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THE PERSISTENCE
OF VISION*
John Varley
All wrtters go through an apprenticeship, a time when they learn about the world and develop their points of view and sharpen their narrative skills. With most writers, you can see it happening, as their first attempts and initial fumblings grow and strengthen into mastery. Not John Varley. From his first year he was clearly a winner, and he has yet to set a foot wrong--whether he is writing about fast, bright adventures In a high-technology future, like The Ophiuchus Hot Line, or touching the heart of the reader, as in "The Persistence of Vision,"
which, to judge from the roar of approval when ft was announced, Is a popular favorite.
It was the year of the fourth non-depression. I had recenth joined the ranks of the unemployed.
The President had tok me that I had nothing to fear but fear itself. I took him at hi; word, for once, and set out to backpack to California.
I was not the only one. The world's economy had beep writhing like a snake on a hot griddle for the last twent~ years, since the early seventies. We were in a boom-and-bus cycle that seemed to have no end. It had wiped out the sonsi of security the nation had so painfully won in the golden years after the thirties. People were accustomed to the fac that they could be rich one year and on the breadlines the next. I was on the breadlines in '81, and again in '88. Thi; time I decided to use my freedom from the time clock to see the world. I had ideas of stowing away to Japan. I wa
'Winner, Nebula, for Best Novella of 1978.
forty-seven years old and might not get another chance to be irresponsible.
This was in late summer of the year. Sticking out my thumb along the interstate, I could easily forget that there were food riots back in Chicago. I slept at night on top of my bedroll and saw stars and listened to crickets.
I must have walked most of the way from Chicago to Des Moines. My feet toughened up after a few days of awful blisters. The rides were scarce, partly competition from other hitchhikers and partly the times we were living in. The locals were none too anxious to give rides to city people, who they had heard -were mostly a bunch of hunger-crazed potential mass murderers. I got roughed up once and told never to return to Sheffield, Illinois.
But I gradually learned the knack of living on the road. I had started with a small supply of canned goods from the welfare and by the time they ran out, I had found that it was possible to work for a meal at many of the farmhouses along the way.
Some of it was hard work, some of it was only a token from people with a deeply ingrained sense that nothing should come for free. A few meals were gratis, at the family table, with grandchildren sitting around while grandpa or grandma told oft-repeated tales of what it had been like in the Big One back in '29, when people had not been afraid to help a fellow out when he was down on his luck. I found that the older the person, the more likely I was to get a sympathetic ear. One of the many tricks you learn. And most older people will give you anything if you'll only sit and listen to them. I got very good at it.
The rides began to pick up west of Des Moines, then got bad again as I neared the refugee camps bordering the China Strip. This was only five years after the disaster, remember, when the Omaha nuclear reactor melted down and a hot mass of uranium and plutonium began eating its way into the earth, headed for China, spreading a band of radioactivity six hundred kilometers downwind. Most of Kansas City, Missouri, was still living in plywood and sheet-metal shantytowns till the city was rendered habitable again.
The refugees were a tragic group. The initial solidarity people show after a great disaster had long since faded into the lethargy and disillusionment of the displaced person. Many of them Page 1
would be in and out of hospitals for the rest of their. lives. To make it worse, the local
THE PERSISTENCE
OF VISION*
John Varley
All wrtters go through an apprenticeship, a time when they learn about the world and develop their points of view and sharpen their narrative skills. With most writers, you can see it happening, as their first attempts and initial fumblings grow and strengthen into mastery. Not John Varley. From his first year he was clearly a winner, and he has yet to set a foot wrong--whether he is writing about fast, bright adventures In a high-technology future, like The Ophiuchus Hot Line, or touching the heart of the reader, as in "The Persistence of Vision,"
which, to judge from the roar of approval when ft was announced, Is a popular favorite.
It was the year of the fourth non-depression. I had recenth joined the ranks of the unemployed.
The President had tok me that I had nothing to fear but fear itself. I took him at hi; word, for once, and set out to backpack to California.
I was not the only one. The world's economy had beep writhing like a snake on a hot griddle for the last twent~ years, since the early seventies. We were in a boom-and-bus cycle that seemed to have no end. It had wiped out the sonsi of security the nation had so painfully won in the golden years after the thirties. People were accustomed to the fac that they could be rich one year and on the breadlines the next. I was on the breadlines in '81, and again in '88. Thi; time I decided to use my freedom from the time clock to see the world. I had ideas of stowing away to Japan. I wa
'Winner, Nebula, for Best Novella of 1978.
forty-seven years old and might not get another chance to be irresponsible.
This was in late summer of the year. Sticking out my thumb along the interstate, I could easily forget that there were food riots back in Chicago. I slept at night on top of my bedroll and saw stars and listened to crickets.
I must have walked most of the way from Chicago to Des Moines. My feet toughened up after a few days of awful blisters. The rides were scarce, partly competition from other hitchhikers and partly the times we were living in. The locals were none too anxious to give rides to city people, who they had heard -were mostly a bunch of hunger-crazed potential mass murderers. I got roughed up once and told never to return to Sheffield, Illinois.
But I gradually learned the knack of living on the road. I had started with a small supply of canned goods from the welfare and by the time they ran out, I had found that it was possible to work for a meal at many of the farmhouses along the way.
Some of it was hard work, some of it was only a token from people with a deeply ingrained sense that nothing should come for free. A few meals were gratis, at the family table, with grandchildren sitting around while grandpa or grandma told oft-repeated tales of what it had been like in the Big One back in '29, when people had not been afraid to help a fellow out when he was down on his luck. I found that the older the person, the more likely I was to get a sympathetic ear. One of the many tricks you learn. And most older people will give you anything if you'll only sit and listen to them. I got very good at it.
The rides began to pick up west of Des Moines, then got bad again as I neared the refugee camps bordering the China Strip. This was only five years after the disaster, remember, when the Omaha nuclear reactor melted down and a hot mass of uranium and plutonium began eating its way into the earth, headed for China, spreading a band of radioactivity six hundred kilometers downwind. Most of Kansas City, Missouri, was still living in plywood and sheet-metal shantytowns till the city was rendered habitable again.
The refugees were a tragic group. The initial solidarity people show after a great disaster had long since faded into the lethargy and disillusionment of the displaced person. Many of them Page 1
would be in and out of hospitals for the rest of their. lives. To make it worse, the local
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