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Millennium
In the skies over Oakland, California, a DC-10 and a 747 are about to collide. But in the far distant future, a time travel team is preparing to snatch the passengers, leaving prefabricated smoking bodies behind for the rescue teams to find. And in Washington D.C., an air disaster investigator named Smith is about to get a phone call that will change his life...and end the world as we know it.
272 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1983
73 people are currently reading
1860 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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 188 reviews
October 16, 2019
Time travel books are like roller coaster rides.
If you think about them too much, your head will hurt. If you spend too much brain waves examining the struts and the rivets and musing over the scale and heights and drops, you will be a nervous wreck and will forget – in the 1.5 minutes it takes to ride – that you’re there to have fun. Let go of the rails, throw your hands up in the sky, lift your head high, and make sure to flip the camera a bird when you go through the last turn.
Having fun is what Millennium, John Varley’s 1983 novel, is all about.
Varley divides the narrative into into two parts – two times – with a first person protagonist in each and their stories slowly converge together. Essentially, people from far in the future – thousands of years – return to save people from accidents, in this case, an airplane disaster. The protagonist from our time is a National Safety Board investigator and the far future is one of the ones saving people from crashes. Why the time traveller is doing this comes out in the end of this very entertaining novel.
Taking a cue from Immortality, Inc., a 1959 novel by Robert Sheckley, and which would later be the inspiration for the 1992 film Free Jack (starring Mick Jagger of all people), this also is a tribute to a variety of time travel novels. Varley titled each chapter as a homage to a time travel book, such as Lest Darkness Fall and Guardians of Time.
The future part made me think of the 1981 animated Gerald Potterton film Heavy Metal. There were long stretches of narrative where I could hear Sammy Hagar singing in the background.
Ultimately what I most liked about this book was Varley himself. This Hugo and Nebula award winner is a phenomenal SF talent and his ability and personality shown through on every page.
If you think about them too much, your head will hurt. If you spend too much brain waves examining the struts and the rivets and musing over the scale and heights and drops, you will be a nervous wreck and will forget – in the 1.5 minutes it takes to ride – that you’re there to have fun. Let go of the rails, throw your hands up in the sky, lift your head high, and make sure to flip the camera a bird when you go through the last turn.
Having fun is what Millennium, John Varley’s 1983 novel, is all about.
Varley divides the narrative into into two parts – two times – with a first person protagonist in each and their stories slowly converge together. Essentially, people from far in the future – thousands of years – return to save people from accidents, in this case, an airplane disaster. The protagonist from our time is a National Safety Board investigator and the far future is one of the ones saving people from crashes. Why the time traveller is doing this comes out in the end of this very entertaining novel.
Taking a cue from Immortality, Inc., a 1959 novel by Robert Sheckley, and which would later be the inspiration for the 1992 film Free Jack (starring Mick Jagger of all people), this also is a tribute to a variety of time travel novels. Varley titled each chapter as a homage to a time travel book, such as Lest Darkness Fall and Guardians of Time.
The future part made me think of the 1981 animated Gerald Potterton film Heavy Metal. There were long stretches of narrative where I could hear Sammy Hagar singing in the background.
Ultimately what I most liked about this book was Varley himself. This Hugo and Nebula award winner is a phenomenal SF talent and his ability and personality shown through on every page.
February 19, 2011
Hm. Clever, and fairly good, but I kept getting caught up by how dated this is, both in the sense that it was published in 1983 and in the sense that it was written in the 20th century.
I should probably explain the second part: the book takes place in two times, December in an unspecified year in the 1980s, and about 50,000 years in the future. (I don't think it's ever explicitly said when, but I vaguely recall "50,000 years" being mentioned.) The main character from the future constantly refers to the 20th century: the myths of the 20th century, the fashion of the 20th century, the beauty ideal of the 20th century, etc. etc. Why, with 50,000+ years of time to talk about, is it always the 20th century? Even if we're supposed to assume there was an apocalypse in our near future, at that remove the 20th and 19th should seem more or less interchangeable. (How many people nowadays can distinguish between the 13th and 14th centuries, less than a thousand years later?) This is especially obvious since I read the book in the 21st century, which was not once mentioned.
