It is, however, much more readable, and I feel that this tone is a deliberate result of the specific zeitgeist of the Eight Worlds: namely, they don’t have one. Like Steel Beach, The Golden Globe retains a certain cartoony, satirical aspect reminiscent of Terry Pratchett it feels somehow less mature and serious than other science fiction novels, or indeed than Varley’s early novels. This is nothing new for Sparky, who has spent his adult life on the run for a much more serious crime – which the blurb gives away, so don’t read it. Sparky is bound for Luna to play his dream role of King Lear in an upcoming stage production in pursuit is a near unkillable member of the Charonese Mafia, pursuing him for one of his many crimes. While Steel Beach focused on Luna, Sparky’s story takes him from the ramshackle boondock orbitals beyond Pluto, across the system to Luna a Grand Tour of Varley’s world, and one with a much tighter plot than the loose, rambling story of Steel Beach.

He regularly goes off on tangents and anecdotes, often in the employ of worldbuilding, which never fail to entertain and fit in seamlessly with the narrative something that was often beyond Steel Beach’s Hildy Johnson. Sparky’s wisecracking narratorial voice is easily the most amusing and readable of any I’ve ever come across. Set in the same universe as Steel Beach (a modified version of Varley’s “Eight Worlds” universe), The Golden Globe features one of the most memorable narrators in science fiction: Kenneth “Sparky” Valentine, a washed-up child television star who now wanders the Solar System as an itinerant thespian, not to mention conman, thief and general miscreant. This is my favourite science fiction book by my favourite science fiction author. The Golden Globe by John Varley (1998) 517 p.