Eight Worlds
Encyclopedia
Eight Worlds refers to a series of novels and short stories by John Varley
, in which the solar system
has been colonized by human refugees fleeing an alien invasion of the Earth. Earth
and Jupiter
are off-limits to humanity, but Earth's moon and the other worlds and moons of the solar system have all become heavily populated. There are also minor colonies set in the Oort cloud
beyond the solar system itself. Faster Than Light travel is not (as yet) possible, though it's mentioned that test-flights will begin soon at the end of "The Golden Globe", and the species has not as yet managed to extend itself to other stars.
The series mostly deals with the ways in which technology and necessity shape morality and society. Instant sex changes are considered a matter of fashion, rather than gender-identity, and many long-standing human sexual taboos no longer exist. Thus the stories are somewhat disturbing to some readers, and maintain a degree of controversy.
The "Eight Worlds" story "Overdrawn at the Memory Bank" (first published in 1976) was adapted into a TV movie
in 1985, starring Raul Julia
.
The stories were written at different times and are not always consistent with each other. In particular, the novels "Steel Beach
" and "The Golden Globe
" seem to revise large portions of the original history (see Consistency, below). Varley has written that the Eight Worlds background should be regarded as a group of common characters and situations that appear in different stories rather than a single consistent setting. Several of the stories feature common characters, and these may be seen as linking together the whole series.
In notes contained within "The John Varley Reader", the author explains that he created Anna Louise Bach for stories which were too grim for the relative Utopia of the Eight Worlds series. He never intended that her story link to the Eight Worlds chronology. In fact, even within the Anna Louise Bach stories there are inconsistencies, such as the appearance of the fabulous "Mozartplatz" in "Tango Charlie and Foxtrot Romeo", where a huge chasm on Luna is roofed over producing cubic miles of pressurized space featuring aerial communities, artificial rivers etc. The other stories portray Luna society as living in cramped tunnels.
experiences, known as feelies, for an audience of vicarious thrill-seekers. In "Steel Beach" she is also mentioned as one of the "Gigastars" enshrined by the Flacks - a bizarre celebrity cult - who later regret this choice, when feelies go out of fashion. In "Tango Charlie" she has shed the device, undergone surgery to restore her nervous system, and uses her money and influence to help Anna Louise Bach with her stuttering career and her current case. She mysteriously disappeared 100 years before the action of "Steel Beach".
". His job entails working exclusively with one child for a period of his or her early life. In "Beatnik Bayou" he actually regresses physically to the age of the child and grows up at the same rate, keeping his adult mentality, but an incident results in him being professionally disgraced. In "The Ophiuchi Hotline
" he is cloned illegally by the character "Boss Tweed", so that two of him are major characters in that novel.
. Hildy is the central character in Steel Beach and has appeared as a minor character in other works.
the Invaders are inhabitants of gas-giant planets like Jupiter
. They transcend the limits of four-dimensional spacetime and can manipulate time and space at will. They classify living beings in one of three categories: those such as themselves, who arise in gas giant planets everywhere, cetaceans such as dolphins and whales, and vermin, the last category including all sentient beings other than Invaders and cetaceans. The Invasion of Earth was carried out to protect cetaceans from the effects of human civilization. No humans were directly killed, but instead billions died as the Invaders dismantled all the infrastructure needed to support billions of people on Earth. The human population of Earth, after the Invasion, is about the same as in prehistory, living in tribes without access to technology. This is a scenario that has been played out for millions of years across the galaxy. Inevitably the human species will be forced out of the Solar System altogether, to live between the stars where other displaced intelligences are already in residence.
. The novel Steel Beach describes new technologies (the "null field" and a "FTL propulsion system") that are attributed to "Valentine Michael Smith", — (the "leader" of a group of idealists known as the "Heinlein
ers") — a pseudonym which is obviously a homage
to the renowned author of Stranger in a Strange Land
.
, trading artworks for their few material needs.
". Minor modifications of the body are routine, such as the addition of gills for underwater breathing ("Goodbye, Robinson Crusoe") or decorative alterations, such as growing fur on various parts of the body.
First, people can record their personalities and all their memories into storage, along with a sample of their tissue. If they die, a copy can be cloned and returned to life with the memories they had up to the time of recording. This is a plot point in "The Phantom of Kansas" where the character Fox awakes, to find she is a clone who has been revived after her original self, and the subsequent clone, were both mysteriously murdered. In "The Ophiuchi Hotline
" the character Lilo is cloned several times by the politician Boss Tweed to carry out missions for him, as are several other characters. The law also provides for a sentence of "Death with immediate reprieve" where a criminal is killed and a clone is revived with memories from before the commission of the crime. The "innocent" copy has to undergo therapy to avoid a repeat of the criminal act. This sentence can even be applied to simple assault, as in "Beatnik Bayou", if the crime is severe enough.
