while grappling with the fact that a version of her whose experiences she can't remember was the one who created her magnum opus which she is now known for. The novelette deals with ahead-of-its-time things like jacking into computers and clones trying to solve their predecessors' murders (I'm sure it's not the first, but it's still respectable) and delivers a good yarn even though the ending was both predictable (with how ) and weirder than it should've been (with ) - seriously, they're not bad themes, but they needed some actual foreshadowing! It does seem a bit like a younger writer trying to juggle too many plates, but I did enjoy the color, and it is a good starting point for the rest of the stories which end up following it. 7.5/10.
--Just like how "The Phantom of Kansas" deals with clones investigating their own murder(s), "Air Raid" deals with the complex trope of people from the future trying to repopulate their society with people from the past. This has been done in short fiction by the likes of Kress and y Robertson and novels like Leiber's *The Big Time*, but it's done a little differently here because the ones doing the stealing are . It's brutal and atmospheric and does the whole conceptual breakthrough thing well - I think it deserves an 8/10 even if my individual reading of it was a little too fuzzy.
--"Retrograde Summer" was the first gender-bending Eight Worlds tale which didn't stick in my head all too well. It's about a guy on Mercury who's set to meet his long-lost sibling - they've been separated due to population control rules their whole lives - and he's rather nervous. There's some nice familial drama but overall it didn't really grab me, possibly because it didn't involve all the concepts as other "Eight Worlds" stories, like "The Phantom of Kansas," despite doing more of the gender-bending... 7/10.
--"The Black Hole Passes" doesn't read like an Eight Worlds story (even though I see it's supposed to tie right into *The Ophiuchi Hotline"), but it does still read well. It's about two space stations owned by different companies meant to monitor and collect alien transmissions, and the relationship between the two operators is both hostile and hopelessly romantic. Things take a turn from the interesting world and character dynamic when the man's space station is about to get slurped up by a black hole and it turns into a tense survival story, which actually make it all less exciting, but it's still a good romp that makes me want to read that novel. 7.75/10.
--The title story for my UK edition was "In the Hall of the Martian Kings" - not just a play on the title of a bouncy classical piece but also an exploration of what happens when a human colony on Mars releases chemicals which make Mars enter the equivalent of its wet season, after which a group of explorers now must survive for years without human support. It was good but the back half about has mysteriously slipped from my brain - and I thought it had been engaging... still, a good precursor to contemporary SF from *The Martian* to Tchaikovsky's . 7.5/10.
--The last one I'll complain about recollection with is "In the Bowl," another Eight Worlds story. It's about a guy searching for blast-jewels and ends up taking a teenage girl as a guide. And then imagines him as his wife and... yeah, it's weird, and a bit aimless. In the guy's defense; years might have been longer on this planet, and that might've been taken into account. Either way, when contemporary readers complain about this book, "In the Bowl"'s "pedophilia" is one of the big reasons why; for me, while that's still a concern, it also just wasn't as layered or engaging. 7/10.
--"Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance" returns to success with this Varleyan transhumanistic tale of a human-symbiote thing which sails through space and has returned to Janus to get some of its "music" recorded. The talent agent they work with is a "normal" female and they have some interesting conversations (and about the symbiote experience and it's all about music and it's all a bit meaningful. It didn't quite stick it to me, especially the kind of bleary middle half, but its imagery is evocative and its mix of elements compelling. 7.75/10.
--"Overdrawn at the Memory Bank" is an Eight Worlds story that flirts with the mind-uploading technology we saw in "The Phantom of Kansas," but this time it's used to help a man spend his vacation as a lioness. But at the end of the vacation, he's told his body has been stolen, and they have nowhere to but his body, so he's going to have to hold onto his sanity. He does his best and tries to learn computer science to pass the time, but it's not exactly helped by . It's just a fun, heartening ending that's bouncy and quirky and hopeful while the rest of the story also has a more humorous bent than a lot of Varley, but... it works. I daresay it's worth an 8/10.
--Finally, "The Persistence of Vision" - the titular story of most copies of this book - is the volume's crowning jewel. It's about a commune full of "Kellerites" and their interaction with a man who stays with them while wandering the American Southwest in the middle of one of the cyclical "non-depressions." The Kellerites have children who can see and hear, and the way the generations interact (and how our main character interacts with the different generations) is pretty interesting. And there's just this feeling of gravitas, this style of classic prose, the inherent wonder behind these themes, that makes this something... more. I can't place my finger on it even though I feel like I've read this before, so I can't give it full marks, but... I felt something like a lingering effect after I finished it. A strong 8.5/10 and the best piece of Varley I've read to date.
This collection is a bit all over the board - there are flavorful and moving pieces of science fiction as well as some things that have completely fallen through the holes in my memory's net - so I don't think I can go higher than a 7.5/10, but I really did enjoy this collection. It was the right read at the right time - even if it was a tad fuzzy - and it made me more interested in that other Varley collection and some of his novels. He was a somewhat distinct voice, and a pleasurable one at that. Stay tuned for more Varley and more science fiction...
