Irontown Blues
by John Varley

Reviewed by Galen Strickland
Posted August 15, 2018
Edits and additional comments on August 21, 2026

NEW COMMENTS, August 21, 2026: After a re-read eight years later, I am leaving my original review as is, then will add further comments at the end.

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I received a free e-book of this title from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review. It has been at least twenty years since Varley mentioned this title in an interview, and a few years after that he admitted he was having difficulty finishing it, perhaps could not decide on the style he wanted to use. Varley being one of my favorites, and this being another addition to his Eight Worlds sequence, I've been looking forward to it for much too long. Unfortunately it did not live up to my expectations.

It is enjoyable enough, written in a somewhat noirish style, while also being a quick, breezy read, with quite a bit of humor in spite of some darker elements. Perhaps he should have worked on it some more, altered the style a bit. As it is, there are three different first person narrators, when two would have sufficed with slight revisions, or even just one. The first to speak is Christopher Bach, a private investigator in Luna, fascinated with detective fiction in book and film versions. Luna is home to many unique neighborhoods, with Central Computer able to recreate almost any style of housing and cityscape, as long as there are enough individuals wishing to live and work in such an environment. Bach lives in Noir Town, in a block reminiscent of 1930s Los Angeles on Old Earth. The next block along is patterned after the 1940s, then the '50s, etc.

As most hard-boiled private eye tales begin, a mysterious woman comes to Bach, pleading for him to investigate a man who purposely exposed her to a designer disease...leprosy. There is a segment of the population that is fascinated by such Old Earth perils, since they can experience it for a thrill, all the while knowing modern medical techniques can reverse the condition quickly. Except, this time the leprosy is apparently not curable. Who would do something so despicable, and how can Bach track them down? Why he doesn't trail "Mary Smith" when she leaves his office is one of the first clues Varley will be playing with the narrative. He has a bloodhound named Sherlock, a Cybernetically Enhanced Canine, who could easily track her, but Bach waits several days for that, and by that time the scent has diminished. Sherlock alternates as narrator, or I should say his comments are translated and relayed by a CEC whisperer, Penelope Cornflower. Sherlock is a very smart dog who thinks most humans are stupid, including his owner. Most of the humor is provided by Sherlock.

Everything is being related after the fact, not while the events are happening. I'm not sure if it would have been better to eliminate Penelope and let Bach and Sherlock narrate, or whether it should have just been Sherlock. Bach isn't cybernetically enhanced himself, as almost everyone else in Luna is, so he can only communicate with Sherlock the conventional way, with the exception they have a system of Bach asking questions and Sherlock barking either once for yes or twice for no. There is a reason Bach doesn't have an implant, it is important to the plot, so Penelope may have been necessary...except for something that happens at the very end of the book, which should have allowed Bach and Sherlock to communicate directly and co-narrate the story. Another incongruency is the true identity of Mary Smith, who turns out to be someone Bach knew many years before. Several sections of Bach's narration are flashbacks to the Big Glitch, events that overlap the story in the 1992 novel Steel Beach. That was at least ten years prior to the current events, maybe as much as twenty, so it is understandable Bach would not recognize a woman whom he first met when she was only ten. But there is no reason that Bach would not have helped her without question if she had only revealed her identity. But then the book would have been even shorter.

I gave this 3 stars on Goodreads. A more accurate rating would be a bit more than that, but not quite 3.5. I'm glad it's finally been published, and the basic story is interesting, but the ending is too rushed. It mainly made me want to re-read Steel Beach. It's been over 25 years, and I know I've forgotten much about it, except that I liked it a lot then, so I'm wondering if memory is correct and it is better than this book. Unfortunately, I have too many other new books to read now, that will have to wait.

