Here is another volume in the SCIENCE FICTION COLLECTION series by the Science Fiction Book Club. PRESS ENTER was first published in 1984 and this edition with David G. Hartwell’s excellent Introduction was published in 1997. John Varley’s PRESS ENTER is a NEBULA WINNER from 1984 and a HUGO WINNER from 1985.
Press Enter is a story ahead of its time. Written in the early 1980s when cyber technology was crude, this story anticipates the sinister aspects of computers and Artificial Intelligence. When Korean War veteran, Victor Apfel, discovers his neighbor, Charles Kluge, has died and bequeathed a significant inheritance to him, he’s suspicious. But the Los Angeles Police Department is satisfied that Kluge died by suicide. Yet an investigation by Caltech computer expert Lisa Foo reveals that Kluge was hacking into dangerous, secretive government agencies who may have been involved in his death. Following Kluge’s trail exposes Apfel and Foo to potentially the same fate that Kluge encountered.
With the current crisis with hackers shutting down the oil pipeline (which is sending gas prices skyward!), it’s astonishing Varley anticipated this kind of computer menace nearly 40 years ago!
When I first read PRESS ENTER in 1984, I was blown away by John Varley’s story. But I was also outraged–like many fans were–with the story’s conclusion. Nonetheless, PRESS ENTER is one of those dazzling SF stories that successfully predicts the Future. GRADE: A
I have this in a large best of collection. Keep meaning to reread Varley. He wrote a lot of good stuff then kind of disappeared for awhile. When he came back it was mostly with a series of Heinlein YA like novels that were not as good as his previous stuff. Recently read that he has a gofundme page to help him pay for a quadruple bypass.
The so-so film MILLENNIUM took up A Lot of his creative energy for a while, and left his somewhat dispirited. (I’ve never been the fan of “Air Raid” that many have, which was the source story, extended for the film and Varley’s differing novel version).
Been meaning to try RED THUNDER et al. for some decades.
Todd, I’m not a fan of Varley’s YA novels. I read one or two and came away unimpressed.
Steve, Varley went to Hollywood to work on a movie. When he returned to writing SF, the magic was gone.
Hard to type this title correctly, as you need the box representing the cursor…
Jeff, I looked online for a small black box icon, but I didn’t find any I liked. WORDPRESS doesn’t come with drawing tools.
Varley came along in the late 70s when my interest in SF was waning rapidly and almost gone. I do remember loving his first novel, THE OPHIUCHI HOTLINE, and I read at least the first two novels in the Gaea Trilogy, but maybe not the third. I’m sure I read some of his short fiction, and particularly remember THE PERSISTENCE OF VISION, but don’t think I read PRESS ENTER.
Michael, “Press Enter” will knock your socks off.
Varley’s early novels were Definitely not up to his best short fiction. Rather like Damon Knight in that fashion…his first three collections (THE PERSISTENCE OF VISION, THE BARBIE MURDERS and BLUE CHAMPAGNE in the US) were the things to read…and he began publishing in the early ’70s, but he was getting award attention by the late ’70s. “The Persistence of Vision” the novella was a lot less problematic for me at 13yo than it would be, and is, now…13yos generally think they are more proto-adult than they think they are. Yes, this includes the girls.
“Press Enter” (or “Press Enter _” to more closely approximate the original type-form) was originally collected in Varley’s BLUE CHAMPAGNE; I completely missed the 1997 chapbook SFBC put out you have highlighted here. I shall have to check out the ending again.
Varley made his fundraising goal, happily, for his surgery.
“The Persistence of Vision” was in the first new issue of F&SF that I bought and read. Nearly everything in that issue was impressive, except the Robert F. Young story. As it soon turned out, that was no surprise…Young was able to place lousy stories in several issues of F&SF, FANTASTIC and AMAZING over the next several years.
Todd, Robert F. Young worked as a Janitor at a Buffalo school about a 20 minute drive from where I live. He wrote a lot of short stories (maybe during his breaks) and a few fantasy novels.
