WEDNESDAY’S SHORT STORIES #24: PRESS ENTER By John Varley

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

31 thoughts on “WEDNESDAY’S SHORT STORIES #24: PRESS ENTER By John Varley

  1. Steve Oerkfitz

    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.

    Reply
    1. Todd Mason

      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.

      Reply
    1. george Post author

      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.

      Reply
  2. Michael Padgett

    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.

    Reply
  3. Todd Mason

    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.

    Reply
    1. Todd Mason

      “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.

      Reply
      1. george Post author

        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.

    2. george Post author

      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.

      Reply
      1. Wolf

        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.

      2. Wolf

        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.

    1. Jeff Meyerson

      “Air Raid” (which I’d previously read) was in the Stephen King co-edited anthology FLIGHT OR FRIGHT.

      Reply
      1. george Post author

        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.

  4. Patti Abbott

    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.

    Reply
    1. Todd Mason

      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.

      Reply
    2. george Post author

      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.

      Reply
    3. Todd Mason

      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.

      Reply
      1. Rick Robinson

        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…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *