The Barbie Murders

Original review from 2004

A book of short stories by one of my favourite authors, set in the same world as other stories of his that I have read, a world where humans have spread throughout the solar system, but are exiled from the earth which has been invaded by aliens. People routinely change sex many times in a lifetime and other surgical body modifications are common - such as replacing your feet with peds (large handlike appendages) as an adaptation to free-fall.

The title story is a murder mystery set in a town populated by a religious sect all of whom have been surgically altered to look identical (like genderless barbie dolls), so that the police coming from a neighbouring town find it very hard to investigate a crime where the show more victim, purpetrator and witnesses are all identical. The barbies make things even harder for the police since they don't think of themselves as individuals and don't see why it matters if the wrong person is charged with the crime since they are all interchangeable.

Added after 2012 re-read

"I think we're being followed."
"Wha'?" He looked behind him as he bounced along in her wake. There was someone back there, all right. They turned a corner and Solace hauled Quester into a dimly lit alcove, bumping his head roughly against the wall. He was getting fed up with this business of being dragged. If this was an adventure, he was Winnie-the-Pooh following Christopher Robin up the stairs. He started to object, but she clapped a hand around his mouth, holding him close.
"Shhh," she hissed.

I found the stories in this collection much less memorable than those in " Persistence of Vision", as the only two that I remembered at all from my previous read were the title story and "Picnic on Nearside". In the case of "Bagatelle", when I heard an audio version on a podcast a few months ago, it didn't ring any bells at all and I had no idea that I had ever read it before (even though you'd think that a cyborg bomb threatening to blow up a city on Luna would be fairly memorable). "Manikins", which isn't set in the Eight Worlds, was one of the most interesting (I always knew there was something odd about men!), but my favourites were probably "Bagatelle" and "Picnic on Nearside". show less

I have to say Varley is an inventive writer. And he does an interesting thing in that with each story he takes some technology possibility and then explores how that would affect relationships. Every single story is really about relationships, not the technology. But he’s constructed a universe where some things that are just repugnant to me are acceptable. I kept thinking about how Heinlein in his later years got sex obsessed. As if our current problems are an extension of some problem we have with sex and that if we were all just more free with our sexuality we’d be hella better off.

(Full review at my blog)

John Varley is my favourite science fiction author. This is largely due to "The Golden Globe," a light-hearted, whimsical tale of a dashing actor/conman named Sparky Valentine who attempts to make it from Pluto to Luna in under ten months to land a lead role in a production of King Lear, all the while trying to outrun a nigh-invicible mafia hitman. I read it last year and it was not only the best science fiction book I ever read, but one of the best books in general.

The problem is that I've subsequently read his bibliography in reverse order, and have watched his writing style decline rather than develop. The Barbie Murders is a collection of short stories written between 1974 and 1980, and while they're still very enjoyable, they're show more clearly the work of a much younger man.

Most of the stories are set in his Eight Worlds universe, in which humanity has been evicted from Earth by the omnipotent Invaders, left to survive on the remaining worlds of the solar system. In order:

"Bagatelle," about a police chief trying to negotiate with an intelligent nuclear bomb that has been placed on the main thoroughfare of Luna's biggest city;

"The Funhouse Effect," about an ill-fated cruise to the sun inside a converted comet;

"The Barbie Murders," about a detective trying to solve a murder committed by a woman from a cult-like community of 7,000 people who are exactly identical;

"Equinoctial," a bizarre story about a society of space-dwelling people who drift through the rings of Saturn;

"Manikins," an even more bizarre story about a woman in a mental ward claiming that all men are controlled by parasites (and the only story not set in the Eight Worlds);

"Beatnik Bayou," about growing up in the unusual education system of Luna;

"Good-Bye, Robinson Crusoe," about a kid living in an enormous underground biome on Pluto modelled to recreate the Pacific Ocean;

"Lollipop and the Tar Baby," about a spacer on the edge of the system who is disturbed to find a black hole talking to her;

and "Picnic on Nearside," the first story Varley ever wrote for the Eight Worlds, about a kid who takes a joyride to the abandoned "nearside" of the moon and discovers a hermit living among the empty ruins.

On the whole, the stories are good, just not quite as good as "The Golden Globe." They're almost up to scratch with "Steel Beach," though, and a whole lot tighter. On the whole, this is a book I bought out of a desire to read the author's entire catalogue, and not something I'd reccomend to the average reader. Do go out and buy the Golden Globe, though. show less

When Herb is good, and in his short stories he is very good indeed, there's no one like him. These are two very fine collections, and it was great to re-read them. While I like some stories better than others, they are all very good. It also struck me, reading them again after such a long time, that some of them seem risky now. I mean, adults (in children's body's) having sex with kids. Incest. None of this is smarmy. Or shocking. There's a definite whiff of Kij's Spar in Parameter and Solstice, but in a loving way. There's anarchy. Atheism. A fearlessness and joy. Dare I say optimism? I suddenly feel so retro. The future spread out like a dream before us. We are no longer able to fill his vision but have become small. How sad.

A collection of some of Varley's fairly minor early short pieces. Doesn't hold a candle to the astonishing collection, The Persistence of Vision.

a bit dated

F/SF