The Ophiuchi Hotline

Eight Worlds

by John Varley

After supremely advanced aliens invade Earth to liberate the planet's intelligent species--whales & dolphins-- the majority of humankind is exiled into space, where, by means of bioengineering, they begin to adapt to & thrive in their unforgiving environments. Cutting-edge tech means that they can modify body parts, regularly store their memories for cloning purposes & even merge with seemingly benevolent alien beings (known as symbs) to create another entity altogether. The discovery of a steady--& mostly indecipherable--stream of data originating from a star system 17 light-years away offers some kind of hope of advancing the species & retaking the homeworld. But when the novel's protagonist (a series of successive clones named Lilo-Alexandr-Calypso) travels out to 70 Ophiuchi, what she finds may not be salvation for the human species but its damnation.
Almost 30 years after 1st release, Varley's 1st novel--like Joan Rivers's face--has barely shown any signs of aging. Just as thematically cutting-edge & entertaining as it was in 1977, The Ophiuchi Hotline is a must-read for anyone claiming to be a science fiction fan. (You know you're an undeniably hard-core genre fan, by the way, if you can properly pronounce this title.)--Paul Goat Allen (edited)

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Speculative Fiction, Space Opera, Fantasy, High Fantasy

180 pages, Hardcover

First published January 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

[Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

After I finished the Gaia trilogy, I knew I had to keep going through all of John Varley's work.

It's not a compulsion. It's a necessity for the sake of my love of SF.

John Varley is one of the most impressive authors of the field I've had the pleasure to experience. The imagination and the devotion to pushing all those envelopes is the key to my love. :)

This one starts out noir with cloning goodness, moves on pretty quickly to the fate of the Earth and how it had been invaded, very successfully, to save the fishes and to oust the rest of humanity as lower life-forms. If the intrigue to Free Earth hadn't been enough, there was the whole business about the message being transmitted just outside of the reach of the inner system, the one letting us know that the bill has come due for the instantaneous communication technology we'd been using for the last five hundred years.

Ooops.

I guess it's time to figure out if humanity is doomed two times over!

Maybe it sounds like a joke, but it's hardly anything like a joke. The telling of it is all adventure, immortality, corruption, intrigue, and pure imagination through and through. The joy is really in the execution.

And the ending? Wow. Like, totally wow. This is easily one of the very best Hard SF novels I've ever read. It's right up there with anything I can think of. It explores time, memory, and even the social aspects of what alien races might think or do and how they could relate to any other species.

I'm tempted to rank it right up there on the same level as Cixin Liu's latest English-translated trilogy starting with Three Body Problem and ending with Death's End, and I haven't even read Varley's subsequent novels. :)

You can guess that I'll be picking up books two and three very soon. :) This is on another level compared to most modern SF. Let's just call it an undisputed classic. :) '77 and timeless.

[Henry Avila · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lilo-Alexandr-Calypso is your typical mad scientist on the moon, of the female persuasion, doing illegal human genetic research, that it's proscribed by the state, doesn't bother her one bit. What annoys Lilo a great deal though, is the death sentence after being arrested and found guilty by the strict court . Set in the far future , when Earthlings have lost the Earth , to powerful, ruthless, alien invaders. The little left of the human race is scattered all around the solar system, from Mercury to Pluto, and even their inhospitable satellites. Just in the nick of time , she's rescued by the Free Earthers, they substitute Lilo with her clone, in the bleak death house. These fanatics need her to help them recover the blue planet, a hopeless, long sought dream. Poor Calypso has really bad luck, getting killed often, including the original and being resurrected in new clone bodies, quite confusing to say the least. At one time there are three versions of Lilo running around in various planets , spaceships and moons . One of the trio even falls into Jupiter 's enormous, lethal atmosphere, although dazzling, not a happy situation, however a wonderful, breathtaking ride while it lasts. The Free Earth people are led by I kid you not, a man or is it a woman? Who dresses , talks, behaves and looks like the notorious 19th century New York City corrupt politician, Boss Tweed, he has many schemes to defeat the invaders and return to Terra. Guess nobody reads history books anymore, change that to e -books."Tweed" a former president of Luna, with a secret base deep inside a Jovian moon, Poseidon, but not for long. Lilo sent there, wants to leave the depressing place quickly , and with the help of her new, good friends, somehow sends this satellite at the near speed of light towards Alpha Centauri, the nearest star to our Sun. Maybe Calypso will see her two wandering sisters there...if alive . By the way Ophiuchi is pronounced, off-e-yoo-ki ( assuming you're interested) .... "Good Aliens" , the Ophiuchi Hotline, has sent four hundred years of messages from distant, remote space , helping mankind's technology progress rapidly. Now they want the bill paid! A surprisingly entertaining space opera for people who like this type of thing, not as strange as when this was written over forty years ago... does this tell us something about today's present, crazy world ? Weird science at its decadent best...or worst.