--It kicks off with "The Phantom of Kansas," an Eight Worlds story where the main character is an ecological artist who creates immersive art experiences out of storms and other simulated weather activities. She starts off getting her mind scanned shortly after her "bank" - where they keep not only money but recordings of their clients' minds to be used in case they die, which is revealed brilliantly through some paradigm shift in the first couple pages - is robbed, but she wakes to find she's been killed twice since that scan, and now she, technically a clone, must figure out who killed her while grappling with the fact that a version of her whose experiences she can't remember was the one who created her magnum opus which she is now known for. The novelette deals with ahead-of-its-time things like jacking into computers and clones trying to solve their predecessors' murders (I'm sure it's not the first, but it's still respectable) and delivers a good yarn even though the ending was both predictable (with how ) and weirder than it should've been (with ) - seriously, they're not bad themes, but they needed some actual foreshadowing! It does seem a bit like a younger writer trying to juggle too many plates, but I did enjoy the color, and it is a good starting point for the rest of the stories which end up following it. 7.5/10.
--Just like how "The Phantom of Kansas" deals with clones investigating their own murder(s), "Air Raid" deals with the complex trope of people from the future trying to repopulate their society with people from the past. This has been done in short fiction by the likes of Kress and y Robertson and novels like Leiber's *The Big Time*, but it's done a little differently here because the ones doing the stealing are . It's brutal and atmospheric and does the whole conceptual breakthrough thing well - I think it deserves an 8/10 even if my individual reading of it was a little too fuzzy.
--"Retrograde Summer" was the first gender-bending Eight Worlds tale which didn't stick in my head all too well. It's about a guy on Mercury who's set to meet his long-lost sibling - they've been separated due to population control rules their whole lives - and he's rather nervous. There's some nice familial drama but overall it didn't really grab me, possibly because it didn't involve all the concepts as other "Eight Worlds" stories, like "The Phantom of Kansas," despite doing more of the gender-bending... 7/10.
--"The Black Hole Passes" doesn't read like an Eight Worlds story (even though I see it's supposed to tie right into *The Ophiuchi Hotline"), but it does still read well. It's about two space stations owned by different companies meant to monitor and collect alien transmissions, and the relationship between the two operators is both hostile and hopelessly romantic. Things take a turn from the interesting world and character dynamic when the man's space station is about to get slurped up by a black hole and it turns into a tense survival story, which actually make it all less exciting, but it's still a good romp that makes me want to read that novel. 7.75/10.
--The title story for my UK edition was "In the Hall of the Martian Kings" - not just a play on the title of a bouncy classical piece but also an exploration of what happens when a human colony on Mars releases chemicals which make Mars enter the equivalent of its wet season, after which a group of explorers now must survive for years without human support. It was good but the back half about has mysteriously slipped from my brain - and I thought it had been engaging... still, a good precursor to contemporary SF from *The Martian* to Tchaikovsky's . 7.5/10.
--The last one I'll complain about recollection with is "In the Bowl," another Eight Worlds story. It's about a guy searching for blast-jewels and ends up taking a teenage girl as a guide. And then imagines him as his wife and... yeah, it's weird, and a bit aimless. In the guy's defense; years might have been longer on this planet, and that might've been taken into account. Either way, when contemporary readers complain about this book, "In the Bowl"'s "pedophilia" is one of the big reasons why; for me, while that's still a concern, it also just wasn't as layered or engaging. 7/10.
--"Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance" returns to success with this Varleyan transhumanistic tale of a human-symbiote thing which sails through space and has returned to Janus to get some of its "music" recorded. The talent agent they work with is a "normal" female and they have some interesting conversations (and about the symbiote experience and it's all about music and it's all a bit meaningful. It didn't quite stick it to me, especially the kind of bleary middle half, but its imagery is evocative and its mix of elements compelling. 7.75/10.
--"Overdrawn at the Memory Bank" is an Eight Worlds story that flirts with the mind-uploading technology we saw in "The Phantom of Kansas," but this time it's used to help a man spend his vacation as a lioness. But at the end of the vacation, he's told his body has been stolen, and they have nowhere to but his body, so he's going to have to hold onto his sanity. He does his best and tries to learn computer science to pass the time, but it's not exactly helped by . It's just a fun, heartening ending that's bouncy and quirky and hopeful while the rest of the story also has a more humorous bent than a lot of Varley, but... it works. I daresay it's worth an 8/10.
--Finally, "The Persistence of Vision" - the titular story of most copies of this book - is the volume's crowning jewel. It's about a commune full of "Kellerites" and their interaction with a man who stays with them while wandering the American Southwest in the middle of one of the cyclical "non-depressions." The Kellerites have children who can see and hear, and the way the generations interact (and how our main character interacts with the different generations) is pretty interesting. And there's just this feeling of gravitas, this style of classic prose, the inherent wonder behind these themes, that makes this something... more. I can't place my finger on it even though I feel like I've read this before, so I can't give it full marks, but... I felt something like a lingering effect after I finished it. A strong 8.5/10 and the best piece of Varley I've read to date.