The other use is a kind of tourism where the personality can be transferred into some other brain to absorb some experience, followed by re-playing that into the original brain. In the story "Overdrawn at the Memory Bank
" a man's personality is recorded and placed in the brain of a lioness
in one of the wildlife reserves on Luna. Unfortunately his body goes missing, and he spends a long time in the computer network, keeping his "new" memories alive. In the process he goes to virtual university and also threatens the financial stability of the society when he starts tinkering. After what seems like months to him, he is reunited with his body and finds that only a few hours have passed.
(1978)}} The Barbie Murders (1980) - later republished as Picnic On Nearside (1984)}} Blue Champagne (1986)}}The John Varley Reader
(2004)
John Varley (author)
John Herbert Varley is an American science fiction author.-Biography:Varley grew up in Fort Worth, Texas, moved to Port Arthur in 1957, and graduated from Nederland High School. He went to Michigan State University on a National Merit Scholarship because, of the schools that he could afford, it...
, in which the solar system
Solar System
The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...
has been colonized by human refugees fleeing an alien invasion of the Earth. Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
and Jupiter
Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is a gas giant with mass one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn,...
are off-limits to humanity, but Earth's moon and the other worlds and moons of the solar system have all become heavily populated. There are also minor colonies set in the Oort cloud
Oort cloud
The Oort cloud , or the Öpik–Oort cloud , is a hypothesized spherical cloud of comets which may lie roughly 50,000 AU, or nearly a light-year, from the Sun. This places the cloud at nearly a quarter of the distance to Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to the Sun...
beyond the solar system itself. Faster Than Light travel is not (as yet) possible, though it's mentioned that test-flights will begin soon at the end of "The Golden Globe", and the species has not as yet managed to extend itself to other stars.
The series mostly deals with the ways in which technology and necessity shape morality and society. Instant sex changes are considered a matter of fashion, rather than gender-identity, and many long-standing human sexual taboos no longer exist. Thus the stories are somewhat disturbing to some readers, and maintain a degree of controversy.
The "Eight Worlds" story "Overdrawn at the Memory Bank" (first published in 1976) was adapted into a TV movie
Overdrawn at the Memory Bank
Overdrawn at the Memory Bank was a 1983 television movie. It was produced by Canada’s RSL Productions in Toronto. Financing was provided by WNET/PBS New Jersey, which had hoped to create an entire science fiction series adapting famous works, but due to lack of funding this was the last of three...
in 1985, starring Raul Julia
Raúl Juliá
Raúl Rafael Juliá y Arcelay was a Puerto Rican actor.Born in San Juan, he gained interest in acting while still in school. Upon completing his studies, Juliá decided to pursue a career in acting. After performing in the local scene for some time, he was convinced by entertainment personality Orson...
.
The stories were written at different times and are not always consistent with each other. In particular, the novels "Steel Beach
Steel Beach
Steel Beach is a novel by John Varley, a science fiction writer who has won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards multiple times. Steel Beach is set in the same continuity as The Golden Globe, but takes place much earlier, and was published in 1993....
" and "The Golden Globe
The Golden Globe
The Golden Globe is a Locus nominated novel by John Varley, a science fiction writer who has won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards multiple times...
" seem to revise large portions of the original history (see Consistency, below). Varley has written that the Eight Worlds background should be regarded as a group of common characters and situations that appear in different stories rather than a single consistent setting. Several of the stories feature common characters, and these may be seen as linking together the whole series.