[Peter Tillman · Rating 5 out of 5]

2018 reread: I'm at p. 92 of 180 of this compact and amazingly good first novel, and very pleased with how the book is holding up. Kicked it back up to 5 stars. Just about nothing has dated. This was the setup book for Varley's remarkable Eight Worlds future history, his most lasting contribution to SF literature: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_W...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oph...

The book comes to a rousing and surprisingly hopeful finish, considering that it opened with the deaths (offscreen) of 10 billion humans on Earth, and will shortly end with the destruction and death of the Eight Worlds. Hey, hope springs eternal, and no, it's not a gloomy book. Something of a pastoral, actually.

If you missed this one, or it's been awhile, you have a treat ahead. Easy 5-stars.

Jo Walton, as always, has astute commentary on both author & works: https://www.tor.com/2010/03/12/john-v...

My 2002 comments:
This was Varley's first novel (published 1977) , and it is *amazingly* good. On my periodic reread list -- I've read it 4 or 5 times by now, with [+/-] equal pleasure each time. FWIW, Hotline [has been] on my personal Top Ten SF Novels list, though I'll cheerfully admit I've never read it critically (nor do I plan to!).

I don't think quite as highly of the book now (2016), but if you've never read it, you should. Still his best novel, I think.

John Varley's best work was all in short form, and all in the 1970s, in an amazingly productive period that took my (and LOTS of others) breath away. Marvel is piled on invention, and all very human. Sadly, he burnt through all his best ideas, published some OK later books, and has largely fallen silent of late. But his early work was GREAT, and still is. Do check him out, if you missed his half-hour of fame!

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

As Varley's debut novel The Ophiuchi Hotline is a brilliantly ambitious whirlwind, a hard sci-fi tour de force. He packs in an astounding number of fascinating ideas on future human culture and technology, especially for what amounts to quite a short novel. Of particular note are the early bio-punk, gender fluidity and transhuman themes. All this in support of an epic story of war and survival in space, developed in a series of divergent plot lines concerning first contact and the invasion of Earth by a wholly inscrutable race of aliens who manipulate time and space for unknown purposes and may mean the end of humanity.

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Varley is a writer with enormous reserves of imagination, and this book pulses with a gonzo energy as he throws in to the mix a bunch of fun and varied and original ideas. In a manner that’s similar to the inventive classic Babel-17, the plot doesn’t always live up to the exciting ideas and vivid characters and the colorful dynamics coursing through its pages, but this book was always thoroughly enjoyable and provocative, and I definitely want to read more of his work.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. This is a fantastic story and I am surprised I have not heard more about this as I beleive it has all the makings of a CLASSIC SF novel. This is the first novel set in Varley's "Eight World" universe and is full of very interesting, and I imagine at the time, original concepts. Just a few of these include:

- The ability to back-up via computer a person's personality at any time and to "download" it into a clone of such individual (a strong parallel can be found in Richard K. Morgan's Altered Carbon )

- The ability of people to alter their genetic make-up basically at will (i.e., adding or removing arms, legs, tails, eyes, etc..)

