[Eight Worlds 02] • Varley,John

Steel Beach is the story of Luna, the colony set up by Earth on the Moon, which became the primary home of the human race when an alien attack destroyed the mother planet. At its center is Hildy Johnson, top reporter for one of Luna’s tabloid newspapers, who has always had mixed feelings about the virtues of Luna. In many ways this artificial world is a paradise: science has cured physical ailments from cancer to bad breath, people live practically forever, and the Central Computer system keeps the climate comfortable and the air clean. If a man gets tired of his gender he can easily become a woman. And vice versa.

Beneath all this perfection, however, trouble is brewing. Hildy can’t understand why the ease and pleasure of life make him feel suicidal. And from the Central Computer he learns that others share his feelings. In fact, the Computer confesses, it’s been feeling depressed lately itself…

The situation is headed for a blow-up, with Hildy at its center. But out of catastrophe will come the chance to rethink the meaning of paradise, and in particular the understanding that one man’s paradise is another man’s stifling prison.