Press Enter

by John Varley, David G. Hartwell (Introduction)

Book by John Varley

Genres: Science Fiction, Mystery, Fiction, Horror, Short Stories, Thriller, Cyberpunk

148 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1984

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

[mark monday · Rating 4 out of 5]

this fascinating novella is definitely not what I expected. I came in thinking I'd get some sort of forward-looking techno-thriller, perhaps rather dated as it was written in the mid-80s. I certainly did get that - and it's amazing how prescient this story is. but I also got a story that contemplates racial identity, PTSD and survivorship, cryptocurrency, loneliness, surveillance, the lure of the unknown. plus a genuine and moving romance that sits alongside a disturbing murder mystery. oh and some bone-chilling nihilistic horror to top it off. it was all so surprising! and the rich, empathetic, entirely realistic characterization made it such a resonant experience. Press Enter deservedly won a bunch of awards. I need to revisit Varley, as I only know his Gaea series, read way back in my teen years.

[Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Revisiting an old story that I loved before and loved again.

Winner of numerous awards and if read in context for its time, it's wonderfully delicious, sweet, scary, and ultimately horrifying.

Do you like paranoia? How about hacking? Now, how about we dive into all the possible areas where we utterly transform our lives? In this case, it's still a thriller novella, but it's not DIRECTLY trying to harm the main character or threatening him. He's just a neighbor who got caught in the web of his neighbor's murder and hacking activities.

But that's where this story becomes something rather beautiful and exciting. The wealth of details and the blossoming love story is so quirky and sweet and fraught will real-world craziness and fallibility. I loved it. I was shocked with how dark it went, too, and frankly, I agreed with the main character.

This is story is one of those that will stay with me for a very long time. Just trust me if I'm being vague about it. It's very much worth it.

[Kat Hooper · Rating 4 out of 5]

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.

IF YOU WISH TO KNOW MORE PRESS ENTER ■

Victor Apfel, a lonely middle-aged veteran of the Korean War, gets a recorded phone call asking him to come to his reclusive neighbor’s house to take care of what he finds there. The voice promises that he’ll be rewarded. Victor would like to ignore the message, but he gets another call every 10 minutes. When Victor arrives at Charles Kluge’s house, he finds Kluge dead and slumped over his computer keyboard, so he calls another neighbor — a computer operator named Hal (har, har) — and the cops. When the computer screen asks them to PRESS ENTER, they do, and this initiates Kluge’s strange interactive suicide note. Things get weirder when Victor finds a large deposit in his bank account and the cops find no record anywhere of Charles Kluge. Even the IRS didn’t know about him.

The police investigator doesn’t think it’s a suicide, so they hire a Vietnamese computer programmer named Lisa Foo to figure out what Kluge was up to. When she drives up in her silver Ferrari, she brings a little joy to Victor’s lonely existence. As the two of them get to know each other, both start to deal with troublesome issues such as Victor’s serious medical condition and the horrors of the wars they’ve lived through and the racism those experiences engendered. (The focus on the geo-politics of Southeast Asia during the middle 20th century is a refreshing change from the Western focus of most science fiction.)

Press Enter, which won the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Awards for Best Novella in 1985, works on so many levels — it’s a romance, murder mystery, psychological drama, and horror story. It’s exciting, moving, and scary. Though Press Enter is set in the early 1980s, it feels nostalgic rather than dated. Discussions comparing and contrasting the computer to the human brain feel current, as does Lisa’s understanding that her skill with computer programming gives her power over others — power that could corrupt her.

I read Audible Frontier’s version of Press Enter which is 3 hours long and is narrated by Peter Ganim, who does a nice job, as usual. Press Enter is going to stay with me, and not just because I have a son who’s about to leave for college to study computer programming (shudder). I was enthralled from the first sentence to the last.

[Alex Ankarr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Almost the greatest thing ever written. If you think that's hyperbole then you haven't read it yet. Three things in it to watch out for: i) the flawed and bittersweet love, ii) the completely justified paranoia and iii) the microwave. Jeepers.