Nitpicking? I don't think so, because I think time travel stories really have to sell you on the time, and Millennium failed there. I'd like to see Varley tackle some Michael Crichton-esque present-day science fiction, since he definitely had a knack for those details.
I should probably explain the second part: the book takes place in two times, December in an unspecified year in the 1980s, and about 50,000 years in the future. (I don't think it's ever explicitly said when, but I vaguely recall "50,000 years" being mentioned.) The main character from the future constantly refers to the 20th century: the myths of the 20th century, the fashion of the 20th century, the beauty ideal of the 20th century, etc. etc. Why, with 50,000+ years of time to talk about, is it always the 20th century? Even if we're supposed to assume there was an apocalypse in our near future, at that remove the 20th and 19th should seem more or less interchangeable. (How many people nowadays can distinguish between the 13th and 14th centuries, less than a thousand years later?) This is especially obvious since I read the book in the 21st century, which was not once mentioned.
Nitpicking? I don't think so, because I think time travel stories really have to sell you on the time, and Millennium failed there. I'd like to see Varley tackle some Michael Crichton-esque present-day science fiction, since he definitely had a knack for those details.
July 20, 2012
It's a odd duck, but it quacks quite nicely....
First off, this is a Time Travel novel (capitalization intended). We have paradox and consequences and rules and messages from the future and chronal instability and characters seeing the same events in different orders. It's more than a puzzle story, but the puzzle emphasis is huge (think Connie Willis for a more modern example).
Secondly, there is a large emphasis on mortality. Our two protagonists are Bill Smith (an employee of the NTSB) and Louise Baltimore (our time traveller). Bill is examining a crash between a DC-10 and a 747 in which everyone died. Louise travelled back in time to snatch the soon-to-be-dead passengers off the planes and help resuscitate a far future where lifespans are short and disease rampant. In short, the first third of the book has a lot of death. Nothing too gory, but directly viewed and fairly sobering.
Thirdly, we have a romance. The novel (and some of the characters) try to make it up as a "meet cute" --- the term is actually used by the book --- but our two heroes are broken people, not Hepburn and Grant. And the romance is more yearning for meaning and connection than watching sparks fly. But, it's still a romance and a pretty strong driver throughout the book.
Finally, we have an ending --- or actually, several endings --- that addresses the whole cosmic issue of playing with time. The end result is a work that totters on a knife edge between cute (puzzle aspects, romance) and meaningful. As a whole, it worked for me. I read very quickly, enjoying the plot, and I'm still pondering the book now. In some sense, it's a spiritual cousin to Heinlein's Job, which has the same strange balance of humor and cosmic perspective.
First off, this is a Time Travel novel (capitalization intended). We have paradox and consequences and rules and messages from the future and chronal instability and characters seeing the same events in different orders. It's more than a puzzle story, but the puzzle emphasis is huge (think Connie Willis for a more modern example).
Secondly, there is a large emphasis on mortality. Our two protagonists are Bill Smith (an employee of the NTSB) and Louise Baltimore (our time traveller). Bill is examining a crash between a DC-10 and a 747 in which everyone died. Louise travelled back in time to snatch the soon-to-be-dead passengers off the planes and help resuscitate a far future where lifespans are short and disease rampant. In short, the first third of the book has a lot of death. Nothing too gory, but directly viewed and fairly sobering.
Thirdly, we have a romance. The novel (and some of the characters) try to make it up as a "meet cute" --- the term is actually used by the book --- but our two heroes are broken people, not Hepburn and Grant. And the romance is more yearning for meaning and connection than watching sparks fly. But, it's still a romance and a pretty strong driver throughout the book.
Finally, we have an ending --- or actually, several endings --- that addresses the whole cosmic issue of playing with time. The end result is a work that totters on a knife edge between cute (puzzle aspects, romance) and meaningful. As a whole, it worked for me. I read very quickly, enjoying the plot, and I'm still pondering the book now. In some sense, it's a spiritual cousin to Heinlein's Job, which has the same strange balance of humor and cosmic perspective.
November 29, 2020
This is told from 2 main points of view, one from Bill the other Louise. Each has a very specific and important job to do and they cross paths. This was overall a fun novel and I appreciated all the the little twists and turns. I can honestly recommend this, especially if you enjoy time travel.