Pre-Invasion
John Varley has indicated that these so-called "Pre-invasion" stories are not actually a part of the "Eight Worlds" universe, even though they are commonly mistaken to be, and are occasionally bundled with real Eight Worlds stories in anthologies. They have a completely different history, in which there is lunar colonization (a common theme in Varley stories) and open sexuality (likewise a common theme), but there are no aliens and a great deal of Nuclear Terrorism on earth. None of the characters or locations in these stories has ever turned up in the Eight Worlds sequence as yet (outside of mentions in "Steel Beach" - see Consistency), though, on one occasion, Varley indicated that he might end up tying the two together in the as-yet-unfinished "Irontown Blues," presumably the final novel in the "Steel Beach" trilogy set within the Eight Worlds universe.Anna Louise Bach
The first Anna Louise Bach story is the short story "Bagatelle" concerning a nuclear device planted in an underground lunar colony. At this time, Earth is still home to a technological civilization, albeit one which has to deal with nuclear terrorism. Bach is the Chief of Police in Luna City. Later stories such as "The Barbie Murders", and "Tango Charlie and Foxtrot Romeo" deal with Bach in the earlier stages of her career. The novelette "Blue Champagne" has Bach as a minor character, working as a lifeguard in "The Bubble", a giant globe of water held in zero-gravity conditions on a resort satellite for the enjoyment of rich tourists. At the end of that story she announces that she has been saving her money to return to Luna and enroll in the Police Academy. A major character in the same story is Megan Gallagher, a "media star".In notes contained within "The John Varley Reader", the author explains that he created Anna Louise Bach for stories which were too grim for the relative Utopia of the Eight Worlds series. He never intended that her story link to the Eight Worlds chronology. In fact, even within the Anna Louise Bach stories there are inconsistencies, such as the appearance of the fabulous "Mozartplatz" in "Tango Charlie and Foxtrot Romeo", where a huge chasm on Luna is roofed over producing cubic miles of pressurized space featuring aerial communities, artificial rivers etc. The other stories portray Luna society as living in cramped tunnels.
Megan Gallagher
Megan Gallagher first appears in "Blue Champagne" and then in "Tango Charlie and Foxtrot Romeo", linking her with Anna Louise Bach in both. In "Blue Champagne" she is a "trans-sister", a quadraplegic who leads a celebrity lifestyle with the aid of a sophisticated device which enfolds her entire body in a net of golden alloy threads, which move her limbs for her. The device also records sights, sounds and emotions as she experiences them. These are then sold as virtual realityVirtual reality
Virtual reality , also known as virtuality, is a term that applies to computer-simulated environments that can simulate physical presence in places in the real world, as well as in imaginary worlds...
experiences, known as feelies, for an audience of vicarious thrill-seekers. In "Steel Beach" she is also mentioned as one of the "Gigastars" enshrined by the Flacks - a bizarre celebrity cult - who later regret this choice, when feelies go out of fashion. In "Tango Charlie" she has shed the device, undergone surgery to restore her nervous system, and uses her money and influence to help Anna Louise Bach with her stuttering career and her current case. She mysteriously disappeared 100 years before the action of "Steel Beach".
Fox and Argus
Characters with these names appear in "The Phantom of Kansas", "Picnic on Nearside" and "Steel Beach". It is by no means clear that they are the same people. Fox encounters her own clone in "Phantom", illegally made in a strange form of kidnapping. They discover a mutual affection and leave Luna as a couple for somewhere with less restrictive laws.Cathay
Cathay, a Teacher, appears in the short story "Beatnik Bayou" and "The Ophiuchi HotlineThe Ophiuchi Hotline
The Ophiuchi Hotline is a Locus nominated 1977 science fiction novel by John Varley. It opens in the year 2618.-Background to the author's work:...
". His job entails working exclusively with one child for a period of his or her early life. In "Beatnik Bayou" he actually regresses physically to the age of the child and grows up at the same rate, keeping his adult mentality, but an incident results in him being professionally disgraced. In "The Ophiuchi Hotline
The Ophiuchi Hotline
The Ophiuchi Hotline is a Locus nominated 1977 science fiction novel by John Varley. It opens in the year 2618.-Background to the author's work:...
" he is cloned illegally by the character "Boss Tweed", so that two of him are major characters in that novel.
Hildy Johnson
A journalist who was originally named Maria , but took a new name from The Front PageThe Front Page
The Front Page is a hit Broadway comedy about tabloid newspaper reporters on the police beat, written by one-time Chicago reporters Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur which was first produced in 1928.-Synopsis:...
. Hildy is the central character in Steel Beach and has appeared as a minor character in other works.
The Invaders
Described at length in The Ophiuchi HotlineThe Ophiuchi Hotline
The Ophiuchi Hotline is a Locus nominated 1977 science fiction novel by John Varley. It opens in the year 2618.-Background to the author's work:...
the Invaders are inhabitants of gas-giant planets like Jupiter
Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is a gas giant with mass one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn,...
. They transcend the limits of four-dimensional spacetime and can manipulate time and space at will. They classify living beings in one of three categories: those such as themselves, who arise in gas giant planets everywhere, cetaceans such as dolphins and whales, and vermin, the last category including all sentient beings other than Invaders and cetaceans. The Invasion of Earth was carried out to protect cetaceans from the effects of human civilization. No humans were directly killed, but instead billions died as the Invaders dismantled all the infrastructure needed to support billions of people on Earth. The human population of Earth, after the Invasion, is about the same as in prehistory, living in tribes without access to technology. This is a scenario that has been played out for millions of years across the galaxy. Inevitably the human species will be forced out of the Solar System altogether, to live between the stars where other displaced intelligences are already in residence.