- Humans and intelligent "symbiotes" combining voluntarily to form a completely new life form (you can think Trills from Star Trek but it is more complicated than that.

- The Ophiuchi Hotline itself and the back story behind it, which I will not spoil for those who have not read it.

And much, much more. This is a really terrific read and I strongly recommend it.

[Lyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Weird book.

Opiuchi Hotline by John Varley, the author of the Gaian trilogy, is about… a lot of stuff – and all rolled up into a hard sci-fi, Bradburyan fantasy mix. I guess if I had to break it down and slap a label on it, I would say this is a first contact story, though a very original one.

This is a difficult book to review, it was kind of hard to follow, and yet, strangely compelling, like Dane Cook narrating a children’s book: contextually OK, but edgy and not just a little disconcerting. Varley describes a quirky, but brutal social order where Earth had been invaded centuries before and humans were denigrated to second class status amongst aliens and even Earthlings, as aquatic mammals were considered more advanced (So Long and Thanks for All the Fish!).

Most interesting, Varley anticipates the writing of William Gibson in Neuromancer and the bio-punk sub genre. Hotline exhibits bioengineering and manipulation, cosmetic sex changes, overlapping multi-level cloning with memory recording and nanotechnology.

This is also reminiscent of Joe Haldeman’s work in All My Sins Remembered (also published in 1977) and There Is No Darkness (published 1983) and the similarity in these works and the closeness in time suggest a collective literary movement in this direction.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

How do you fight gods?

This is the question humanity is grappling with in John Varley’s The Opiuchi Hotline, a rollicking SF story short enough to gobble up over a couple of afternoons.

In Varley’s future humanity has spread across the eight worlds of the solar system, establishing thriving colonies on Mars, mercury, Venus, even Pluto. But there is a catch, as you might have guessed with their being eight worlds, not nine (note: in Varley’s time Pluto was still a planet).

Earth- the nicest and comfiest of all the worlds, is now denied to humanitys. At some point a few centuries back some all-powerful aliens arrived, landed on Earth and, using technologies so advanced that they might as well be magic, destroyed every human built structure on the planet. They didn’t directly kill anyone – not their style, apparently – but they did leave 10 or so billion people to starve, along with a lunar colony that wasn’t quite ready for self sufficiency, and was forced into a terrifying life and death struggle as their supply drops ceased.

As you can imagine, this left the human race a touch traumatized, but people have made the best of it and have spread through the solar system and beyond, including into a region near Pluto where strange transmissions can be picked up- transmissions that spell out how to create advanced technologies, manipulate genetics and generally skip a few centuries of laborious scientific development.

Humanity has used this information to great effect and Earth has been almost written off by most people as lost forever, something strict government embargoes on the planet reinforce.

But, there are those who would re-conquer Earth, who dream of humanity recovering its lost home… and whoever has been sending information down the hotline has just sent all of humanity a threatening message - a bill for four centuries of services rendered.

Into this scenario comes Doctor Lilo Alexandr-Calypso, a geneticist by trade who has been using the Opiuchi hotline information to perform banned experiments upon human DNA. When we meet her she is in a prison cell awaiting execution by singularity – she is to be tossed into a tiny black hole, and every computer record of her mind, and clone of her body (for these are common in this era) is under sentence of death too.

This is a fast-paced story that follows multiple versions of the same person, across different worlds and even different timelines as Lilo, the companions she encounters, and the human race as a whole come to realise exactly what they are up against, what the future holds for the human race and how crowded and unfriendly a place our galaxy can be.

I know what you’re thinking: this sounds like yet another story where plucky humanity fights off a vastly more advanced invader with grit, luck and the odd deus ex machina- the same trope we’ve seen in novels as far back as The War of The Worlds and in modern TV series like Falling Skies. This is a truly old genre trope, but it still limps along, kept alive by authors who perhaps should know better.