November 30, 2018
This was a fun read. I’ve been chasing a good sci-fi book for a while and finally this random find in the depths of my sister’s bookshelf happened. The future and time travel and a hella sarcastic heroine(debatable?) is definitely my cup of tea.
January 8, 2019
Clever and thoughtful time travel story, with a dash of 80s style. When I first read this I didn't realize the chapter titles were related to Time Travel short stories - even though it is one of my favorite genres. I wonder if anyone has put together a collection of these notables?
This tale is mostly told from two perspectives - a current day air crash investigator and a far future rescue team leader. A few twists and a nice pace keep the novel going at a good clip. The ending, with both a culmination of action and a full explanation, felt a bit rushed.
First read more than 15 years ago (as part of a friends short-lived book club), I subsequently watched the movie. The latter had more 80s style but was not as good as the book (natch). None of our brief discussion (at the time) was captured (that I know of). A reread was the best way to write a review. Additionally, I am reading this book as part of an 80s challenge - one book per year. This follows nicely from Heinlein's Friday.
This tale is mostly told from two perspectives - a current day air crash investigator and a far future rescue team leader. A few twists and a nice pace keep the novel going at a good clip. The ending, with both a culmination of action and a full explanation, felt a bit rushed.
First read more than 15 years ago (as part of a friends short-lived book club), I subsequently watched the movie. The latter had more 80s style but was not as good as the book (natch). None of our brief discussion (at the time) was captured (that I know of). A reread was the best way to write a review. Additionally, I am reading this book as part of an 80s challenge - one book per year. This follows nicely from Heinlein's Friday.
August 29, 2017
The story takes an unexpected turn into predestination, manipulation, and intelligent design. How much free will exists when your actions are known, and your 'uptime' descendants rely on those actions in order to exist?
It is a downer book, not just from the crapsack dying earth future, but from the flaws of the characters.
It is a downer book, not just from the crapsack dying earth future, but from the flaws of the characters.
October 13, 2014
Great short story; mediocre novel; terrible movie.
October 22, 2022
I really enjoyed how this is told from two perspectives: one from the present, figuring out what´s going on, and one from the future, doing the time traveling. While I much preferred the future POV, with the more interesting protagonist and world, the higher stakes and the unravelling of mysteries, the present timeline added some relatability and a more grounded view on the whole situations, plus I liked how these two interacted. The touch of a pessimistic future with an element of hope was really well done and the logistics of time travel were scratching that itch I always have with such stories.
September 19, 2022
In a future post nuclear war society (not exactly post-apocalyptic in the way modern novels portray it), humanity sends time travelers to the past to retrieve people who would have died in accidents, replaces them with replicas and brings them to the future (their present) to replenish their decaying genetic stock. As with most time travel stories, paradoxes are acknowledged but the novel does not dwell on them too much to avoid headaches.
The main character is Louise Baltimore, a time traveler tasked with bringing back humans from doomed events like plane crashes, who must retrieve two stun guns left behind on previous missions. While in the "past" she meets Bill Smith, an airplane crash inspector who discovers one of the stun guns. Louise must make sure the gun is retrieved before any damage is done to the timeline wiping out the universe itself. Talk about high stakes!
Very fast moving and enjoyable novel that treats time travel with enough seriousness to make it plausible but does not dwell on the science too much as to make it boring. The writing is crisp and to the point, and the characters well outlined, having traits from their own particular time eras that make them very interesting when they interact. Recommended.
The main character is Louise Baltimore, a time traveler tasked with bringing back humans from doomed events like plane crashes, who must retrieve two stun guns left behind on previous missions. While in the "past" she meets Bill Smith, an airplane crash inspector who discovers one of the stun guns. Louise must make sure the gun is retrieved before any damage is done to the timeline wiping out the universe itself. Talk about high stakes!
Very fast moving and enjoyable novel that treats time travel with enough seriousness to make it plausible but does not dwell on the science too much as to make it boring. The writing is crisp and to the point, and the characters well outlined, having traits from their own particular time eras that make them very interesting when they interact. Recommended.