King City
Apparently a settlement on the far side of Luna from Earth, it features in several stories, including "Options", a story about the early days when people can change sex at will. In "Picnic on Nearside" two adolescents leave King City to explore the old cities on the other side of Luna, from which Earth can be seen all the time. These were abandoned after the Invasion, as people did not like to look at what they had lost.Technologies
Humans possess several advanced technologies, many supposedly derived from information contained in the "Ophiuchi Hotline", a stream of data travelling on a laser beam, apparently from the star 70 Ophiuchi70 Ophiuchi
70 Ophiuchi a binary star system located 16.6 light years away from the Earth. It is in the constellation Ophiuchus. At magnitude 4 it is a typical less bright star usually visible to the unaided eye away from city lights.-Binary star:...
. The novel Steel Beach describes new technologies (the "null field" and a "FTL propulsion system") that are attributed to "Valentine Michael Smith", — (the "leader" of a group of idealists known as the "Heinlein
Robert A. Heinlein
Robert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction writer. Often called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was one of the most influential and controversial authors of the genre. He set a standard for science and engineering plausibility and helped to raise the genre's standards of...
ers") — a pseudonym which is obviously a homage
Homage
Homage is a show or demonstration of respect or dedication to someone or something, sometimes by simple declaration but often by some more oblique reference, artistic or poetic....
to the renowned author of Stranger in a Strange Land
Stranger in a Strange Land
Stranger in a Strange Land is a 1961 science fiction novel by American author Robert A. Heinlein. It tells the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a human who comes to Earth in early adulthood after being born on the planet Mars and raised by Martians. The novel explores his interaction with—and...
.
Nullfield
A variant on the "force field" idea, the nullfield can wrap any object or volume in a shell which cannot be penetrated by anything, except gravity and certain kinds of light. Worn like a second skin it is the ultimate spacesuit. It can also be a domed tent for life on the surface of Luna, Mercury or Venus. To someone outside, a nullfield looks like a perfect mirror in the shape of whatever it contains. In the stories, people in nullfield suits survive falling into Jupiter, skimming the outer atmosphere of the Sun, walking on the surface of Venus, and being buried alive on Mercury (though the kinetic energy of being shot can cause fatal heat buildup). Two nullfields can merge, allowing people wearing them to touch each other, making for a way of passing the time when buried alive, waiting to be rescued. A nullfield can also be used as a doorway between pressurized quarters and vacuum. A person with a personal suit generator can walk through the nullfield doorway from air to vacuum, and their suit will form automatically.Symbiotic spacesuits
Usually called "Symbs", these are a semi-living material which can supply all the needs of a human body, requiring only sunlight and some trace elements. A Symb will enfold and penetrate the body of someone who wants to enter into symbiosis with it, forming a Symb Pair. One of the side effects is that the Symb forms a personality of its own in the brain of the human. It also vastly increases the efficiency of the brain, and enhances artistic abilities. Almost all Symb Pairs live in the rings of SaturnSaturn
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Saturn is named after the Roman god Saturn, equated to the Greek Cronus , the Babylonian Ninurta and the Hindu Shani. Saturn's astronomical symbol represents the Roman god's sickle.Saturn,...
, trading artworks for their few material needs.
Genetic manipulation
Oddly the creators of the Hotline data seem to know a lot about genetics. Humans in the Eight Worlds use this information to create new animal and plant species, but manipulating human DNA is illegal. This is an important plot point in the final episode of the series "The Ophiuchi HotlineThe Ophiuchi Hotline
The Ophiuchi Hotline is a Locus nominated 1977 science fiction novel by John Varley. It opens in the year 2618.-Background to the author's work:...
". Minor modifications of the body are routine, such as the addition of gills for underwater breathing ("Goodbye, Robinson Crusoe") or decorative alterations, such as growing fur on various parts of the body.
Personality recording
Using a fictional chemical called ferrophotonucleic acid, or FPNA, the state of a person's brain can be preserved in long molecular chains, and replayed into a new brain. This is used for two purposes.First, people can record their personalities and all their memories into storage, along with a sample of their tissue. If they die, a copy can be cloned and returned to life with the memories they had up to the time of recording. This is a plot point in "The Phantom of Kansas" where the character Fox awakes, to find she is a clone who has been revived after her original self, and the subsequent clone, were both mysteriously murdered. In "The Ophiuchi Hotline
The Ophiuchi Hotline
The Ophiuchi Hotline is a Locus nominated 1977 science fiction novel by John Varley. It opens in the year 2618.-Background to the author's work:...
