Red Lightning by John Varley
reviewed by Ernest Lilley
Ray Garcia-Strickland is a pretty typical teenager. Which is to say he's bored, bitching about it, and going no place in particular. The fact that he lives on Mars and his folks pioneered interplanetary travel when they were about his age in Red Thunder only makes things worse. From where he stands, they don't look much like heroes; just a middle aged couple that's gradually growing apart. But when something hits the Earth moving at a considerable fraction of the speed of light, stirring up a tsunami that wipes out the entire East coast, he finds out what heroes really look like.

Red Thunder by John Varley
reviewed by Peter D. Tillman
A bunch of likeable Florida teens get together and build a homemade spaceship, a couple decades from now, with the help of a cashiered NASA astronaut and his idiot-savant cousin, Jubal, who has discovered a simple vacuum-energy shunt. With free, unlimited energy, just about anything can fly, even a spaceship made of used railroad tank-cars...

The Golden Globe by John Varley
reviewed by Thomas Myer
This novel is a picaresque tale in the finest tradition of that venerable art form. You have your basic scoundrel Sparky Valentine, former child star of the 23rd-century, who cons a woman who happens to have connections with the Charonese mafia. This combination in the hands of John Varley results in slick prose, great pacing, and well-drawn characters.

The Golden Globe by John Varley
reviewed by Paul J. McAuley
Guest Reviewer Paul J. McAuley found it to be a relaxed, playful, virtuoso performance, packed with incidents and wonders as casually deployed as scarves from a magician's hat. The novel vividly evokes a Solar System where all history is, of necessity, as postmodern and hyperreal as Disneyland. It never falters as the narrative moves from comedy to tragedy.