November 28, 2018
Don't judge this book by the cheesy 1989 movie with Cheryl Ladd, because the book is a short but absorbing read. It started out as a short story and was expanded into a short novel later. It features time travelers from a highly-polluted future grabbing the bodies of those fated to die in the present. All of Varley's works through the mid-1980s are worth a read.
July 23, 2019
This book is sort of confusing and the ending is very rushed, but the premise and world that Varley has built is FASCINATING. I’m deeply intrigued by the future he supposes and I only wish this book dug more into it.
December 3, 2018
Hey, remember the 1980s? When the Cold War had not yet begun to warm, when nuclear war seemed the most likely way the world would end, when science-fiction felt compelled to draw parallels with religion? Millennium is right out of that world.
The story is told in alternating first person sections, the voices of the two protagonists. These sections are "testimony", meaning that they are intended as the character speaking in-universe. (The amount of direct quotation makes that a stretch, but I'm willing to allow the convention.) Because of the time-traveling nature of the book, it is also presented out of chronological order, but I never had any trouble piecing together where I was, or what was going on.
There was a bit of casual sexism, but no more than I would expect from a genre novel of its time. I believe in places it was trying to be progressive. Unfortunately, the author is way better at science fiction concepts than he is writing a believable romance. The whole relationship more or less boiled down to lust on his side, and pity on hers. That was not a strong enough foundation to justify how things happened, though, so I felt like I could see the puppet strings in places.
My biggest criticism was the end. Because of the restrictions of the first person perspective, the reader does not know what the characters don't know. We get around that with a third perspective in the last few pages, which attempts to tie up loose ends and give another few twists along the way. It felt rushed and unnecessary, and I don't think the recontextualization added to my enjoyment at all.
I plan to rewatch the 1989 film adaptation in the next few days. My memory tells me that the book stayed pretty close to the film, but it's still worth a comparison.
Recommended for any fans of vintage sci-fi who want a nice 1980s period time travel story to a dystopian future.
The story is told in alternating first person sections, the voices of the two protagonists. These sections are "testimony", meaning that they are intended as the character speaking in-universe. (The amount of direct quotation makes that a stretch, but I'm willing to allow the convention.) Because of the time-traveling nature of the book, it is also presented out of chronological order, but I never had any trouble piecing together where I was, or what was going on.
There was a bit of casual sexism, but no more than I would expect from a genre novel of its time. I believe in places it was trying to be progressive. Unfortunately, the author is way better at science fiction concepts than he is writing a believable romance. The whole relationship more or less boiled down to lust on his side, and pity on hers. That was not a strong enough foundation to justify how things happened, though, so I felt like I could see the puppet strings in places.
My biggest criticism was the end. Because of the restrictions of the first person perspective, the reader does not know what the characters don't know. We get around that with a third perspective in the last few pages, which attempts to tie up loose ends and give another few twists along the way. It felt rushed and unnecessary, and I don't think the recontextualization added to my enjoyment at all.
I plan to rewatch the 1989 film adaptation in the next few days. My memory tells me that the book stayed pretty close to the film, but it's still worth a comparison.
Recommended for any fans of vintage sci-fi who want a nice 1980s period time travel story to a dystopian future.
March 19, 2022
I'm not really sure what I had expected from this book, but I am sure it wasn't this.
After I finished reading, I took a few days to figure out how I felt about it, but I'm still not really sure. The ingredients are there for a good story: time travel, airplane crashes, mysterious happenings... and I even kinda liked the world-building Varley used to sketch the future, even if it was very weird and unlikely.
What I didn't like were the characters. The airplane crash investigator, I've already forgotten his name, was ... well, forgettable. But more than that, nothing he did mattered all that much. And when it did, it was quickly countered by the time travel. The girl from the future was... weirdly broken. And, come to think of it, she failed miserably every time we saw her try to do something. Both snatches went wrong and she couldn't stop the paradox from getting out of control. If it wasn't for BC (Big Computer), this miserable story would have a miserable ending. (So it became a true Deus Ex Machina ending). But that didn't even bother me much. I was more annoyed that even in this future where not everyone died, nobody was happy. Even with divine intervention the girl only lived a year longer and the guy (in spite of what he thought himself) never really loved the girl.
