John Herbert Varley (August 9, 1947 – December 10, 2025) was an American science fiction writer who won Hugo and Nebula awards for his novellas "The Persistence of Vision", "PRESS ENTER ■", and "The Pusher".

Life and career Varley was born in Austin, Texas, on August 9, 1947. He grew up in Fort Worth, moved to Port Arthur in 1957, graduated from Nederland High School—all in Texas—and went to Michigan State University on a National Merit Scholarship. He started as a physics major, switched to English, then left school before his 20th birthday and arrived in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco just in time for the "Summer of Love" in 1967. There he worked at various unskilled jobs, depended on St. Anthony's Mission for meals, and panhandled outside the Cala Market on Stanyan Street (since closed) before deciding that writing had to be a better way to make a living. He was serendipitously present at Woodstock in 1969 when his car ran out of gas a half-mile away. He also lived at various times in Portland and Eugene, Oregon, New York City, San Francisco again, Berkeley, and Los Angeles.

He wrote several novels (his first attempt, Gas Giant, was, he admitted, "pretty bad") and numerous short stories, many of them in a future history, "The Eight Worlds". These stories are set a century or two after a race of mysterious and omnipotent aliens, the Invaders, have almost completely eradicated humans from the Earth (they regard whales and dolphins to be the superior Terran lifeforms and humans only a dangerous infestation). But humans have inhabited virtually every other corner of the Solar System, often through the use of biological modifications learned, in part, by eavesdropping on alien communications.

Varley's "Overdrawn at the Memory Bank" was adapted and televised for PBS in 1983. In addition, two of his short stories ("Options" and "Blue Champagne") were adapted into episodes of the short-lived 1998 Sci-Fi Channel TV series Welcome to Paradox.

Varley spent some years in Hollywood but the only tangible result of this stint was the film Millennium. Of his Millennium experience Varley said:

Varley's work was compared to that of Robert A. Heinlein by the Canadian SF critic, editor, and author John Clute.

In 2021, Varley announced a series of health problems including a quadruple bypass, COVID-19, and bacterial pneumonia. Colleagues organized a crowdfunding campaign to pay his expenses while he was unable to write. At that time he described himself as living near Vancouver, Washington.

Varley died in Beaverton, Oregon, on December 10, 2025, at the age of 78.

Bibliography

Novels Year Title Series Notes1977The Ophiuchi HotlineEight WorldsLocus SF Award nominee, 19781979TitanGaea TrilogyNebula Award nominee, 1979; Locus SF Award winner and Hugo nominee, 19801980WizardGaea TrilogyHugo and Locus SF Awards nominee, 19811983MillenniumPhilip K. Dick Award nominee, 1983; Hugo and Locus Awards nominee, 19841984DemonGaea Trilogy Locus SF Award nominee, 19851992 Steel BeachEight Worlds Hugo and Locus SF Award nominee, 19931998The Golden GlobeEight WorldsPrometheus Award winner, 1999; Locus SF Award nominee, 19992003Red ThunderThunder and LightningEndeavour Award winner, 2004; Campbell Award nominee, 20042005 Mammoth2006Red LightningThunder and Lightning2008Rolling ThunderThunder and Lightning2012 Slow Apocalypse2014 Dark LightningThunder and Lightning2018 Irontown BluesEight Worlds

Short story collections The Persistence of Vision (1978) (UK: In the Hall of the Martian Kings) The Barbie Murders (1980) (republished as Picnic on Nearside, 1984) Blue Champagne (1986) The John Varley Reader: Thirty Years of Short Fiction (2004) Good-bye, Robinson Crusoe and Other Stories (2013)

Other Millennium—screenplay (1989) based on the short story "Air Raid" (as was the novel Millennium)

Awards Varley won the Hugo Award three times:

1979: Novella—"The Persistence of Vision" 1982: Short Story—"The Pusher" 1985: Novella—"Press Enter■"

He was nominated a further twelve times.

Varley won the Nebula Award twice:

1979: Novella—"The Persistence of Vision" 1985: Novella—"Press Enter■"

He was nominated a further six times.

Varley won the Locus Award ten times:

1976: Special Locus Award—four novelettes in Top 10 ("Bagatelle", "Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance", "Overdrawn at the Memory Bank", "The Phantom of Kansas") 1979: Novelette—"The Barbie Murders" 1979: Novella—"The Persistence of Vision" 1979: Single Author Collection—The Persistence of Vision 1980: SF Novel—Titan 1981: Single Author Collection—The Barbie Murders 1982: Novella—"Blue Champagne" 1982: Short Story—"The Pusher" 1985: Novella—"Press Enter■" 1987: Collection—Blue Champagne

He also won the Jupiter Award, the Prix Tour-Apollo Award, several Seiun Awards, Endeavour Award, 2009 Robert A. Heinlein Award, and others.

References

External links

Interview by Clarkesworld Magazine (October 2012)

Review of Varley's "Eight Worlds" stories by Jo Walton (March 2010) Varley Vade mecum: Bibliography, Gaea Maps ()