" the character Lilo is cloned several times by the politician Boss Tweed to carry out missions for him, as are several other characters. The law also provides for a sentence of "Death with immediate reprieve" where a criminal is killed and a clone is revived with memories from before the commission of the crime. The "innocent" copy has to undergo therapy to avoid a repeat of the criminal act. This sentence can even be applied to simple assault, as in "Beatnik Bayou", if the crime is severe enough.
The other use is a kind of tourism where the personality can be transferred into some other brain to absorb some experience, followed by re-playing that into the original brain. In the story "Overdrawn at the Memory Bank
Overdrawn at the Memory Bank
Overdrawn at the Memory Bank was a 1983 television movie. It was produced by Canada’s RSL Productions in Toronto. Financing was provided by WNET/PBS New Jersey, which had hoped to create an entire science fiction series adapting famous works, but due to lack of funding this was the last of three...
" a man's personality is recorded and placed in the brain of a lioness
Lion
The lion is one of the four big cats in the genus Panthera, and a member of the family Felidae. With some males exceeding 250 kg in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger...
in one of the wildlife reserves on Luna. Unfortunately his body goes missing, and he spends a long time in the computer network, keeping his "new" memories alive. In the process he goes to virtual university and also threatens the financial stability of the society when he starts tinkering. After what seems like months to him, he is reunited with his body and finds that only a few hours have passed.
Consistency
In the Author's Note of "Steel Beach", Varley states:While there are small details throughout the series which do not match up, this is especially true of "Steel Beach" and its sequel. Any plot/character descriptions in this article should be read with this in mind.
This story appears to be part of a future historyFuture historyA future history is a postulated history of the future and is used by authors in the subgenre of speculative fiction to construct a common background for fiction...
of mine, often called the Eight Worlds. It does share background, characters, and technology with earlier stories of mine... What it doesn't share is a chronology. The reason for this is simple: the thought of going back, rereading all those old stories, and putting them in coherent order filled me with ennui... Steel Beach is not really part of the Eight Worlds future history. Or the Eight Worlds is not really a future history, since that implies an orderly progression of events. Take your pick.
Short stories
- "Bagatelle" (1974)
- "The Barbie Murders" (1978) ,
- "Beatnik Bayou" (1980) ,
- "The Bellman" (originally written in 1978 for the never released Last Dangerous Visions anthology, finally was published in 2003)
- "The Black Hole Passes" (1975)
- "Blue Champagne" (1981)
- "Equinoctial" (1976)
- "The Funhouse Effect" (1976)
- "Good-bye, Robinson Crusoe" (1977)
- "Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance" (1976) ,
- "In the Bowl" (1975)
- "Lollipop and the Tar Baby" (1977) ,
- "Options" (1979) ,
- "Overdrawn at the Memory Bank" (1976) ,
- "The Phantom of Kansas" (1976) ,
- "Picnic On Nearside" (1974) ,
- "Retrograde Summer" (1975)
- "Tango Charlie and Foxtrot Romeo" (1985) ,
Novels
- The Ophiuchi HotlineThe Ophiuchi HotlineThe Ophiuchi Hotline is a Locus nominated 1977 science fiction novel by John Varley. It opens in the year 2618.-Background to the author's work:...
(1977) - Locus Award nominee, 1978 - Steel BeachSteel BeachSteel Beach is a novel by John Varley, a science fiction writer who has won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards multiple times. Steel Beach is set in the same continuity as The Golden Globe, but takes place much earlier, and was published in 1993....
(1992) - Hugo and Locus Awards nominee, 1993 - The Golden GlobeThe Golden GlobeThe Golden Globe is a Locus nominated novel by John Varley, a science fiction writer who has won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards multiple times...
(1998) - Locus Award nominee, 1999 - Irontown Blues (Varley has said he is working on this novel in this interview here http://www.republibot.com/content/interview-john-varley)
Collections
}} The Persistence of VisionThe Persistence of Vision
The Persistence of Vision is an award-winning 1978 anthology of science fiction stories by John Varley.The anthology was also published in the U.K...
(1978)}} The Barbie Murders (1980) - later republished as Picnic On Nearside (1984)}} Blue Champagne (1986)}}The John Varley Reader
The John Varley Reader
The John Varley Reader is a collection of 18 science fiction short stories by John Varley, first published in paperback in September 2004. It features 5 new stories...
(2004)