I think the two biggest flaws in this book were the bleakness and the alternating points of view. From the point of view of the guy, this was a mystery, which he never even came close to solving. But from the point of view of the girl, it was a struggle for survival, a struggle she never made any progress in. If the writer had stuck to one point of view and made the protagonist more competent, this could have been a keeper.
After I finished reading, I took a few days to figure out how I felt about it, but I'm still not really sure. The ingredients are there for a good story: time travel, airplane crashes, mysterious happenings... and I even kinda liked the world-building Varley used to sketch the future, even if it was very weird and unlikely.
What I didn't like were the characters. The airplane crash investigator, I've already forgotten his name, was ... well, forgettable. But more than that, nothing he did mattered all that much. And when it did, it was quickly countered by the time travel. The girl from the future was... weirdly broken. And, come to think of it, she failed miserably every time we saw her try to do something. Both snatches went wrong and she couldn't stop the paradox from getting out of control. If it wasn't for BC (Big Computer), this miserable story would have a miserable ending. (So it became a true Deus Ex Machina ending). But that didn't even bother me much. I was more annoyed that even in this future where not everyone died, nobody was happy. Even with divine intervention the girl only lived a year longer and the guy (in spite of what he thought himself) never really loved the girl.
I think the two biggest flaws in this book were the bleakness and the alternating points of view. From the point of view of the guy, this was a mystery, which he never even came close to solving. But from the point of view of the girl, it was a struggle for survival, a struggle she never made any progress in. If the writer had stuck to one point of view and made the protagonist more competent, this could have been a keeper.
October 19, 2023
Time enough for love
This is a unique time travel story with a purpose. It is based on the short story “Air Raid” by John Varley. People, that are predestined to fall off the twig, are being pilfered from their time, replaced, and transferred to the future for a mysterious purpose. In meantime back in the present aircraft accident investigator, Bill Smith finds a missing “stunner” (not the Girl, Louise. The stunner is a gun) and suspects the truth. Can Louise retrieve the missing device and curb Bill’s interest? Or is it too late and her project along with us is doomed?
I came to this book by way of the movie Millennium (1999). Now I find that is a good starting place to read the many other books by John Varley.
Naturally, the book has more time to put in-depth, and logic must be stripped to allow the movie to tell the story in a quicker time.
The book is bound to be a collector’s item.
This is a unique time travel story with a purpose. It is based on the short story “Air Raid” by John Varley. People, that are predestined to fall off the twig, are being pilfered from their time, replaced, and transferred to the future for a mysterious purpose. In meantime back in the present aircraft accident investigator, Bill Smith finds a missing “stunner” (not the Girl, Louise. The stunner is a gun) and suspects the truth. Can Louise retrieve the missing device and curb Bill’s interest? Or is it too late and her project along with us is doomed?
I came to this book by way of the movie Millennium (1999). Now I find that is a good starting place to read the many other books by John Varley.
Naturally, the book has more time to put in-depth, and logic must be stripped to allow the movie to tell the story in a quicker time.
The book is bound to be a collector’s item.
August 20, 2018
This one's a tale of time travelers from the distant, dystopian future. The human race is dying, poisoned by millennia of pollution and environmental damage. In an effort to save the race, some people have turned to the past, embarking on a program of snatching people from fatal disasters. (So as not to change history, of course.) But then a real disaster strikes--a piece of future technology left behind in a 1983 airplane crash threatens to create a paradox and unravel history as they know it. It's an entertaining little tale, with enough mystery and plot twists that kept me reading until the end.
April 11, 2021
Well that was a lot of fun. Crackerjack time-travel tale with good characters and solid dialog, stays interesting right up to the end, which is well-done and unexpected, even in this twisty universe.
Features a favorite trope: people inheriting technology they don't understand, either from aliens, the future, or a lost civilization (also convenient in that the mystery of how the tech works is part of the larger mystery and doesn't need to be explained, only guessed at).
Unsentimental and kinda bleak but not indulgently so. Dated references abound, but they make sense in terms of the story. Nice quick read too.
Features a favorite trope: people inheriting technology they don't understand, either from aliens, the future, or a lost civilization (also convenient in that the mystery of how the tech works is part of the larger mystery and doesn't need to be explained, only guessed at).