[Peter Tillman · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story is a little dated, but still a marvelous concoction. I may be under-rating it. Here's the opener: http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content...
"This story really nails the early 1980's computer environment: older readers will enjoy the details, and younger ones will gasp in wonder at the large computer fauna that once roamed the Earth"[!!]

And I love the Vietnamese-American female lead, whose name escapes me. Ah, Lisa Foo. She is well pleased with America, where you can buy anything -- even big boobs, which she flashes for Victor's enjoyment. He picks up on the hint.... She drives a Ferrari, but *very* cautiously, and really just because she can afford one. Shocking ending. I'm bumping it up to 3.5+stars, and rounding up.

Where to find a copy: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cg...
Many, many reprints! And many rereads, over the years.

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

This is the second time I have read this one and it is one of my favorite novella's and if you were to put it in both categories novels and novellas it would still be one of my favorites. Though, there are a lot of parts that are outdated it was still easily understandable (and I saw no problem with that since it was written in the '84) and one was easily able to simply update the subject matter, which mostly had to do with computers. In your mind, as you are reading it, for an example when Charles Kluge's superb computer was a Texas Instrument, you could simply translate to Mac or PC or even some other modern computer.

In John Varley's introduction he mentioned that he hardly knew anything about computer and that he faked a lot of it and used a hacker's guide book and did some research on hacking on the computer that again he didn't know much about. I read the introduction last and I have to say he did fool me. I thought he knew his stuff pretty well. Just shows how good of writer he is to do something like that. Write a story about something you hardly know anything about on the subject matter. Kudos Mr. Varley!

[Heidi · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book started out so well. Victor gets a pre-recorded phone call telling him to check on his neighbour across the street, and adding that the phone call would keep repeating itself every ten minutes until Victor did as the message asked. Turns out the neighbour was dead, had left everything to Victor, and there's something delightfully spooky about the neighbour's computer.

However, about a quarter of the way through the book a female character enters the story, sheds her clothing almost immediately, and hops into Victor's bed. From then on, most conversations take place when they're naked. And it wasn't so much the sex that I objected to--it was the fact that he was 50 and she was 25. Even in science fiction novels where we need to suspend disbelief about the plot, the characters still need to act in believable ways. And a 25-year-old woman getting it on with a 50-year-old man (who she just met) isn't believable (and it's icky). And I felt like I was eavesdropping on the sex dreams of a dirty old man.

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely, chilling techno-thriller from 1985, winner of the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards for best novella. While some of the tech is certainly dated, the mystery, suspense and general themes hold up well. Recommended!

[Yev · Rating 4 out of 5]

Victor Apfel is a fifty year old Korean War veteran recluse who has mostly shunned the world. His landline phone won't stop ringing from what he believes to be an automatically dialed phone call. Eventually he answers and visits his neighbor, who he finds dead from an apparent suicide. Was it though, and why call him? The mystery begins.

This beautiful mess of a novella won the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, SF Chronicle, and Seiun awards. I call it a mess because the story is a science fiction horror murder mystery slice of life romance. Almost forty years have passed since its publication which now provides a different perspective that both weakens and strengthens the story. The popular view at the time surely was "I never thought of that. Could this really happen someday? How terrifying." Now instead it'd be "I think about this all time. Not only will it happen, it probably already has. I'm terrified." Though the latter may be alarmist. What it loses in surprise is balanced by how much more credible it now seems, which allows it to retain its horror.

A funny thing with technology is that people may start by underestimating its capabilities and then as it becomes more and more familiar they begin to overestimate what it can do. It's entirely possible that people in 2024 will be more likely to believe the key premise of this story than in 1984 despite it being ridiculous, though fun, regardless of the year. I say knowing that some would say, "In 2084, it's an integral part of society and not ridiculous in the slightest." Yeah, sure it is.

