Rating: 
Summary: Don't watch a movie before reading the book very often
Review: It's not normal practice for me to watch a film prior to reading the book it's based on, but when I do, watching the film can lead me to some very good books. Such was the case with Millennium by John Varley. I had seen the film with Kris Kristofferson and Cheryl Ladd a number of times but had been frustrated in my efforts to obtain a copy of "Air Raid", the original short story the film was credited as being based on, until one day when the book almost literally fell into my lap.I gotta tell you, Millennium was one of those books I could not put down. From the first page, I found myself absolutely enraptured by the characters of both Louise Baltimore and Bill Smith. Varley's Smith is actually very close to the character that Kris Kristofferson portrayed in the movie, but his Louise Baltimore is a very tough, take-charge kind of gal that's unlike the one played by Cheryl Ladd in the film. That Louise always seemed to be looking to her personal robot, Sherman, for advice, whereas the Louise of Varley's book might have depended on Sherman for emotional support at times, but generally kept her own counsel and scoffed at the very notion that Sherman's ideas could be taken seriously in a critical mission such as the one she was running to Smith's time in order to get her lost "stunner". The funny thing was, in the end it was the Big Computer who was running everything, and not Louise or Bill or even Sherman. I am currently on my 6th copy of this excellent time-travel novel (the other 5 have worn out due to repeated readings), and I hope that all of you who are sci-fi enthusiasts will take the time to pick up a copy and read it, if you haven't read it already. It's a definite page-turner.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting Premise in Time Travel
Review: Louise Baltimore. Woman from a dark, decadent, and dying future. The solution? Abduct victims of airplane crashes before the crash. Take them to the future to re-populate the earth 1000 years into Louise's future. Facinating take on the pitfalls of time travel as the dangers of paradoxes are created. That is, what would happen if one of the victims you are going to take before the plan crash was suppose to survive? How does that effect your future?Unfortunately it turns into something deadlier than humanity ever imagined. Save the future by harvesting the past? A book well done, and a must read for sci-fi fan.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting Premise in Time Travel
Review: Louise Baltimore. Woman from a dark, decadent, and dying future. The solution? Abduct victims of airplane crashes before the crash. Take them to the future to re-populate the earth 1000 years into Louise's future. Facinating take on the pitfalls of time travel as the dangers of paradoxes are created. That is, what would happen if one of the victims you are going to take before the plan crash was suppose to survive? How does that effect your future?Unfortunately it turns into something deadlier than humanity ever imagined. Save the future by harvesting the past? A book well done, and a must read for sci-fi fan.
Rating:
Summary: Buy it, keep it, read it every couple of years
Review: Millennium is one of my "keepers" and the one I lend out to get my friends hooked on science fiction. This is the kind of book tou take to the beach in the morning and end up going home only because it's getting too dark to read. The two person; 1st person viewpoints (burnedout, middle-aged NTSB crash investigator/Type A-personnality girl from the umpteen century)is a neat way to tell a story and makes this a fast and enjoyable read.
Rating:
Summary: Buy it, keep it, read it every couple of years
Review: Millennium is one of my "keepers" and the one I lend out to get my friends hooked on science fiction. This is the kind of book tou take to the beach in the morning and end up going home only because it's getting too dark to read. The two person; 1st person viewpoints (burnedout, middle-aged NTSB crash investigator/Type A-personnality girl from the umpteen century)is a neat way to tell a story and makes this a fast and enjoyable read.
Rating:
Summary: Varley when Varley was writing his best
Review: Not to complain, but I found that all the stuff Varley wrote before I discovered him (in Titan) is ever so much better than the stuff SINCE I discovered him. This book is dynamite and a great read. It was a fair movie (with some laughable sfx) but the book delivers. John, if you're out there...go back to Gaea. Get back on the airplane. Go to Jupiter and kick those mysterious thingies butts! Quit messing with reporters and faux-shakesperean actors.
Rating:
Summary: Varley when Varley was writing his best
Review: Not to complain, but I found that all the stuff Varley wrote before I discovered him (in Titan) is ever so much better than the stuff SINCE I discovered him. This book is dynamite and a great read. It was a fair movie (with some laughable sfx) but the book delivers. John, if you're out there...go back to Gaea. Get back on the airplane. Go to Jupiter and kick those mysterious thingies butts! Quit messing with reporters and faux-shakesperean actors.
Rating:
Summary: complex plot with amaxing surprise (symbolic) ending
Review: This book makes you think. A lot. What does the furutre bring for us and where have we been? What makes us think we have it right?
Rating: 
Summary: Spare me this future!
Review: This story skips the reader to the end of the third millennium. What a sight! One that makes almost no sense. Although replicant bodies can be quickly manufactured to replace the accident victims snatched from death, although human organs can be readily replaced by mechanical parts, although robots can possess big computer brains used to rule mankind-it is still necessary to stage cumbersome time-gate flights to the past to acquire humans for the peopling of a new planet. When these future time travelers leave behind some weapons they must turn heaven and hell upside down to get them back. I must admit that like the rest of mankind I don't understand the niceties of time travel but I'm afraid the reader must look elsewhere to solve these riddles. It seems Varley started to write a dystopian ending for mankind by showing us slews of Heaven's Gate type suicides. Then perhaps his film director suggested the rather futile, last minute, happy ending rescue of mankind-one that just left me hanging.
Rating:
Summary: Spare me this future!
Review: This story skips the reader to the end of the third millennium. What a sight! One that makes almost no sense. Although replicant bodies can be quickly manufactured to replace the accident victims snatched from death, although human organs can be readily replaced by mechanical parts, although robots can possess big computer brains used to rule mankind-it is still necessary to stage cumbersome time-gate flights to the past to acquire humans for the peopling of a new planet. When these future time travelers leave behind some weapons they must turn heaven and hell upside down to get them back. I must admit that like the rest of mankind I don't understand the niceties of time travel but I'm afraid the reader must look elsewhere to solve these riddles. It seems Varley started to write a dystopian ending for mankind by showing us slews of Heaven's Gate type suicides. Then perhaps his film director suggested the rather futile, last minute, happy ending rescue of mankind-one that just left me hanging.
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