Unsentimental and kinda bleak but not indulgently so. Dated references abound, but they make sense in terms of the story. Nice quick read too.
October 27, 2010
I'm wavering between three and four stars here. Four because it is a dynamite plot with a detailed attention to time travel paradoxes, something that is necessary in a time travel novel. Three because the author seems to be from the Heinlein school in that he thinks a thorough and thoughtful science fiction idea trumps good writing. But it is a enjoyable read from beginning to end, so four stars win.
December 2, 2008
I love good time-travel stories (there are a lot of bad ones) and this one is a goodie, with a few novel concepts tossed in. The story is well-constructed and Varley did a nice job in expanding his original short story "Air Raid" with interesting characterizations while keeping the original idea intact.
January 1, 2023
Kind of an interesting premise, but the details and execution were way off. The time travel mechanism seemed very plot-driven. Sherman the Sex Robot seemed weird. The female perspective character was kind of off-putting.
I think a version of this book could be very good, but this is not that version, unfortunately.
I think a version of this book could be very good, but this is not that version, unfortunately.
October 18, 2018
Closer to 3.25/3.5. I liked it better in the beginning, at first because of the dated early 1980's setting and then because of the world built around Louise Baltimore, but the meet-cute in the middle kinda derailed things for a while, until, no pun intended, it stuck the landing.
January 2, 2016
five stars bcs this book kept me up, kept me turning the pages, kept me speculating and didn't let me down .
April 23, 2024
I didn't hate it, I didn't love it. I know the story behind how John struggled to get this adapted, and I think now it could be made much easier than then.
March 20, 2025
Ive rated books that are a 5 before which obviously had flaws. This book had 0. The characters are phenomenal.The crossover is phenomenal and the creation of those overlaps in the time travel with the timeline throughout the book ... Are flawless. Towards the end of the book we went back to bills side of the story to him finding the stunner, which was something I was really excited to read since the earlier chapters of the book.
I loved everything about it and the story was just extremely unique in general.
I loved everything about it and the story was just extremely unique in general.
October 18, 2024
A fun tribute to classic time travel novels - and a disaster investigation story
Michael Crichton meets Asimov
It starts out as a classic time travel novel told from two timelines simultaneously, but towards the end it gets a real Asimov vibe, with the robot as the guardian of humanity.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 28, 2020
What if in the far future mankind was living a doomed existence, and someone hatched a plan to save humanity by retrieving doomed persons from the past to restart humanity in the future?
I might have rated this book higher except for the ending.
I don't like to put spoilers in a review so I won't say what the ending is - but most of the book stays pretty consistent about time travel and paradoxes, but then a surprise reveal at the end makes some (not all) of that tidiness unimportant.
I had read a short story version of this book called "Air Raid" in The Persistence of Vision and I enjoyed that. This book extends that story in several dimensions. If you've read the short story the book is still highly recommended - but you will find nothing new in the short story if you've already read the novel.
I might have rated this book higher except for the ending.
I don't like to put spoilers in a review so I won't say what the ending is - but most of the book stays pretty consistent about time travel and paradoxes, but then a surprise reveal at the end makes some (not all) of that tidiness unimportant.
I had read a short story version of this book called "Air Raid" in The Persistence of Vision and I enjoyed that. This book extends that story in several dimensions. If you've read the short story the book is still highly recommended - but you will find nothing new in the short story if you've already read the novel.
April 1, 2021
4.5. This book just a bunch of fun, and a really creative take on time travel that I haven’t seen before. People from the future “snatch” people from the past who are going to die or go missing anyway—in this case a major plane crash—to use them for a certain purpose that I won’t spoil. I feel as though most time travel stories utilize the idea that time has hard and strict rules and that can make for interesting and complex consequences. Varley goes a different route and instead wrote a story where time travel is, frankly, pretty darn forgiving: the butterfly effect basically doesn’t exist. You CAN change things in the past, but only as long as it’s minor enough that time can course correct soon after. That doesn’t mean there aren’t rules and consequences though; the whole book is a fun romp in which the characters are dealing with unique time paradox scenarios. While it wasn’t the most incredible piece of writing, it was a definitive page-turner and I had a blast.
