Eight Worlds
The Eight Worlds is the fictional setting of a series of science fiction novels and short stories by John Varley, in which the Solar System has been colonized by human refugees fleeing an alien invasion of the Earth. Earth and Jupiter are off-limits to humanity, but Earth's Moon and the other worlds and moons of the Solar System have all become heavily populated. There are also minor colonies set in the Oort cloud at the edge of the Solar System. Faster than light travel is not possible, though it is mentioned that test-flights will begin soon at the end of The Golden Globe, and the species has not as yet managed to extend itself to other stars.
The series mostly deals with the ways in which technology and necessity shape morality and society. Instant sex changes are considered a matter of fashion, rather than gender identity, and many long-standing human sexual taboos no longer exist.
The Eight Worlds story "Overdrawn at the Memory Bank", published in 1976, was adapted into a TV movie in 1984 starring Raul Julia.
The stories were written at different times and are not always consistent with each other. In particular, the novels Steel Beach and The Golden Globe are explicitly stated as being inconsistent with the original history. Varley has written that the Eight Worlds background should be regarded as a group of common characters and situations that appear in different stories rather than a single consistent setting. Several of the stories feature common characters, and these may be seen as linking together the whole series.
Characters
Pre-Invasion
For many years the "Pre-invasion" stories weren't clearly in the Eight Worlds sequence, since while sharing thematic elements with the Eight Worlds universe they didn't share characters or locations. This uncertainty was put to rest in 2019 with the publication of Irontown Blues, which featured Chris Bach, the son of Anna Louise Bach, as its main character.Anna Louise Bach
The first Anna Louise Bach detective story is the short story "Bagatelle" concerning a nuclear device planted in an underground lunar colony. At this time, Earth is still home to a technological civilization, albeit one which has to deal with nuclear terrorism. Bach is the Chief of Police in New Dresden, a Lunar colony evidently founded by Germans. Later stories such as "The Barbie Murders", and "Tango Charlie and Foxtrot Romeo" deal with Bach in the earlier stages of her career. The novelette "Blue Champagne" has Bach as a minor character, working as a lifeguard in "The Bubble", a giant globe of water held in zero-gravity conditions on a resort satellite for the enjoyment of rich tourists. At the end of that story she announces that she has been saving her money to return to Luna and enroll in the Police Academy. A major character in the same story is Megan Galloway, a "media star" who seduces, and later falls in love with, "Q.M." Cooper, a former champion swimmer on Earth and Anna's occasional lover. A feature of the Anna Louise stories is her taste for "beefcake", or very masculine, muscular men.In notes contained within The John Varley Reader, the author explains that he created Anna Louise Bach for stories which were too grim for the relative Utopia of the Eight Worlds series. He never intended that her story link to the Eight Worlds chronology. In fact, even within the Anna Louise Bach stories there are inconsistencies, such as the appearance of the fabulous "Mozartplatz" in "Tango Charlie and Foxtrot Romeo", where a huge chasm on Luna is roofed over producing cubic miles of pressurized space featuring aerial communities, artificial rivers etc. The other stories portray Luna society as living in cramped tunnels, although "Bagatelle" does take place partially on a golf course in a large cavern.
Megan Galloway
Megan Galloway first appears in "Blue Champagne" and then in "Tango Charlie and Foxtrot Romeo", linking her with Anna Louise Bach in both. In "Blue Champagne" she is a "trans-sister", a quadraplegic who leads a celebrity lifestyle with the aid of a sophisticated device that enfolds her entire body in a net of golden alloy threads, which move her limbs for her. The device also records sights, sounds and emotions as she experiences them. These are then sold as virtual reality experiences, known as feelies, for an audience of vicarious thrill-seekers. The income is needed to support the huge expense of renting the device. Her magnum opus is "Love", the feeling of falling in love, which she experienced with Q.M. Cooper. The selling of that feelie creates a rift between her and Cooper, resulting in him retreating to a commune.In Steel Beach, she is also mentioned as one of the "Gigastars" enshrined by the Flacks - a bizarre celebrity cult - who later regret this choice, when feelies go out of fashion. In "Tango Charlie" she has shed the device, undergone surgery to restore her nervous system, and uses her money and influence to help Anna Louise Bach with her stuttering career and her current case. She mysteriously disappears 100 years before the action of "Steel Beach".