Romance is considerably more prevalent than I thought it'd be and it's difficult to tell what Varley was going for with it at the time. The love interest is literally presented as physically being a racist and sexist caricature. The story is self-aware about that and states that it's irrelevant compared to the inner beauty of a person, which I don't know what to say in relation to a current day context. The concept of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl was popularized in 2005, 21 years later, but the love interest meets the criteria for that and then some. It's somewhat weird to read considering how many other depictions I've seen of it.

The ending gave me tonal whiplash and that was undoubtedly intentional. In terms of the story it's simply following a sequence of events to its logical conclusion, but even so I can't help but feel dissatisfied about it. The resolution does seem more relevant to the feelings of people today than then, though not so much their behavior. As to why it won its awards I believe it's because the core of the story is a neat idea that was highly speculative at the time and provoked a lot of thought while the rest is varying types of fanservice. By the end, the book I was reminded of most was Welcome to the NHK!, which is a strange feeling, and has me yearning for a modern retelling.

[Paul Ataua · Rating 4 out of 5]

Victor Apfel, a war veteran, gets a phone message, telling him to go into the house next door where he finds the neighbor shot through the head. And so begins ‘Press Enter’, a part sci-fi, part romance, part thriller, and wholly enjoyable experience. It may be dated, but that doesn’t matter at all. I just loved the interplay between Victor and the awesome Vietnamese computer programmer, Lisa Foo – Hey Yank! This won’t be my last John Varley.

[Starch · Rating 3 out of 5]

An excellent character-focused novella with a touch of technological cosmic horror.

[Colin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sci-fi twaddle from the 80s. Imagine a cross between the movie "Hackers" and Agatha Christie on an off-day. Its main redeeming feature (apart from its brevity) is that it's got a lot of interest as a historical document because it's cool to see someone trying to carve out some sort of early tech thriller, but that's really all that kept me reading. It's a bit of a frustrating business. The characters anre cartoonish, the love interest absurdly unlikely, the plot holes gaping. He's done some research but for example doesn't seem to know the difference between software and data, which is annoying. The plot - the nub, the reason for the mystery - doesn't really get explained or developed properly once he gets bored of writing about unlikely shagging, it fizzles out and he tacks on an ending stolen from "The Conversation" and um... that's it.
So... glad I read it but it's already on my "worst of 2018" list and we're only 12 days in.

[Thom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Published in 1984, this novella is a decent horror/tech story for its time.

Surprisingly, the author knew very little about computers at the time of writing. His research worked, because the lingo feels right, if the capabilities are a little beyond the CPUs of the time. The main characters are flawed by their experiences in back-to-back wars. Kluge, though dead, is also an interesting character, a lone hacker.

The plot moves along at the start and end of this book, but sags in the middle. While a computer-illiterate character allows the author to show more than tell, it still feels a bit forced. In the decade after 1984, I would have given this 4 stars for originality and sheer horror.

[Mark Robison · Rating 2 out of 5]

A massive award winner that is too dated and uninteresting. Written in the early 1980s, the book has to explain what a cursor is. It worries about artificial intelligence and the possibility of a system that is basically what the internet turned out to be. I just never cared, especially about the 50-year-old hero who gets to have repeated sexual bouts with a 25-year-old, huge-breasted Vietnamese woman. Bechdel test: Fail. Grade: C+

[Sookie · Rating 3 out of 5]

the characters are mildly cartoon-ish, stereotypes even, however the things the two people talk cover wide variety of topics - war, refugee camp, immigration, cultural stereotypes, racism and the horror that's unfolding around and the near fatalistic view of technology.

there are dated words and conversations, which made me wince.