Yes, I’ve since read a number of Young’s slightly less awful earlier stories.
Todd, I loved Varley’s short fiction. The Science Fiction Book Club published six of these SCIENCE FICTION COLLECTION chapbooks and I have two of them: PRESS ENTER and HOUSTON, HOUSTON DO YOU READ? There’s a Spider Robinson title, a Fritz Leiber title, Pool Anderson’s THE SATURN GAME, and Roger Zelazny’s HOME IS THE HANGMAN.
Same here!
Actually I generally preferred short SF stories, great ideas to think about – and I could read one or two in the evening in my hotel room after a hard workday in IT …
Varley’s early stories were really good.
Wolf, I may have to reread some of those early Varley stories. I loved them back in the 1970s!
George, how do you find the time to reread stories/novels?
I can’t read all the stuff that I have in my library, don’t have enough free time.
Wolf, I seldom reread books but the Pandemic has provide time to engage in that rare activity.
They should think they are, that sentence about 13yos should read in the final phrase!
I’ve only read a couple of his stories. Not this one, but it makes me want to read it.
“Air Raid” (which I’d previously read) was in the Stephen King co-edited anthology FLIGHT OR FRIGHT.
Jeff, “Air Raid” as Todd pointed out, was the basis for the movie MILLENNIUM. That movie project seemed to have drained much of Varley’s creativity.
Jeff, I consider PRESS ENTER one of Varley’s best works.
Okay, here is a question for SF readers. I have described FOR ALL MANKIND to two friends and both dismissed it as SF. Now I see it as alternate history more than SF. But maybe alt history is SF. Or do they think it is SF because it deals with the Space Program. Don’t know if anyone but me here has seen it but it begins in ’69 but the Russians land on the moon first. This begins a sort of Cold War on the moon. Women become astronauts to compete with the Russians. This leads to the passage of the ERA for various reasons. Women move ahead a lot more quickly. Ted Kennedy becomes President. So is this SF? I think it is a very good show.
Yes, a lot of alternate history is SF. This sure sounds like it.
1. Your two friends are foolish snobs. 2, Alternate historical fiction is indeed science fiction when it isn’t instead fantasy or the occasional science fantasy, which mixes elements from both. 3, FOR ALL MANKIND (clearly an ironic title!) sure sounds like sf to me, from your and everyone else’s descriptions, and I look forward to watching it. Alternative historical fiction has been one of the commonest sorts of sf since sf was first labeled such, and even beforehand.
Patti, in my opinion FOR ALL MANKIND is Science Fiction. Alternate Histories are a common SF theme. There are plenty of examples. Ward Moore’s Bring the Jubilee tells the story of how the South won the Civil War. Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle presents a world where the Nazis and the Japanese won World War II.
About the only kind of alternative history which Isn’t fantastic fiction/speculative fiction by definition would be that solely cast in the form of essays, exploring the means with which history could’ve gone down other paths…which are not the kind of metafiction that Jorge Luis Borges or John Barth or Robert Coover have at times enjoyed writing, to cite three rather different practitioners, whose work brings us back to fantasy, sf and the like. If one wants to exclude joke stories, such as James Thurber’s “If Grant Had Been Drinking at Appomattox” or Edward Bryant’s “If Eve Had Failed to Conceive” (a story that is a blank after its title), one certainly can. But no real reason to do so.
Gas prices should have been frozen the moment the hack was discovered. Price gougers should be punished. Not much of a Varley fan.
Ransomware attacks increase in number and ferocity. Prepare for more attacks in the months ahead.
The gas hoarding was/is awful. WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE? Do they really need 20 gas cans sitting in the garage when the pipeline will be up by Friday? Oh, and look at the demographic…
Rick, I am not making this up. EPA issued a warning to people affected by the oil pipeline shutdown NOT to fill plastic bags with gasoline. Yikes!