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Now the new comments. I liked this more the second time. Most of that has to do with its connections to Steel Beach, which I re-read last month. I had forgotten a lot about it, as I mentioned above, especially about the Big Glitch, which I didn't mention in that review. In the afterword to Steel Beach Varley admitted the multiple inconsistencies in the Eight Worlds stories and novels. There is no afterword to Irontown Blues, but there is an even bigger inconsistency. I had thought of doing a general blog post concerning Eight Worlds, but I think comments here will suffice, along with directing you to all of the other reviews you can access through the link on Varley's name above, as well as below. All of his story collections (although not every story), as well as the novels I've grouped under an Eight Worlds header on that page, have mentions of the various technologies used, but the inconsistencies deal with the when, why, and by whom those technologies were created. Another major inconsistency in this novel is the person Varley identifies as Christopher Bach's mother: Anna Louise Bach. He had previously said she was not part of the Eight Worlds sequence, but rather a character he used when he thought of a story needing the perspective of law enforcement.

Anna-Louise had held several different positions as a LEO on Luna, but in each of those stories there are also characters from Earth, meaning the stories were either taking place before the Invasion, or in an alternate timeline. At least one story was said to be taking place decades after the Invasion was supposed to have happened, approximately 2050. Whenever a year was mentioned in other stories it was designated OE, after the Occupation of Earth. At the end of the last Anna-Louise story (prior to Irontown Blues), "The Bellman," she gave birth to a daughter, Joanna. If the same Anna-Louise is Christopher's mother then he was born later. Christopher mentions Hildy Johnson a couple of times, the main character in Steel Beach. Their birth name was Mario Cabrini, their mother Callie Cabrini, who raised and breeded dinosaurs from recreated DNA. In Irontown Blues, Anna-Louise had retired from law enforcement and was operating a dinosaur ranch. Not to say there couldn't be two or more such ranches around Luna, but that seemed weird. The first time I read this it didn't seem that significant, since it had been so long since reading Steel Beach, as well as for any of the Anna-Louise stories. She appears to be the same character, not just sharing the name with another, because she is identified as the person responsible for deactivating a nuclear bomb in New Dresden early in her career, as happened in "The Bagatelle."

Other than being Christopher's mother, Anna-Louise does not figure into the plot beyond her acknowledging the Big Glitch is what prompted her to retire. Hildy Johnson is mentioned via a flashback memory Christopher has of the Big Glitch, which happened because of the Central Computer's paranoia and derangement. The CC directed military mercenaries to invade areas that were home to the Heinleiners, mainly because they rejected the implants the CC used to monitor people on Luna. Before he was a PI, which is just a hobby, Christopher had been in law enforcement serving under his mother, and he was among those co-opted to work with the mercenaries when they invaded Irontown (it was not identified as such in Steel Beach). That means he was on the opposite side of that fight from Hildy Johnson. At the end of her book she said she wanted to go on the space ship Robert A. Heinlein if and when it was able to launch, which the Heinleiners had been working on for a long time. At the end of Irontown, Christopher manages to board the ship as it is taking off, without any mention of whether Hildy was aboard. So, many of the comments I made in previous reviews likely need revision, but I will not bother with that now, or ever. Since there are so many inconsistencies, just take every story as if they take place in their own world, not connected to anything else. Most are enjoyable however you view them. One other thing, Sparky Valentine is mentioned here again, but just in passing. His story in The Golden Globe is one of the very few things by Varley that I do not recommend. The one connection that book has to this one is the mercenary group the CC uses, the Charonese Mafia, which is the group in pursuit of Valentine for a completely different reason, even different than what he thought they wanted him for.

This is the end of the Eight Worlds even if not by its internal chronological order. That doesn't mean I've come to the end of my Varley re-reads, although I'm not sure if I'll get to others this year or not. I doubt I will re-read Slow Apocalypse, but there is Mammoth, which I did read but never reviewed. That leaves the four "retro-SF" novels in the Thunder and Lightning series, which are somewhat updated variations of the Heinlein juveniles. I do want to read them again, just not sure when. Considering the rather large gaps between his story and novel productions at various times, Varley left a considerable body of work for us to enjoy. Not everything is at the same level, but if you try a book but aren't satisfied with it, just stop, then pick up the next in line.

Related link:
My Varley Review Index

 

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