[Kriengkrai Thawechotkitcharoen · Rating 4 out of 5]

นิยายขนาดสั้นผลงานของจอห์น วาร์เลย์ เจ้าของผลงาน "ผู้พิทักษ์กาลเวลา" เรื่องนี้ออกแนววิทยาศาสตร์-รหัสคดี เปิดเรื่องน่าสนใจเมื่อวิคเตอร์ แอปเฟลรับโทรศัพท์ซึ่งมีข้อความเสียงให้เขาไปที่บ้านของชาร์ลส์ คลูเก้ เพื่อนบ้าน และเมื่อเขาไปถึงก็พบคลูเก้ตายอยู่หน้าจอคอมพิวเตอร์ จนตำรวจต้องเข้ามาสืบคดี ก่อนที่หลังจากนั้นจะมีผู้ที่เกี่ยวข้องตายกันต่อเนื่อง แล้วสาเหตุที่แท้จริงคืออะไร?
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ปกติเป็นคนที่ชอบอ่านนิยายมากกว่าเรื่องสั้น เพราะมีการปูพื้นเรื่องราว สร้างอารมณ์ร่วมได้มากกว่า แต่เรื่องสั้นก็มีข้อดีคือเดินเรื่องเร็ว เปิดเรื่องเข้าประเด็นของเรื่องเลย ไม่เยิ่นเย้อ ซึ่งเรื่องนี้ก็เป็นแบบนี้ เปิดเรื่องได้น่าสนใจมาก แล้วเรื่องก็พัฒนาไปพร้อมๆ กับการเปิดเผยชีวิตเบื้องหลังของแอปเฟล ตัวเอกของเรื่อง และตัวละครอื่นๆ แถมเรื่องนี้ยังมีการกล่าวถึงประเทศไทยและประเทศอื่นๆ ในเอเชียตะวันออกเฉียงใต้ รวมทั้งประเทศจีน และเกาหลีอีกด้วย
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นอกจากนั้นเรื่องราวยังสื่อให้เห็นถึงแนวคิดของผู้เขียนที่ต่อต้านสงครามอย่างเห็นได้ชัด และความระแวงต่อหน่วยงานรัฐ เพราะมีการกล่าวถึงประเด็นนี้อยู่บ่อยครั้ง รวมถึงการตั้งคำถามถึงการคงอยู่ของคอมพิวเตอร์ที่เริ่มจะเข้ามามีบทบาทในสังคม(เรื่องนี้เขียนขึ้นในช่วงทศวรรษ 1980)
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แต่มีอยู่จุดหนึ่งที่น่าเสียดายคือ การแปลชื่อขนส่ง เฟดเอ็กซ์ เป็น เฟเดอเรอร์ เอ็กซ์เพรส ซึ่งเข้าใจว่าผู้แปลคงไปค้นกูเกิลแล้วไปเจอฉายาของโรเจอร์ เฟเดอเรอร์ อดีตนักเทนนิสมือหนึ่งของโลกที่ใช้ฉายานี้เลยเข้าใจผิด อ่านถึงตรงนี้งงเลยว่า เฟเดอเรอร์ไปเกี่ยวได้ยังไง แต่โดยภาพรวมแล้วถือว่าเรื่องนี้อ่านได้สนุก สมควรแล้วที่กวาด 3 รางวัลใหญ่ฮิวโก, เนบิวลา และโลคัส อวอร์ด 😊

[Ravenpi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Less a review, than a review of reviews, with some commentary:
I'm fascinated to see people putting this short novella/short story down because "it's been done," when this really was the first in this particular genre. As someone who's been using computers since the early 80's, who's been a system administrator for 30+ years, and who read this story back when it originally showed up in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, I think it's held up tremendously well. For those who naysay AI-as-danger, may I recommend the 2000 essay by Sun Microsystems co-founder, "Why the Future Doesn't need Us"?
One other thing: there's an Easter Egg -- or several, really -- that I haven't seen mentioned: all the names are based on computers or computer memes from the early 80's: "Lisa" is Apple's pre-Mac try at the Mac; "Foo" is a (very) common throwaway variable used by programmers (its companion variable is "bar"; get it?); Hal and Osborne -- HAL 2000, of course, and Osborne was a computer manufacturer. Etc.

Nutshell: I find the story has held up remarkably well, really enjoyed the character sketches and backgrounds, and felt that it was a tour de force of our newfound computer and communications networks. With a 60-minute technology refresh, it could be written today. And I really enjoyed the call-out to it in the show Chuck.