Post-Invasion
The story "Options" explores the issue of easy sex changes from male to female and back. A married woman, Cleo, living in King City, undergoes a change to male despite her husband's objections. As "Leo" she finds out what it means to be a man in her society and even becomes her husband's best friend. She also learns that people are adopting new names that are historically neither male nor female. She eventually returns to female as "Nile". The names of characters in other Post-Invasion stories reflect this social change.Fox
Fox is a Luna-based Environmentalist - someone who uses weather machines to create intricate storms and weather patterns as a form of art - who appears in "The Phantom of Kansas" and "Picnic on Nearside". She was born female, but her mother Carnival had her Changed at two years old and raised as a boy. As an adult, she returned to living as female.In "Phantom", Fox is mysteriously murdered by an unknown man. Though she is able to return to life with the aid of a cloned body and backed-up memories, she is unable to remember anything between her last "recording" and her death. Eventually, she discovers that her killer is her own clone, illegally created as part of an intricate kidnapping plot. They discover their mutual affection and leave for Pluto, where the less restrictive laws can allow them to live peacefully.
A character of the same name also appears in Steel Beach, but it is unclear if this is meant to be the same character.
Cathay
Cathay, a Teacher, appears in the short story "Beatnik Bayou" and The Ophiuchi Hotline. His job entails working exclusively with one child for an extended period of his or her early life. In "Beatnik Bayou" he actually regresses physically to the age of the child and grows up at the same rate, keeping his adult mentality, but an incident results in him being professionally disgraced. In The Ophiuchi Hotline he is cloned illegally by the character "Boss Tweed", so that two of him are major characters in that novel.Parameter/Equinox/Solstice
Parameter is a woman who, after a life of debauchery fueled by inherited money, tries the only untried experience left, that of half of a symbiotic pair living among the rings of Saturn, as described in the story "Equinoctial". Her first pairing ends when she is captured by religious fanatics who kidnap her newborn children to raise in their religion. Her symb partner, who took the name "Equinox", is killed, which almost drives Parameter insane. Offered another partner, she reluctantly accepts. The new symb takes the name "Solstice". The two are eventually reunited with her children. In The Ophiuchi Hotline she helps Lilo hide a cloned body in a capsule orbiting Saturn.Hildy Johnson
A journalist who was born Maria Cabrini, then used the name Mario after her first Change, but eventually took a new name from The Front Page. Hildy is the central character in Steel Beach and has appeared as a minor character in other works.Sparky Valentine
Actor and con-man. The main character of The Golden Globe.Groups and organizations
The Invaders
Described at length in The Ophiuchi Hotline, the Invaders are inhabitants of gas-giant planets like Jupiter. They transcend the limits of four-dimensional spacetime and can manipulate time and space at will. They classify living beings in one of three categories: those such as themselves, who arise in gas giant planets everywhere, cetaceans such as dolphins and whales, and vermin, the last category including all sentient beings other than Invaders and cetaceans.The Invasion of Earth was carried out to protect cetaceans from the effects of human civilization. Although no humans were directly killed, billions died as the Invaders dismantled all the infrastructure needed to support human civilization on Earth. The human population remaining on Earth after the Invasion is about the same as in prehistory, living in tribes without access to technology. The Invaders have been repeating these actions with different races across the galaxy for millions of years. The vermin inevitably attempt to regain control of their planet and are forced out of their home systems, to live between the stars where other displaced intelligences are already in residence. The first signs of this final stage of human civilization in the Solar System begin during the events in Hotline.