ospalh reviewed The Ophiuchi hotline by John Varley (Eight Worlds, #1)
Review of 'The Ophiuchi hotline' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
I found this thoroly disappointing.
The first half is word-bilding run amok.
We get mentions of
The Invasion, obviously, and the Eight Worlds
Memory recordings and clone bodies
Black holes as energy soucres
Frequent sex changes
Very casual sex
Illiteracy being common (Varley is quite condesending here)
“Disneylands”, i.e. Earth-like habitats in domes on Luna
Null suits
The idea of using null suit technology as boms. Something Varley didn’t revisit until Red Thunder/Red Lightning, which arn’t “Eight World” novels
Multiple clones being alive at the same being illegal
Non-permanent murder (with a memory recording being left) being a not too serious crime
Body modification for fashion trends
Symbs, i.e. people pairing with alien technology based life forms and living in deep interplanetary space
Genetic tinkering with plants (I think this one was mostly a sort-of pun: “egg plant”: a plant that grows chicken eggs)
The ofiuci hotline
It’s just much …
I found this thoroly disappointing.
The first half is word-bilding run amok.
We get mentions of
The Invasion, obviously, and the Eight Worlds
Memory recordings and clone bodies
Black holes as energy soucres
Frequent sex changes
Very casual sex
Illiteracy being common (Varley is quite condesending here)
“Disneylands”, i.e. Earth-like habitats in domes on Luna
Null suits
The idea of using null suit technology as boms. Something Varley didn’t revisit until Red Thunder/Red Lightning, which arn’t “Eight World” novels
Multiple clones being alive at the same being illegal
Non-permanent murder (with a memory recording being left) being a not too serious crime
Body modification for fashion trends
Symbs, i.e. people pairing with alien technology based life forms and living in deep interplanetary space
Genetic tinkering with plants (I think this one was mostly a sort-of pun: “egg plant”: a plant that grows chicken eggs)
The ofiuci hotline
It’s just much too much cramd into one half of an alredy short book.
The second half seems mostly unrelated to the first half. The characters of the protagonists in the second half have little in common with those in the first half.
The ending is just a joke, with what, two hours spent on the alien space station, and the utterly unexplainable Captain Ahab impersonation.
Some senes were quite ugly, such as Varley to description the agender Boss Tweed in their transformation sene.
(As usual, i use Simplified Spelling Board rules)
