I have not read this book

[james_davis_nicoll]

So this is not a review of the book. It is a review of the blurb intended to entice me to buy it.

I do not care for this blurb but am curious how other people react to it.

Comments

Re:

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

I've read the Manhattan one and I adore it, but I'd lost the link; thank you!

I liked "Press Enter" (that was Varley? Google suggests yes) when I read it in high school. I feel like I would find it very problematic right now, but I'd have to find a copy and reread to verify that.

Re:

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Almost all of Varley's short fiction is in one of two books. You want this one for Press Enter. (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?63514) Most of the ones not in the Reader are here. (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?410315)

Something I only noticed last year is Varley is really good about not making readers pay for the same story twice and has been through out his career. Collections for the most part do not overlap.

Re:

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you!

OMG, my library has the first one in OverDrive so I can check it out electronically! Eee.

(Sorry, I have the lingering flu so not having to leave the house to get my reading fix is a boon right now. I almost toppled over during the last library fix because repeatedly cocking my head sideways to be able to read titles--I can't rotate visuals in my head--made me dizzy.)

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

(Sorry, I have the lingering flu so not having to leave the house to get my reading fix is a boon right now. I almost toppled over during the last library fix because repeatedly cocking my head sideways to be able to read titles--I can't rotate visuals in my head--made me dizzy.)

I am now mentally sketching a device that employs a cunning arrangement of mirrors to benefit people with this problem. A new variation on the periscope, I think. To the Patent Office!

Or you could snap pictures of the shelves with your cellphone...

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

*G* I only got a smartphone recently that could take photos, so the photograph solution didn't even occur to me--I'm just not used to having photography so handy!

[glaurung-quena.livejournal.com]

"Collections for the most part do not overlap."

In print collections don't overlap -- his two recent collections overlap nearly 100% with his old collections from 30 years ago, which i guess were too short for today's fashion of brick-sized collections.

[nathan helfinstine (from livejournal.com)]

Assuming those collections have been out of print for most of those 30 years, I'd give him a pass on that.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Yes, sorry, in print. I am inclined to give him a pass for overlaps between one cohort of collections and one a generation later.

[glaurung-quena.livejournal.com]

Oh, certainly he gets a pass on that, there's nothing wrong with re-collecting the stories since I doubt he could get the original collections reprinted (collections seem to have gotten much thicker of late).

But for finding his books in the library or for someone searching alibris for "more Varley," it should be noted.

Re:

[rosefox]

I recently reread "Press Enter []", which I imprinted on pretty hard when I first read it as a teen, and found that it was just as powerful and just as flawed as I remembered. The tech gobbledegook is nonsensical (even for the mid-80s), as is the premise. The race aspects are as peculiar as you would expect for a white guy writing about an Asian woman as the romantic interest for a white man who was brainwashed in the Korean War; Varley's clearly trying his very best, but his very best isn't quite good enough to distinguish between "this is my character's racism" and "this is my racism", nor to explain why Lisa and Victor would have any romantic or sexual interest in each other at all. And I found Victor's psychological and emotional struggles, and his quite justified descent into deep paranoia, absolutely gripping. The last line makes no sense at all and it basically doesn't matter.

So for me it was worth rereading, but it might not be for you.