The Ophiuchi Hotline

Book Details

78.6% complete

Author(s):

John Varley

First Pub:

1977

Genre(s):

Science Fiction

First Read:

Unknown

Times Read:

Never (or unknown...)

Rating:

Chapters:

26 chapters

Internal ID:

13997

Series:

The Persistence of Vision ->

Eight Worlds*

#1 of 7

Eight Worlds*

A science fiction series by John Varley.

View this series in the book list

1) The Ophiuchi Hotline
2) The Persistence of Vision
3) The Barbie Murders
4) Blue Champagne
5) Steel Beach
6) The Golden Globe
7) Irontown Blues

Copyright:

Dedication:

To My Mother

First Sentence:

Daily Legal Bulletin, published nu the Intersystem Office of Criminal Control Research.

Last Sentence:

May contain spoilers

"Some people we know."

Comments:

No comments on file

Synopsis not on file
Extract (may contain spoilers)

Consider the shape of my life: I had lived fifty-seven years rather normally. Like everyone, I got a memory recording every few years. Then I was arrested.

The recording I owned had been confiscated and held pending the outcome of my trial. When I was condemned, it was destroyed, along with the tissue sample that would have been used to grow a clone body if I were to die.

At the time of my stay of execution Mari must have made another recording of me. I had probably been drugged; it would have been easy enough.

I had been confronted with the clone Tweed had grown, who had then gone to The Hole in my place. (In whose place? After all, she was as much me as I am. It gets confusing.)

That person - the original me; though it's hard to accept, I'm now living in a clone body - had managed to survive only a few weeks beyond the next recording, taken in the forest at Tweed's. Return to square one, in the first step of a depressingly repetitive process. A new "me" was awakened, missing those weeks from the original recording until the death of the original "me." This second clone was started on the same course as the original. She played it safe for two or three months, made her break, was caught and killed. Number four - me, me dammit - wakes up in the forest and sees Mari smiling down on her. But this time Mari is a clone, too. Number three had killed her white escaping.

Think of it in four dimensions. Think of the long worm with arms and legs that's used in school to illustrate the idea. Picture an infant as one end of the worm, emerging from Mother's vagina or the placentory, depending on how mother likes to do it. On the other end is death. Make marks on the worm each time a person's memories are recorded. Each mark is a potential branch.

Eight or nine months ago, at the time of my reprieve, my four-dimensional cross-section had diverged into four branches. (Or could it be five, or six? Tweed had grown several clones of me while I was in jail, since as soon as I died each time he was able to revive me in a new body the next day. He must keep clones of Mari, too, or else she could not have been there the day after number three killed her.) Each had started with the same memories, ending on the day Mari recorded me. Three of those branches were terminated, dead. I was traveling, second by second, down the fourth branch.

Five years before that, when I made my own recording in the capsule orbiting Saturn, there was the potential for another branch. I had no way of knowing if that one had produced another Lilo, but it was possible. I hoped I would never meet her. I had met myself once, and learned something about myself I would have been happier not knowing.

But since I did know it, since I had seen what lengths I would go to stay alive, I intended to live.

I intended to live forever.

Added: 19-Mar-2024

Last Updated: 12-Apr-2024

Publications

01-Mar-1978

Dell Publishing Company

Mass Market Paperback

Date Issued:

Cir 01-Mar-1978

Format:

Mass Market Paperback

Cover Price:

$1.50

Pages*:

237

Catalog ID:

15890

Cover Link(s):

Internet Speculative Fiction Database

World Cat

amazon.com

Internal ID:

43557

Publisher:

Dell Publishing Company

ISBN:

0-440-15890-7

ISBN-13:

978-0-440-15890-5

Country:

United States

Language:

English

Credits:

Boris Vallejo - Cover Artist

No one knew where they came from. No one knew why. But mysterious transmissions came through
THE OPHIUCHI
HOTLINE
teaching survival arts to the dispersed peoples of Earth. Cloning was one of them... Lilo, though, was a criminal, and the Lilos created by Boss Tweed were outlaws from "birth'' their only option to serve him. One Lilo rebelled and met a fate stranger than death. Another was caught up in a bizarre emergency that threatened all civilization. For another, a message came through the Ophiuchi Hotline. Not instruction or information this time - it seemed to be a phone bill... with no indication of what had to be paid... or to whom....

QUANTUM SCIENCE FICTION
A new venture in international publishing, presents original works of the highest quality, approved by Quantum's two-man panel of judges: ISAAC ASIMOV and BEN BOVA.

Cover:

Notes and Comments:

First Dell printing - March 1978

Author(s)

John Varley
Birth: 09 Aug 1947 Austin, Texas, USA

Notes:

Taken from somewhere:

John Varley (born 1947) and grew up in Texas. He lives in Eugene, Texas with his wife Anet Mconel and their 16-year-old son Stefan. He won the Hugo and Nebula awards for the novella 'The Persistence of Vision' and he also won the Hugo for 'The Pusher.'

He has written several novels and short stories. Varley is often compared to the author Robert A Heinlein. His major work is The Gaean Trilogy: Titan, Wizard and Demon.

Awards

No awards found

I try to maintain page numbers for audiobooks even though obviously there aren't any. I do this to keep track of pages read and I try to use the Kindle version page numbers for this.
Synopses marked with an asterisk (*) were generated by an AI. There aren't a lot since this is an iffy way to do it - AI seems to make stuff up.
When specific publication dates are unknown (ie prefixed with a "Cir"), I try to get the publication date that is closest to the specific printing that I can.
When listing chapters, I only list chapters relevant to the story. I will usually leave off Author Notes, Indices, Acknowledgements, etc unless they are relevant to the story or the book is non-fiction.
Page numbers on this site are for the end of the main story. I normally do not include appendices, extra material, and other miscellaneous stuff at the end of the book in the page count.