John Varley, winner of the 1999 Prometheus Award for Best Novel, is being remembered for his intelligent, imaginative, cutting-edge science fiction.
Varley, who died in December at the age of 78 in Beaverton, Oregon, was “truly one of the greatest science fiction authors of all time,” wrote his fellow sf writer and friend David Brin in a tribute in the just-published January 2026 issue of Locus magazine.
An American science fiction writer (1947-2025), Varley often was Heinleinesque in his positive vision of human resilience and innovation and his ability to tell stories that blended adventure, suspense, believable characters, intelligent world-building and an epic sense of wonder.
In fact, Varley’s work often has been compared to frequent Prometheus winner Robert Heinlein, especially by the Canadian SF critic-author John Clute. So it made a lot of sense when Varley received the Robert A. Heinlein Award in 2009.
“He was fresh, he was complex, he understood the imaginative implications of transformative developments,” Clute wrote about Varley in his entry in the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.
Continue reading R.I.P., John Varley, a cutting-edge Heinleinesque sf writer and Prometheus winner