November 10, 2025
“I never yet heard a pilot crying about it on the way down. Some of them are more excited than Rockwell was, but there’s never anything that sounds like panic. These are men who have learned there is always something else you can do, something that if you forget to do it you’re going to feel pretty silly. So they try and they try and they keep on trying until the ground is about an inch from the windshield and then what I think they tend to feel is foolish. They finally realise they don’t have time to do anything about anything. They’ve missed it. They’ve fucked up. They feel disgusted that they didn’t solve the problem in time and they say ‘Aw, shit!’”
Two parallel narratives: Bill Smith and Louise Baltimore. Each is roused from sleep by an emergency. Bill is an air crash investigator in the 1980s and two airliners have collided and crashed. Louise is from the far distant future and has to handle a twonky: an anomalous artefact that threatens the whole course of history as she knows it. Both are flawed but thoroughly competent at their jobs. And each is brave and prepared to do whatever it takes. Louise: “Me, I’ll do anything somebody with a gun tells me to do, and say please and thank you. And kill him instantly if he gives me a chance.”
Millennium is one of my favourite books. I don’t know how many times I’ve re-read it: at least six. I love the courage and cynicism displayed by the protagonists. There’s a so-so film with Kris Kristofferson and Cheryl Ladd, scripted by Varley who also wrote the Gaea trilogy of Science Fiction books: Titan, Wizard and Demon. He convincingly writes strong female (and male) characters.
and...
Must be my favourite book. I re-read it last year and will probably read it again before this year is out.
“I remember looking down at the sleeping face that looked like mine. Then they were pulling me away from it. There was a stout aluminium bar in my hands and a rip in the palm of my skinsuit from thumb to index finger. I had wrenched the bar from one of the examining machines.
I sure made a mess of that wimp
I regret that, I really do. The thing had been wearing my jeans and I never did get all the blood out of them.”
“‘And then when the computer got them straightened out there was just time for the alarm to go off, and I looked down and you couldn’t tell the blips apart anymore. They were just one blip.
And the blip dropped right off the screen.’”
This is my favourite book. I must have read it half a dozen times and have posted reviews in 2022 and 2023
Two parallel narratives: Bill Smith and Louise Baltimore. Each is roused from sleep by an emergency. Bill is an air crash investigator in the 1980s and two airliners have collided and crashed. Louise is from the far distant future and has to handle a twonky: an anomalous artefact that threatens the whole course of history as she knows it. Both are flawed but thoroughly competent at their jobs. And each is brave and prepared to do whatever it takes. Louise: “Me, I’ll do anything somebody with a gun tells me to do, and say please and thank you. And kill him instantly if he gives me a chance.”
Millennium is one of my favourite books. I don’t know how many times I’ve re-read it: at least six. I love the courage and cynicism displayed by the protagonists. There’s a so-so film with Kris Kristofferson and Cheryl Ladd, scripted by Varley who also wrote the Gaea trilogy of Science Fiction books: Titan, Wizard and Demon. He convincingly writes strong female (and male) characters.
and...
Must be my favourite book. I re-read it last year and will probably read it again before this year is out.
“I remember looking down at the sleeping face that looked like mine. Then they were pulling me away from it. There was a stout aluminium bar in my hands and a rip in the palm of my skinsuit from thumb to index finger. I had wrenched the bar from one of the examining machines.
I sure made a mess of that wimp
I regret that, I really do. The thing had been wearing my jeans and I never did get all the blood out of them.”
“‘And then when the computer got them straightened out there was just time for the alarm to go off, and I looked down and you couldn’t tell the blips apart anymore. They were just one blip.
And the blip dropped right off the screen.’”
This is my favourite book. I must have read it half a dozen times and have posted reviews in 2022 and 2023
June 28, 2020
Years ago, someone recommended this to me and I don't remember who. I can speculate but that's always folly.
This is one of those reads I found myself starting out at two stars because it hasn't aged well in many respects. This was released in the 80s, and that's great if you're in the 80s and from the 80s, where the name- and brand-dropping will all just set the scene in a way that connects with the person reading the book. Yes, I hate the phrase "the reader". Sue me. Thankfully that didn't last long and the book instead suffered mostly from anachronism in ways that people now won't relate to, such as smoking indoors and references to attire that most people younger than me won't get.
