Varley's Red Thunder qualifies for preliminary Nebula ballot

I grew up on John Varley's short fiction (careful readers of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom will note several loving tributes to Varley's work), and still return to collections like The Barbie Murders, Blue Champagne and the magnificent The Persistence of Vision nearly every year, re-reading those stories and marvelling anew at how deft and clever Varley's hand is.

I just noticed that Red Thunder, the second Varley tribute to Heinlein (the first was the Hugo-nominated Steel Beach, a mind-crogglingly wild, funny and clever tribute to The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress) has qualified for the preliminary Nebula ballot, which is proof that we live in a just universe indeed.

Red Thunder is a tribute to Heinlein's juvie novels, particularily the classic boys-own-adventure tale Rocket Ship Galileo, about three plucky, ethincally diverse, multi-gender adolescent heroes who rescue the US space program.

Varley manages this amazing trick of simultaneously writing a juvie book -- this would be a hell of a book for your favorite precocious thirteen-year-old -- and writing a book about juvie books, a book for those of us who grew up on the juvies of yesteryear. Link