Red Thunder (Paperback)

John Herbert Varley began writing in 1974 with a series of short stories, many of which were collected in THE PERSISTENCE OF VISION (1978)--the title story won both the Hugo and Nebula awards--and THE BARBIE MURDERS (1980). This early work, together with his debut novel, THE OPHIUCHI HOTLINE (1977), immediately set him apart in the field, presenting his vision of the future, in which humankind, having been deemed largely a failure, is evicted from Earth and sent to try and make its way among the stars. Varley continued along this track in the Gaean series--TITAN (1979), WIZARD (1980), and DEMON (1984)--which was nominated for several awards. In this series, he maintained the earlier themes while letting humanity loose in a series of alternate dimensions entered from Jupiter's moon, Titan. Varley's next published book was a collection, BLUE CHAMPAGNE (1986). The stories, mostly written in the first half of the 1980s, joined the earlier stories and THE OPHIUCHI HOTLINE in what had, by then, come to be called the Eight Worlds series. The collection contained two previously unpublished stories, and two Hugo winners, "The Pusher" and "Press Enter []," which also won the Nebula Award. In 1989, a movie based on the novel MILLENNIUM (1983) was released starring Kris Kristofferson and Cheryl Ladd. It was the second film based on Varley's work--the first being OVERDRAWN AT THE MEMORY BANK (1985), a made-for-television movie from the 1976 short story of the same name, starring Raul Julia. Oddly enough, actor Maury Chaykin appeared in both films. STEEL BEACH (1992), Varley's next novel, was also a part of the Eight Worlds series, and was heralded by many critics as a brilliant, though somewhat bleak, view of the future of humankind. THE GOLDEN GLOBE (1998) is another book in the series, but introduces some more playful elements to Varley's vision.