Glad to Return to an Old 'Verse
Irontown Blues by John Varley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
It's good to see a novel that continues the storyline that John Varley began in Steel Beach. I originally read that novel in the early 90's, in a very difficult period of my life, and it took my mind off the crap I was having to deal with at the time.
I originally discovered John Varley's Eight Worlds 'verse when I was in high school. In my hometown's tiny public library, a science fiction book was a Find, so when I found The Ophiuchi Hotline, I plowed through it even when it was probably something I would've put down if there'd been an abundance of sf and fantasy to read. In portrayed a world in which technology had transformed what it meant to be human, enabling the characters to remodel their bodies at will -- as long as they weren't the poor survivors on Earth who'd been reduced to a Stone Age existence of toil and superstition.
It's not easy to reconcile Steel Beach with The Ophiuchi Hotline, at least partly because the author decided to just write the new book, rather than meticulously re-read the existing works for details and make sure everything stayed self-consistent. Instead, he focused on maintaining the transhumanist vision of humanity (which presaged some of the elements of cyberpunk, especially in works such as Michael Swanwick's Vacuum Flowers), and the problems of a society in which life had become too easy, thanks to ubiquitous ultra-tech.
This novel is not precisely a sequel to Steel Beach -- it deals with a different character, although Hildy Johnson does put in a cameo appearance just before the climax. Christopher Bach was a cop who got drafted into the Central Computer's mad plan to destroy the Heinleiners during the Big Glitch at the end of Steel Beech. Now he's found a new life for himself as a private investigator, with a persona consciously derived from noir movies -- and as the novel develops, it becomes increasingly obvious that it's his way of dealing with some pretty hefty PTSD from what he saw and did during the Big Glitch.
The storyline begins with the standard dame walks into his grubby office trope -- but with a twist. This character's been the victim of someone deliberately spreading artificial diseases on non-consenting participants, and she wants to find the identity of the Typhoid Marius who gave it to her. Chris's investigation, with the aid of his intelligence-enhanced dog Sherlock, lead him into some strange parts of the lunar city where they live -- and ultimately to confronting those dark memories of what he saw and did during the Big Glitch
Yes, it has a happy ending, and it's a satisfying one, even if it's difficult or even impossible to fit into the continuity that was posited by The Ophiuchi Hotline. Perhaps it's best to consider this novel and Steel Beach to be a second, parallel 'verse to the original Eight Worlds 'verse.
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