Eight Worlds

The Eight Worlds are 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 (as yet) possible, though it's 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" (first published in 1976) was adapted into a TV movie in 1985, 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 separate from the original history (see Consistency, below). 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.

John Varley has indicated that these so-called "Pre-invasion" stories are not actually a part of the "Eight Worlds" universe, even though they are commonly mistaken to be, and are occasionally bundled with real Eight Worlds stories in anthologies. They have a completely different history, in which there is lunar colonization (a common theme in Varley stories) and open sexuality (likewise a common theme), but there are no aliens and a great deal of Nuclear Terrorism on earth. None of the characters or locations in these stories has ever turned up in the Eight Worlds sequence as yet (outside of mentions in Steel Beach—see Consistency), though, on one occasion, Varley indicated that he might end up tying the two together in the as-yet-unfinished Irontown Blues, presumably the final novel in the Steel Beach trilogy set within the Eight Worlds universe.

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