Varley knew better when he wrote this novel, so prepare to be surprised. The beings that took Earth, known only as The Invaders, are so advanced that their science, their tech, even their perception of time are simply incomprehensible to humanity. They are truly godlike, and the direction Varley takes his narrative in is one I haven’t encountered before.

This book is well worth your time, but be warned that The Opiuchi Hotline is very much a scene setter of a novel, and it becomes clear early on that there won’t be space to resolve the big questions Varley sets up, which I assume are dealt with in the further books in the series.

The narrative is occasionally a little confusing, and the characters not as deeply explored as they could be but this is an enjoyable, pacey read and I’m genuinely keen to see where Varley goes in his next book.

In response to my original question, taking into consideration what I’ve learned from reading The Opiuchi Hotline:

How do you fight gods?

Answer: You don’t. You do your very, very best not to piss them off.

3.5 stars.

[Jordan West · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5; I've been aware of Varley since middle school, but his books appeared to be the hardest of hard sci-fi, and thus of very little appeal to me - this however, Varley's first novel, has proven to be (mostly) an exception to my prior assumption, for despite the author's interest in hard science that would later assume central focus, this book can be categorized as a hybrid, being roughly 3/4 New Wave space opera in the tradition of Bester, Dick, and Zelazny, and 1/4 hard science fiction; I found the latter aspect of the novel much less engaging, although Varley's high-tech action sequences, reminiscent of a far future heist movie or Mission Impossible episode, still entertain even though they feel as if they'd fit better in another narrative - far more interesting is the fascinating portrayal of a transhumanist society where do-it-yourself body modification, casual gender switching, and people living simultaneous lives via multiple clones is the norm, anticipating bio-cyberpunk of the sort best represented by Bruce Sterling's Shaper/Mechanist fiction. If this is, ultimately, a novel whose individual pieces were stronger than the whole, in the end those pieces are so well-made it is still worth reading in order to experience them.

[Allison Hurd · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF @ 56%

I am sad to say I hate this book. It's taking me forever, I have no idea what's going on and am beginning to think this is more a thought experiment in how many ways sex and clones can be used in mundane ways than anything like a story.

While I was initially intrigued at a society with completely flipped morals to ours, and a sort of normalization of trans or non-binary life, it became clear that this wasn't actually assumed fully into the story. I hate the way sex is used. I hate that the women are all bi but prefer men who only present as men and who prefer being exclusively with women. I didn't overlook that the only brown people are a couple, the woman "exotic and gorgeous" and the dude nerdy and unwashed. Oy.

I'm also more than halfway in and I don't know what this plot is. The science doesn't make sense, not even the normal stuff like knowing what north is if you've never been on a planet with a revolving iron core, let alone Earth.

I'm sure it's forward thinking for its time, but having been born a decade after it first broke new ground, I'm not gonna punish myself. I just read a chapter entirely about the difference in fashion and advertising between the Moon and Pluto. I like myself too much for this. G'bye!

[Dawn F · Rating 2 out of 5]

I recently read Varley's short story "Press Enter" and liked it enough to try a novel of his. But where his short story was a sort of ominous, slow-building cyber horror and character exploration, The Ophiuchi Hotline is a space adventure/space opera, and think by now I've established that I'm simply not into that. I need my scifi to be more philosophical, anthropological, speculative, explorative, full of moral debate and dilemma. It's well written for sure and he obviously has a very vidid imagination. There were minor things that annoyed me, but would have annoyed me in any kind of novel, and objectively I'm impressed that it didn't sound anachronistic at all (unlike, "Press Enter", which has the 80s written all over it).

In any regard I don't mean to dissuade people from reading it. My lukewarm review is pretty much a case of 'it not you, it's me'.