This collection is a bit all over the board - there are flavorful and moving pieces of science fiction as well as some things that have completely fallen through the holes in my memory's net - so I don't think I can go higher than a 7.5/10, but I really did enjoy this collection. It was the right read at the right time - even if it was a tad fuzzy - and it made me more interested in that other Varley collection and some of his novels. He was a somewhat distinct voice, and a pleasurable one at that. Stay tuned for more Varley and more science fiction...
October 5, 2013
Making love to John Varley must be an outlandish and exquisitely delicious experience.
What stroke me most from this collection of stories is an intensely humane way of perceiving reality and human interaction. Varley is not concerned with implications, ethics, morals in our commonly understood sense. He opens up his story for a fluid understanding of humanity, a focus on senses, happiness and love of all shapes and kinds that melts into one big, irresistible attraction to beings .
I found this book very intense. I picked it for the lighthearted approach most collections of stories seem to have, but instead it touched me immensely. I don't think the plots matter much, even though they are testimony to an extraordinary imagination. What is ultimately most relevant concerns the sense of melancholic well-being one achieves after each and every one of these stories. I take my hat off to anyone that manages to be sentimental without being cheesy!
What stroke me most from this collection of stories is an intensely humane way of perceiving reality and human interaction. Varley is not concerned with implications, ethics, morals in our commonly understood sense. He opens up his story for a fluid understanding of humanity, a focus on senses, happiness and love of all shapes and kinds that melts into one big, irresistible attraction to beings .
I found this book very intense. I picked it for the lighthearted approach most collections of stories seem to have, but instead it touched me immensely. I don't think the plots matter much, even though they are testimony to an extraordinary imagination. What is ultimately most relevant concerns the sense of melancholic well-being one achieves after each and every one of these stories. I take my hat off to anyone that manages to be sentimental without being cheesy!
April 27, 2019
Una recopilación de relatos de ciencia ficción de los 70 que, a pesar de los años que lleva escrito, tienen unos argumentos "frescos", si se me permite la palabra. Es cierto que algunos de ellos son mejores que los otros. Destacaría En el salón de los reyes marcianos por su creación de un ambiente artificial y extraterrestre o, El fantasma de Kansas un relato curioso por las copias y los asesinatos.
Los otros tres, aunque tienen sus puntos interesantes, son algo flojos.
A pesar de ello, todos estos tienen ideas muy interesantes que merecen una exploración.
Los otros tres, aunque tienen sus puntos interesantes, son algo flojos.
A pesar de ello, todos estos tienen ideas muy interesantes que merecen una exploración.
Read
August 13, 2015Great book! It's a collection of short stories. Some of them are set in the same world which is very cool. This is serious sci-fi. It's actually awesome to read some proper sci-fi. When you read a lot of teenage dystopian-future fiction, hard sci-fi seems like such an intelligent, well-written alternative... Anyways, totally recommend this one. John Varley's "Mammoth" is also good btw.
June 30, 2018
Published in 1978, In The Hall of the Martian Kings is a collection of SF short stories originally published over the period 1974-1978. The quality is exceptional, as well as upbeat which is a surprise for any tales coming out of the pessimistic 1970s. Of course, the optimism is a long way removed from the John Campbell era, which is not a bad thing.
July 18, 2011
I picked this up on a book rack at a London train station, and on a four hour train ride- was totally blown away by John Varley. Hall of the Martian Kings is a book of short stories that I still re-read now and again, just for the kick of reading how Varley writes.
February 5, 2019
7/10. Media de los 8 libros leídos del autor : 7/10
Un "9" (La Hechicera) un "8" (Perdido en el banco de memoria) y tres "7" (El globo de oro, En el salón de los reyes marcianos y Playa de acero) como destacable por mi parte. El resto, a pesar de la fama de algunos, olvidables.
Un "9" (La Hechicera) un "8" (Perdido en el banco de memoria) y tres "7" (El globo de oro, En el salón de los reyes marcianos y Playa de acero) como destacable por mi parte. El resto, a pesar de la fama de algunos, olvidables.
July 19, 2019
3 pluss. A collection of 9 short stories/novelettes(Novellas.
In my view only two of them are very good.
In the Hall of the Martian Kings (nominated for Hugo Award)
The Persistence of Vision (Received both the Hugo and the Nebula Award for best novella).
In my view only two of them are very good.
In the Hall of the Martian Kings (nominated for Hugo Award)
The Persistence of Vision (Received both the Hugo and the Nebula Award for best novella).
April 18, 2023
The Phantom of Kansas (1976)
Air Raid (1977)
Retrograde Summer (1975)
The Black Hole Passes (1975)
In the Hall of the Martian Kings (1976)
In the Bowl (1975)
Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance (1976)
Overdrawn at the Memory Bank (1976)
The Persistence of Vision (1978)
Air Raid (1977)
Retrograde Summer (1975)
The Black Hole Passes (1975)
In the Hall of the Martian Kings (1976)
In the Bowl (1975)
Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance (1976)
Overdrawn at the Memory Bank (1976)
The Persistence of Vision (1978)
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews