- Hardcover: 316 pages
- Publisher: Doubleday (July 1978)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0803768664
- ISBN-13: 978-0803768666
- Product Dimensions: 21.1 x 13.2 x 2.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 363 g
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.4 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Make sure you read the very last story!, Jan 28 2002
By absent_minded_prof - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Persistence of Vision (Hardcover)
Have you ever, sometime in your life, by any chance, heard of the multi-multi-multi-million copy bestselling author Tom Clancy? Well, when HE wants to be entertained by thoughtful, visionary, intelligent works of fiction -- which generally feature significantly fewer gratuitous explosions than his own work -- then he turns to one of his personal favorite authors, John Varley. "Persistence of Vision," in my humble opinion, is probably Varley's most accessible, yet amazing book.The stories all feature characters in a remote future, in which everything about the human body, and everything about human society, is completely mutable and within the ability of individuals to choose for themselves. John Varley writes about sympathetic human beings, dealing with what seem to them to be fairly run-of-the-mill problems. To you or me, however, everything about the lives of these characters is simply awe-inspiring... Here you will meet lonely spacemen dwelling at the outer reaches of the solar system; sociological musings on the long-lost institution of the "nuclear family," by future, human inhabitants of Mercury; conversations between an explorer/composer and his alien symbiote, amongst the rings of Saturn; and much, much more. The last tale in the volume, the one the book is named after, is particularly memorable. It features a man who becomes part of a colony of deaf-mute-blind people, who have developed a highly spiritual means of communicating. That story is the most profound one in this collection, but they are all stirring. I highly recommend reading "The Persistence of Vision." Two thumbs up.
7 of 10 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
An enjoying evening while expanding your mind, Oct 10 2001
By don roberts - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Persistence of Vision (Hardcover)
Short stories are many, yet few good inbetween. This is by far the best out of one person put all in one book I have ever read in all my years of run on sentences of my own, not his. The depth and sincerity of the heroes/heroines brings it all home. You're there, the only place Varley wants you to be. I would rate this his best, but I am also biased. I love ALL his work. I recommend them all aslo.
2.0 out of 5 stars
Potential is there, but beats you over the head with space-sex., Mar 17 2012
By J. Burks "joeb73" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Persistence of Vision (Hardcover)
It seems to me that Varley has a pre-occupation with sexual experiences in sci-fi settings that he explores and re-explores in most of the stories in this book. After reading the book, I'm left asking myself if sex with a transgendered clone of yourself is the ultimate coital experience or incest or both.Sex with a transgendered clone is one aspect of sexuality Varley explores a couple of times. There are also themes of middle-aged men with much younger women, communes of people that go around naked, man-woman-symbiote threesomes, free love and orgies. I think the only one that seemed really intelligent and made me think was "The Black Hole Passes" where a man and a woman working in separate deep space listening posts have only each other with whom to communicate via hologram and the story explores this "sexuality at a distance" probing not just the act but what such a relationship means in this sort of setting.
Compare this to "The Persistence of Vision" where a hippie commune of blind people goes around naked, engages in orgies nightly and punishes rule-breakers with what I can only describe as a light S&M spanking scene. It's a bit disturbing when you realize that this late-40's vagabond's big "A-ha" in the story is when he realizes he is not the only one in the commune who gets to have intercourse with his favorite 13 year old. That's... kinda creepy when you think about it.
Varley definitely has talent as an author, and the one story in this book that is devoid of distracting sexual overtones, "Air Raid," is also the one story that was made into a major motion picture. The potential is definitely there, and if you're interested in futuristic space sex maybe you'd find that the potential is realized.
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