The Golden Globe by John VarleyAce (Penguin), 1999 (Originally 1998)

At the start of The Golden Globe, our narrator, Kenneth Valentine, aka Sparky, aka various aliases, is in a production of Romeo and Juliet somewhere out past Pluto. He’s playing Mercutio; the actress playing Juliet is indisposed. He convinces the director to let him play Juliet and Mercutio for this performance, which works out nicely: when a private detective appears between scenes, looking for Kenneth Valentine, Sparky’s in costume as Juliet, and the detective doesn’t think for a second that the apparently female person he’s talking to might in fact be the person he’s looking for. So Sparky leaves as soon as he can, making his way to Pluto, where he undertakes various legal and illegal activities (he’s a con-man, as well as being an actor) to make some money, until he hears that a very famous director is coming out of retirement to direct a production of King Lear. This director is a friend of his, and she promises him the starring role, but the production is on the moon—Earth’s moon, I mean—and he’s not sure he can get there in time. And oh, also, it becomes apparent that the private detective isn’t the only person looking for him.

So the book ends up being the tale of Sparky’s trek across the solar system, accompanied by his genetically-modified Bichon Frise, Toby, interspersed with flashbacks/dreams in which we get the story of Sparky’s childhood, interspersed with other things, like reviews of the long-running hit television show that’s the whole reason Kenneth is also called Sparky, and bits of gossip columns about the moon’s version of Hollywood, and so on. We hear about Sparky’s difficult/abusive father, and how he ended up on television to begin with, and, eventually, why he left the moon and made his way elsewhere. Though the cover of the book proclaims that this is “A Science Fiction Novel,” it’s not super-heavy on space-invaders or artificial intelligence or the logistics of space travel or how human civilization looks on various planets, though it does have bits of all those things. I liked the balance of theatre jokes and other jokes and action and world-building in this book, and I especially liked Toby (I am perhaps biased, having had a Bichon companion of my own—see below). But, I mean, how could I not be amused by this?

You don’t know what terror is until you’ve heard a Bichon growling. After you’ve heard it, you still don’t have a clue. Back in the park, I’m sure all the squirrels in earshot were helpless with laughter. (41)




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