[Oleksandr Zholud · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a short novel by John Varley, who in the late 1970s was considered by some ‘the next Heinlein’. While I don’t think that he is, but this doesn’t mean he isn’t a good and strong SF author, for he definitely is.

The novel is set in the Eight Worlds universe. The following text will spoiler a bit but no more than the book’s page here on Goodreads. The Mankind lost the Earth to singularity-level (?) invaders. There was no real war, for there was nothing the humanity could have done. Now it lives across the Solar system (the remnants of extra-terran colonies), thus the title. The humanity was helped a great deal by info streaming from the direction of Ophiuchi 70, the star 17 light years from the Solar system. The reason why this info was supplied has never occurred to the mankind, which grabbed this free lunch while it can.

Some five centuries passed after the invasion. A renegade gene-engineer is sentenced to death, but it saved by Luna’s politician, who commits the high crime of cloning her mind and body without destroying the original. The engineer, called Lilo-Alexandr-Calypso is then used to promote Free Earth (a group that plans to re-capture the Earth), without much enthusiasm. She is more interested in running away. There will be clones, asteroids, aliens, black holes and adventures in abundance.

There are a lot of allusions (intentional or not) to many classic SF, like invasive holo-ads (see Podkayne of Mars), or 4D representation of human (see Slaughterhouse-Five).

A very interesting author, recommended.

[Olethros · Rating 3 out of 5]

-En su tiempo, innovadora en los contenidos.-

Género. Ciencia-Ficción.

Lo que nos cuenta. Lilo-Alexandr-Calypso cometió uno de los peores crímenes posibles en esta época del futuro, la alteración de material genético fuera de los límites legales, por lo que está condenada a la muerte definitiva. El expresidente Tweed le propone su liberación (dejando un clon para que sea ejecutado en su lugar) a cambio de su colaboración en un proyecto secreto y también ilegal que necesita de su experiencia en manipulación de ADN y que servirá, según Tweed, para enfrentarse a los alienígenas que se han adueñado del Sistema Solar y que nos consideran menos inteligentes que varios mamíferos marinos, los llamados invasores. Trabajo que hace parte de la Trilogía de los Ocho Mundos. Esta edición incluye también la novela corta “La persistencia dela visión”, de la que ya hemos hablado en el blog.

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

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

[Stuart · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Brilliant Debut Novel, Bursting With Ideas and Plotlines, Perhaps Too Many
This was such an impressive first SF novel by John Varley - it's got all-powerful aliens taking over Earth, genetic engineering, cloning, cybernetic modifications, gender flexibility, plotting to restore humanity, and a mysterious beam of incredibly advanced info from Ophiuchus that humanity has used to make leaps and bounds in technological advancement, though still they are like mosquitos to the mysterious and indifferent gas-giant Invaders who kicked them off earth to save the only intelligent species: whales and dolphins! And if that's not enough, humanity finally gets the bill for this info superhighway the past 4 centuries....

Everything and the kitchen sink are thrown at the reader in rapid succession, both ideas, characters, plot lines, and amazing set-pieces. Any could have been expanded to a full-length novel, but I guess Varley wanted to get them out there just in case he didn't get another chance to publish again. The tech and concepts remain incredibly fresh, almost 50 years later, which is truly impressive. And refreshingly there are no mind-numbing and momentum-killing info dumps like those that Neal Stephenson and Kim Stanley Robinson love to pummel readers with nowadays. If one he could have taken just a bit more time and left a few more ideas on the drawing table for future books, this would have been a 5-start classic.

[York · Rating 3 out of 5]

Liked it and probably would have liked it more back in the 70s when it was written...somehow it felt more dated than it really was...Although after reading several Varley books, maybe I just don't care for his writing style...since many seem to love him...

