Picnic on Nearside (previously published as the Barbie Murders) is a collection of nine short stories by Hugo-award winning science fiction author John Varley. Stories in this volume include:
(1) Bagatelle (originally published in Galaxy, August 1976) is a fascinating experiment whereby a cyborg arrives at a city on the moon and announces that he has a fifty to neutron bomb and that no one can approach any closer. Naturally, you need a hostage negotiator to talk to the cyborg and figure out why he wants to blow everyone up. Part of that is, of course, figuring out that there’s a human operator in there somewhere and he’s really enjoy a birthday party. But notice as you read this one that all the characters are goofy like the bomb expert who tries to fondle the police chief while waiting for the train car to move. It’s as if even in a science fiction environment, you still end up with flawed people who act in surprising and illogical ways.
(2) The Funhouse Effect (orig. published in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Dec. 1976) is a crazy off-kilter exploration where at first you the reader are told that the voyage is on a comet hollowed out and filled with engines. But, it’s the last voyage and everything is being stripped off the ship including the engines and the lifeboats. Of course, the only natural reaction is mutinies and space aliens.
(3) The Barbie Murders (orig. published in Issac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Feb. 1978), which was the original title of the collection, is a top-notch, thought-provoking murder mystery set on the Moon. More particularly, it is set in the Barbie colony cult, named because all 7,000 inhabitants look like Barbie (down to the absence of genitalia), but what’s more they given up individuality and think alike, having adopted the “we” pronoun in place of the “I.” How do you solve a murder when all identical inhabitants have the same hive memories and randomly pick one to confess, not caring whether it was those particular hands did the deed? What’s remarkable about the story is how well it captures that longing for conformity and groupthink and how vividly it captures what a society would look like where everyone looked and thought the same.
(4) Equinoctial (org. pubd. in Ascents of Wonder, 1977) is set on one of Saturn’s rings. It’s subject matter is a humanoid who has experimented with body modifications leading up to symbiosis with a tentacled artificial intelligence that enveloped her from head to toe.
(5) “Manikins” (org. pubd. in Amazing Stories, Jan. 1976) is one of the shorter pieces in this collection and is set in a psych facility.
(6) Beatnik Bayou (org. pubd. in New Voices III, 1980) is a science fiction tale about another world where if you are rich enough you can recreate a bayou and gender can be fluid and subject to change.
(7) Good-bye, Robinson Crusoe” (org. pubd. in Issac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine (Spring 1977)) is a story about a tropical resort on another world, but if you are really going to stay and enjoy it, you better get some gills and fins.
(8) Lollipop and the Tar Baby (originally published in Orbit 19, 1977) is a brilliant piece of writing about the time Xanthia, who by the way is a clone, heard a black hole talk to her. She doubts her sanity because it couldn’t possibly have happened but it did. The black hole feeds on all kinds of energy, gobbling it up, just like what would happen to the hole if Xanthia reported in with what took place. Everyone needs power!
(9) the title piece, Picnic on Nearside (originally pub in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, August 1974) has literally a picnic scene on the mostly deserted nearside (as opposed to the farside) but mostly it focuses on gender switching (something quite novel for 1974), but more common nowadays.
Those Crazy Books 