Steel Beach was a fantastic novel. I've always been a fan of John Varley and this book is a shining example as to why. Incredible protagonist who changes their sex and occupation mid-way and it made perfect sense. Parts of the novel were uncomfortable at times, but a good work should challenge the reader. The overall story of a depressed AI managing a colony on the moon was heavy and bleak but as told through the eyes of Hildy there was some whimsy and light heartedness. While the book is clearly SF some of the themes were very subtle and snuck up on me in surprising ways. I highly recommend this book to SF fans and those who like to ponder solar system spanning ideas and what a society could be like if changing sex was a routine surgery that people get, and often more than once. ( )

I keep forgetting why I can't finish this book, and then I'll try to read it again and remember. Too disjointed. Some interesting tech and backstory but all in all, ugh.

Kind of torn in reviewing this book -- it had some really good elements, as well as some recurring lame elements, an interesting but only hinted at universe in a lot of areas, reasonably good characters (especially for SF), and a good (if not great) plot.

The best parts of the book were a somewhat-post-scarcity world (on the moon, after the earth had been rendered inaccessible hundreds of years in the past) -- AI doing most of the real work, some high-level human work remaining, but a lot of people either being put into "goldbrick-enabled" type jobs (there was a union of electricians who literally got dressed up in uniform/equipment and then stood around doing nothing, and this was a long-term career...), or living in "disneylands" which were historical recreations (such as a Texas/old west universe) with limited overt tech but without true hardship (they could still "mail order" things produced using high tech as historical replicas, e.g. cast iron stoves and locomotives). Some humans went out to the asteroids, etc., but primarily in this book (unlike some of the others in the series) humans were post-growth.

Most of the book was about the psychological impact this and some other changes had on characters, and the overall impact on society. The "central computer" which ran everything was both a background mechanical process and essentially a sentient AI (or collection of AIs), and interacted meaningfully with every individual. One interesting thing was it was forced to firewall itself -- it could be used by a criminal to support ongoing criminal enterprise, including very odious interpersonal violence, as well as by a victim, as well as by a police, and each got full service from the system, and no information was (supposed to be, and generally actually) shared.

The main annoying recurring part of the book was that characters could gender-swap at will (or asexualize, although this was rare), and the author went extensively into detail in all this implied. The idea of extremely long lived (and age-invariant) characters being able to change gender with minimal effort is somewhat interesting, but I could do without the extensive sex/other gory details aspects. It wasn't too badly done, though.

Another interesting element: due to extremely good medical technology (essentially anything but brain destruction was survivable), and the ability to turn off pain, there were extremely bloody sports which were viewed as "non-violent" because people could be restored fully afterward. There were a few other interesting ideas throughout the book (brontosaurs, presumably from DNA, used as the main source of meat...), but the core element of the Eight Worlds series was only very minimally addressed (the invaders who took over Earth and essentially locked down humanity.)

There was a major hat tip to Robert A. Heinlein in the book -- probably the best that I've seen so far.

Overall, I liked it, but it just wasn't good enough (and was too long) to really be a 5-star book. ( )

The plot is very... "ambient". At face value you'd think it was mostly about gender swapping, having babies and midlife crisis but there was also a lot of imaginative stuff that kept me reading. ( )

When the terribly, terribly fashionable decide the old genitals are getting to be rather a bore, don't you know, they phone the chauffeur and have the old bones driven down to Change Alley.

John Varley, Steel Beach

Hildy Johnson, sometimes reporter for The News Nipple on Luna, may not be John Varley's first character to switch genders in the middle of a story, but he's certainly the most memorable. (In the film His Girl Friday, the character of Hildy was switched to a woman because the director loved the sound of the secretary filling in for the character during rehearsals.) Most of Mr. Varley's work to this point has indicated that gender is possibly one step deeper than a new coat. Hildy shows us that, at least from the inside, The Switch changes outlook and social and sexual dynamics.

The Eight Worlds, of which this book is a vague, out-of-continuity episode in, is a future in which The Invaders -- shadowy, never-seen aliens -- have taken over Earth. But rather than enslave or eat humanity, or abduct and torture us with turkey basters, Varley's aliens don't even notice humanity. The human race is evicted off of Earth like you might sweep ants off your porch.

And so the human race lives on the moons of Jupiter, Saturn, on Mars, Pluto -- pretty much anywhere else in the solar system with a solid surface. And these societies are kept alive and running smoothly by superintelligent machines. In the case of Luna it's the Central Computer, who is a friend to anyone -- on an individual level, in fact.

The CC directs the lives of the teeming multitudes on Luna. It keeps them happy, comfortable. One of the universal rights past basic survival is the right of a job. In an automated society run by a powerful, supposedly benign, CC, people must find their own purposes in life.

Steel Beach is unarguably Mr. Varley's greatest novel among a career of excellent -- and too few! -- books. The question of what is means to be human after the need to survive has been removed, after death has been virtually exterminated, is foremost in the plot, but this is not a preachy book. The characters -- the stubborn, staid Walter Editor; young cub reporter Brenda, Hildy's longtime rival and crush Cricket, Liz the drunken, British royalty -- these people are all cliches out of films and comics. But in the hands of John Varley, they are wonderful, horrible, fascinating people. Dissatisfied with being set pieces in the show run by the CC -- particularly Hildy.

No summary does this book justice, and any synopsis of it sounds like a '40s serial. On a level with Dune, Perdido Street Station, and Hyperion, Mr. Varley's magnum opus should be read by anyone with an interest in science-fiction, any fiction, or just plain being a person. ( )