[Michael Finocchiaro · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great piece of fiction, Varley's first! I liked the ideas here and was reminded of the themes from David Brin of Uplift and I can see how other books in 80s and 90s sci-fi were indebted to this one. The idea of this call from outer space probably also played an inspirational role for Cixin Liu for The Three-Body Problem. As I found in his Titan, there is a lot of interesting sex (it was written at the tail-end of the 70s after all. The folks born in freefall reminded me of Bujold's Quaddies in Falling Free. The novel is so short and moves so fast, that almost any plot detail would entail a spoiler. Suffice it to say that Varley loves the gas planets (because the aforementioned Titan also occurs there) and his Eight Worlds series gets off to a great start here. I think I will read Steel Beach as well.

[Erik Graff · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an excellent book to be written as a first novel! Not only is the story well-plotted and written, but the cloning theme raises serious questions about what we understand as individuality. It has not been often that a novel has caused me to pause, repeatedly, for reflection.
I read this outside during warm summer days in the quadrangle of Union Theological Seminary in New York City.

[Denis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I tend to round up with stars...

I like debut novels as much as I do debut films made by first time script writer / directors. There is either a certain charm to them or other times it is an urgent desperation. The charming ones tend to be simple straight forward if not a bit quaint or quirky. The desperate ones tend to be crammed packed with a multitude of ideas and scene and issues and are filmed in various stylistic manners... It's almost as if the author or film maker believes they may never again get the opportunity to publish a novel or make another film in their lives, therefore they must somehow, put all of their ‘intended’ novels or films into this one that has got the ‘go’ from the industry.

“The Ophiuchi Hotline” (difficult title to remember - mistake one perhaps) is that kind of book - the ‘desperate debut’. It includes: a character 'Lilo' that is continuously assassinated and is then rejuvenated over and over again. Human beings have been overlorded by a far advanced race that classified us as well below that of dolphins and whales - not that bad of an idea and in this case, and not done in the comedic 'Hitchhiker's Guide' fashion. Several planets and moons are populated by humans colonies - the Earth’s moon being the primary ‘state’. And, if I understood it correctly, there is even a trippy scenario where one of our character’s versions is, brought to an alternate or future on Earth for a time??? And there is so much more...

Nothing wrong with this approach; A.E. van Vogt’s stories and novels are obsessed over for this very reason alone, but this is a different. Varley, as his fans surely know, is a top notch author. And this debut novel, technically, is first rate. For me, it was a bit much and took a while to get through as I had to reread sections to keep the narrative straight. However, in the end, I liked it and will most definitely read more of his work. I assume it only gets better, and perhaps more focused, as he becomes more seasoned over time.

[Ignacio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sentía curiosidad por ver qué se contaba Varley en el campo de la novela cuando estaba petándolo con los relatos recogidos en La persistencia de la visión (y En el salón de los reyes marcianos). Y aquí estoy, 30 años después, satisfaciéndola XD

Se nota que el hombre se sentía cómodo en el formato porque, básicamente, aquí encadena las diferentes vidas de un clon proscrito mientras es empujado por un megalómano por todo el universo de los ocho mundos; ese sistema solar donde la humanidad ha sido expulsada de la Tierra y ha salido adelante a base de apretarse el cinturón, modificar el cuerpo y entregarse a los sistemas socio-político-económicos de lo más variados. Varley las entreteje un poco a las bravas, con un par medio abandonadas tras un salto argumental que deja con la mandíbula abierta. Se terminan recuperando, como el hilo que las vincula, pero me ha dejado la sensación de que se podrían haber conectado con una mejor sensación de conjunto. Después, hay un par de usos tecnológicos tan avanzados que parecen magia; no en el sentido de Clarke sino hechos por un mago porque era necesario para que la historia tuviera sentido. Sin embargo, también están ahí las ideas ambiciosas (ese planeta prisión agobiante donde no se puede escapar y del cuál tampoco puedes ser rescatado), las imágenes espectaculares (esa caída hacia Júpiter), la acción bien llevada, los personajes pintorescos, un universo hostil pero con una cierta piedad... Una aventura espacial con todo lo necesario para pasar sobre sus debilidades y disfrutar de sus fortalezas.

