Cory Doctorow brings sad news that John Varley, a writer whose work from the 1970s onwards gave me faith that the world of speculative fiction was not doomed to be swallowed by interminable multi-volume epic sagas about future galactic empires and their fall, has been having health problems.
John Varley, a beloved, versatile, funny, and wildly imaginative sf writer, recently had a quadruple bypass and is recovering well, but this is America, so he's also in need of financial support through his recovery.
It's difficult to decide which of Varley's early works I enjoyed most - too many magnificent short stories1 to choose from - but then I remember how much fun the late teens-early twenties me got from the Gaea Trilogy of novels and I'm torn.
In the end, whatever length he worked at, I reckon the somewhat loosely-connected stories in and around the Eight Worlds setting were his best work. After an overwhelming alien invasion forces the human race to survive in various somewhat less comfortable spots, Varley gets to tell us tales of life spread across the solar system and they're just tremendously well-done and humane and a joy to read.
Anyhow, the important thing now is that given the way health care operates in the USA this would be a very good moment to show John Varley some love, be it by using the Donate link at John Varley's web site or by buying one (or more) of his books.2
(Varley, being an old hippy at heart, would be the first to point out that sending love and sending money are very different things.)