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@cheesemoo I did read it- and loved it as usual. Varley's one of my all-time favorite authors - ever since I read Titan in the 8th grade. I think he's the real heir to Heinlein - though definitely not as well-known or prolific.

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1. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
2. Oryx & Crake - Margaret Atwood
3. The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell
4. Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
5. A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle
6. Beach Music - Pat Conroy
7. Bridge to Terabithia - Katherine Paterson
8. Dhalgren - Samuel Delany
9. Titan - John Varley
10. A Fire Upon the Deep - Vernor Vinge

*Please note, there is at least one non-SF book in there!

2 years later this made me weep!

In reply to this comment by dag:
I know as a nerd, I should like comic book superheroes, but I've never been able to quite go there.

I think it's because I love science fiction, and the superhero genre breaks a lot of SF rules and destroys any possibility for suspension of disbelief.

The whole shooting webs out of his wrist thing - those glands would have to empty out after a few shots.

Just a lot of bad science. I wish they would take good SF books and put them on the screen instead. I'd like to see some of Vernor Vinge or John Varley's stuff made into a film instead of this unbelievable stuff.

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They have their descendents though. My choices for the torch carriers of their kind of grand SF adventure would be Vernor Vinge, Joe Halderman and John Varley.

Check out those writers if you'd like to get the spirit of the old grand masters applied to modern SF.

My mac group had British photojournalist Charlie Varley speak a couple of months back. He primarily talked about covering Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita. Those of us, who ate with him at a local restaurant after, had the opportunity to hear hair-raising tales of covering the war in Afghanistan and other adventures from years ago. He hopes to go to Iraq to cover the current conflict.

He took this Katrina photo that appeared on the cover of Newsweek:

http://www.varleypix.com/img/publ/newswk/newsweek050919.jpg

His site:

http://www.varleypix.com/

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I know as a nerd, I should like comic book superheroes, but I've never been able to quite go there.

I think it's because I love science fiction, and the superhero genre breaks a lot of SF rules and destroys any possibility for suspension of disbelief.

The whole shooting webs out of his wrist thing - those glands would have to empty out after a few shots.

Just a lot of bad science. I wish they would take good SF books and put them on the screen instead. I'd like to see some of Vernor Vinge or John Varley's stuff made into a film instead of this unbelievable stuff.