No está a la altura de sus relatos, pero ni falta que hace.

[Consuelo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nunca había leído un libro de ci-fi tan antiguo que me pareciera tan actual. Vanguardista en la vanguardia, no ha envejecido nada.

[prcardi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Storyline: 3/5
Characters: 2/5
Writing Style: 3/5
World: 5/5

This was a work full to the brim with ideas. One the reasons I read science fiction is just for those sorts of ideas, and in that way this was a rewarding experience. Later authors like Kim Stanley Robinson would work similarly, although turning those passing ideas and brief mentions into pages long infodumps and laborious expositions. Varley isn't lecturing, however, and he's not building anything resembling literature. He's getting the ideas out there, as many as he can strew along the brief 180 pages in the volume. At its heart this is an action-adventure story, with some forced edginess and grit. The ideas are set pieces or scenery along the adventure. Varley never bores us with an infodump and doesn't let you get deeply intertwined enough with any of the ideas to generate complaints of their not being developed. They're all background for our characters. The author generally had a good grasp on the story, most of the pieces fit, the technologies impressed, the characters went places and did their adventuring. What it really cried out for was some depth, however, specifically character depth. These were adventures worth experiencing and what we get to do is to view them from a distance. The technologies were worth contemplating, but they mainly served to move the story along. The worlds were worth understanding, but they largely served as a shortcut to make this seem more expansive than it really was. So it was an enjoyable book but slightly disappointing for lack of any serious engagement.

[Patrick Scheele · Rating 2 out of 5]

It sounded like a book I would love: invading aliens, humanity banished from Earth, a mysterious signal from a nearby star teaching us new technology... But then the invaders turn out to just be a part of the background story and the only guy in the book who even wants to fight back turns out to be a bad guy.

This isn't a story about humanity fighting back, it's the story of a humanity that isn't worth saving: decadent, bored and not even trying to fight back. That's in the background at least. The story of Lilo, our heroine, is only interesting when she's confronted with her clones. The one who had to die in her place and the ones who died trying to escape, the first her original self.

[Wealhtheow · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book starts out *wonderfully*, and I love the premise of the book. Generations ago, humanity was cast out of Earth by Invaders who are so much smarter and more powerful, they actually operate on a completely different plain. A tinkerer of genetic structures gets caught, condemned to death, and rescued by various factions of humanity. It follows her story, although along the way she gets killed and cloned a half dozen times. A cool look at identity, and I definitely loved the world Varley created.

[Alendi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Un libro correcto pero sin destacar. Tiene alguna idea de fondo que no está mal, pero no las desarrolla lo suficiente para mi gusto.

[Charlotte Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has been on my shelf for years and I'm so glad that I finally picked it up. I have been getting into science-fiction a lot more recently and think that I read this novel at the perfect time.

I will say, first of all, that this book is extremely confusing at points. Clones and cloning is a huge part of the civilisation in this book and it was difficult to understand what was going on at points but I think that as the story progressed this became much easier.

I loved the portrayal of gender in this novel; due to highly developed technologies regarding cosmetic surgery, the characters in this story choose their gender and can change whenever they want. Also, sex in their society is a lot more casual that in our own world and it was refreshing to read about. That being said, I would say that if you are uncomfortable with sex scenes this may not be the book for you, but I think that they were relevant to the story and as they were not a big deal to the characters, likewise to the reader.

Overall I would highly recommend this book if you are interested in science fiction of any kind. The mystery aspects of the story really hooked me in and although the characters were not very likeable, they kept me interested throughout.