Thankfully, I am perhaps in the last year or two of births that will recognize most of the cultural references and the subtle anachronisms necessary for a functional time travel story. So these worked for me, and I found myself waffling between two stars and three shortly after, but the handling of the end made me instead debate between three and four. I never considered quitting this book, even if at times I found it stupid and meandering. Don't worry, that all ties together satisfactorily at the end, where more questions than answers are really generated while somehow still being satisfying and not insulting.
The characters are deeply flawed, which is vital to the story. I get so tired of hearing about "strong female characters" and that always ends up meaning a Mary Sue version of Arnold Schwarzenegger in drag. She's not like the other girls. In this case, the male and female leads are human and have their problems like anyone else. Refreshing in an age of pandering.
If you aren't from Generation X or before, I'm curious how you'd view this book. The world sure has changed a lot in the past forty years.
This is one of those reads I found myself starting out at two stars because it hasn't aged well in many respects. This was released in the 80s, and that's great if you're in the 80s and from the 80s, where the name- and brand-dropping will all just set the scene in a way that connects with the person reading the book. Yes, I hate the phrase "the reader". Sue me. Thankfully that didn't last long and the book instead suffered mostly from anachronism in ways that people now won't relate to, such as smoking indoors and references to attire that most people younger than me won't get.
Thankfully, I am perhaps in the last year or two of births that will recognize most of the cultural references and the subtle anachronisms necessary for a functional time travel story. So these worked for me, and I found myself waffling between two stars and three shortly after, but the handling of the end made me instead debate between three and four. I never considered quitting this book, even if at times I found it stupid and meandering. Don't worry, that all ties together satisfactorily at the end, where more questions than answers are really generated while somehow still being satisfying and not insulting.
The characters are deeply flawed, which is vital to the story. I get so tired of hearing about "strong female characters" and that always ends up meaning a Mary Sue version of Arnold Schwarzenegger in drag. She's not like the other girls. In this case, the male and female leads are human and have their problems like anyone else. Refreshing in an age of pandering.
If you aren't from Generation X or before, I'm curious how you'd view this book. The world sure has changed a lot in the past forty years.
August 14, 2018
This "novel" by Varley is as good as his first novel and much better than any of the novels in the _Titan_ trilogy (I use "novel" in quotation marks because this is really a novelization of a film made from his earlier short story "Air Raid"). It's a very good representative of the time travel subgenre of science fiction and the primary entertainment value derives from experiencing the suspense of the characters as they try to correct a paradox they have accidentally caused in the past. Louise Baltimore is a vintage Varley character: a smartass, strong and self-determined woman with some weaknesses that she readily acknowledges (when she knows about them). Bill Smith is somewhat atypical for Varley (at least as far as his other works in the SF register are concerned), but I presume that Smith and several other elements of the novel are actually the creations of the screenwriters/producers/director of the film and had nothing to do with Varley. I also appreciated the chapter titles being direct references to previous works of the time travel subgenre.
But...there are problems, too. Some of them are the result of the filmic nature of the commodity the work is based on. Some solutions or events are telegraphed well ahead of time (we can't have the viewing audience confused, now can we?). The "love story" between Bill and Louise is both unbelievable and inexplicable (something Varley tries to address, not successfully, in the two epilogues). There are other large explanatory gaps in the work, things that just don't add up or are not explained sufficiently. However, given that this is not entirely a work of Varley's own imagination, and that it is meant (mostly) as "light" entertainment, this is a fairly good work.
But...there are problems, too. Some of them are the result of the filmic nature of the commodity the work is based on. Some solutions or events are telegraphed well ahead of time (we can't have the viewing audience confused, now can we?). The "love story" between Bill and Louise is both unbelievable and inexplicable (something Varley tries to address, not successfully, in the two epilogues). There are other large explanatory gaps in the work, things that just don't add up or are not explained sufficiently. However, given that this is not entirely a work of Varley's own imagination, and that it is meant (mostly) as "light" entertainment, this is a fairly good work.
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