[frando · Rating 1 out of 5]

This started out as charmingly dated - an interesting historical artifact of what we used to think about computers before they were ubiquitous. But it took a hard left turn into Men Writing Women (TM) and casually racist caricature. The Vietnamese woman is described as looking basically like WWII anti-Japanese propaganda art with braces and big tits. This is three hours of your life you'll never get back if you decided to sit through it. It doesn't have much interesting to say, and you have to wade through several lazy and uninspired scenes of the 50s something narrator talking about how great sex is when it's with a woman half his age. Not worth it.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jumps frequently between genres - from mystery, to hard sf, to soft sf, to romance, back to sci-fi. For that reasons, it's hard to analyse exactly what sort of book this is. Regrettably, the only other writer I can think of who produces material that in any way resembles this is L. Ron Hubbard.

[Sue Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Found this in an anthology and loved it.

[Howl · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Varley's 'Press Enter' is perhaps my favorite 'Computers run amok' story. While definitely dated that this point, it combines SF and horror into a compelling yet deeply disturbing narrative.

The POV (Victor Apfel) character is a veteran living out his relatively mundane existence when his reclusive neighbor Charles Kluge apparently commits suicide and leaves him all his wordly possessions and a considerable sum of money.

Unsurprisingly, the police want to investigate this unusual set of circumstances, especially as it becomes clearer that Kluge was a hacker and programmer of some skill. After one of the detectives on the case also commits suicide, a computer forensics expert named Lisa Foo joins the case in an attempt to uncover Kluge's secrets.

What she discovers instead is a horrifying secret that led to the death of both Kluge and the detective.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Varley... If you love science fiction and haven't heard of him, I suggest you read something by him as soon as possible. Whether it's one of his short stories, or a novel, it's an enthralling experience.

I don't want to spoil anything for you, so I'll try and keep it short. I first read John Varley's short fiction, this being the second story I read. It's all about a reclusive man, named Victor Apfel, who one day answers his phone to hear a strange message from his neighbor. Which quickly turns his life upside down. Soon after, against his will, he comes into a considerable amount of money, is constantly questioned by the police and he's quickly dragged into a quest to answer all of the sudden mysteries thrown into his life. I know I'm being really vague, but I don't want to spoil anything for you. I highly recommend John Varley for any science fiction enthusiast.

[Lea · Rating 3 out of 5]

oooohhhh, spooky computers. Varley can write the hell out of a long short story. While there were points where the story was so dated it was funny (this was written before the term 'internet' was coined, apparently) it was still read-able and interesting and even creepy.
The printing of this book was really pretty, as a bonus- I've never read a book with such artistic borders around each page.

[Lois Tucker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now the plot has been done so many times, but Varley did it first, and he did it oh so very, very well. This is one story in another collection, but is so gripping, and AI-timely, it must've been released as a stand-alone. It's extraordinary, and had me wondering about those new fangled computers we were reading about that the boys in Palo Alto were working on in the 70s. Very well written.

[Al Maki · Rating 5 out of 5]

For my money, still the best book to date (2013) on the problem of government use of computer technology. The best not because it's up to date or comprehensive or accurate but for the sheer feeling of horror it induces.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This little book was really interesting. Of coarse the technology is dated, but the story is good and had some really interesting things to think on. I'm still confused on a couple of things. Not sure if the author was trying to keep some things vague or what, but this was still a great read.

[Віталій Роман · Rating 4 out of 5]

Маніфест про страх ІТ-ішників) Історія про всепроникність комп'ютерних технологій у наше повсякденне життя. Хоча менше цікавився цим, не суєш носа куди не треба, то довше проживаєш. Кінцівка, де герой в прямому і переносному сенсі став "незалежним", сподобалась.

[Janis Ian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Along with Orson Scott Card and Terry Bisson, simply the best short story/novelette writer in the field.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has one of the most disturbing scenes I have ever read.

[Felicia Tidwell taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

When you answer your phone and all they tell you is that you are ordered to go next door to your neighbor's house. And you do and when you go in something trouble has happened....