[Alien · Rating 3 out of 5]

Die Menschheit wurde grossteils ausgerottet, als übermächtige ETs die Erde besetzten. Der Rest lebt im Sonnensystem verstreut. Man profitiert von mysteriösen Funksprüchen, die wohl von Ophiuchi stammen und nützliche Informationen liefern. Die Hauptperson ist Lola, eine Genetikerin, die wegen der Manipulation menschlicher DNA zum Tode verurteilt wurde.

Der Autor präsentiert eine Vielzahl cooler Ideen, die auch heute noch frisch wirken. Als Roman funktioniert es nicht ganz so perfekt. Die Vielzahl von Clonen und Handlungssträngen wirkt etwas zerfahren. Am Ende bleiben viele Fragen ungeklärt. Die gottgleiche Allmacht der Gaswelten-ETs missfällt mir, es könnte irgendwie alles passieren, ich als Leser muss es einfach schlucken.
Vielleicht werden die Fragen in den folgenden Romanen der Serie geklärt.

[Jim Mcclanahan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Can't belive this is the first Varley work I've read. Surprisingly fresh and relevant, considering its age. I found it to be an interesting way of affirming the value of the human spirit through a host of adverse circumstances. Some fascinating characters in extraordinary scenarios.

[Snakes · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m new to this author and was actually the most interested in another book by this author, but it happened to be later in this series, so I’ve started from the beginning. I’d never heard of this book but the premise was extremely creative; likewise, the result was just as impressive. I’m definitely going to continue on through this series and I’m anticipating that the later books will potentially be even better.

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

A scattershot of science fiction ideas which don't all hit the target.

[Nicolas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quelle histoire !
Tout commence avec la première mort de Lilo, une ingénieur en biotechnologies qui, pour s'être intéressée d'un peu trop près au génome humain, se retrouve condamnée à mort. Evidement, il ne lui arrivera pas que ça.
Et je n'en dirai pas plus sur l'intrigue parce que même si elle est intéressante, elle n'est pas l'intérêt esssentiel de ce roman.
Non, ce qui est intéressant, ce sont les voyages que fera Lilo à travers ce système solaire qui n'est plus vraiment aux mains de l'humanité. Des voyages qui l'amèneront à découvrir de multiples réalités culturelles et sociales.
Elle ira ainsi vivre un moment dans un astéroïde en orbite autour de Jupiter, sur la Lune, ou même sur Pluton la lointaine.
Et ça, c'est fascinant. Varley a, je crois, clairement choisi dans ce roman de jouer de la sensibilité du lecteur de SF face à un "sense of wonder" bien développé. Du coup, il en profite et nous en jette plein la vue à chaque page ou presque. Enfin, plein la vue, pas exactement. En fait, il nous plonge dans un monde futur en nous faisant clairement comprendre par des détails subtils que ce monde n'est pas le nôtre, et que tenter de faire correspondre ces deux mondes n'est pas un exercice trivial.
Par exemple, au début du roman, il nous explique qu'après avoir franchi un sas, Lilo perd un bras par la faute d'un autre personnage. Là où notre condition humaine actuelle nous ferait voir cette perspective avec un minimum d'effroi, Lilo ne ressent absolument rien, et se contente de continuer son voyage. Ce n'est qu'au bout de quelques paragraphes inquiétants qu'on lui "branchera" un autre bras. Et en ces quelques phrases, toute la science-fiction apparaît.
C'est ça à mon avis, ainsi que le voyage à travers les merveilles de ce système solaire, qui m'a fait apprrécier ce roman.
Enfin, ça, et aussi la multiplication des points de vue de Lilo qu'on pourrait quasiment voir comme des "et si" : et si elle s'évadait, et si elle était détournée de son évasion. Exactement comme dans "le jour sans fin". Et ces itérations sont terriblement bien faites, et bien intégrées à une histoire générale.
Tout ça fait de ce roman plus tout jeune une excellente lecture, que je vous recommande (avec bien sûr Gens de la lune qui se place dans le même unviers et rend (avec bon goût) un hommage brillant à Heinlein).