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Steel Beach (Eight Worlds, Book 2) by John Varley

By John Varley

Centuries after extraterrestrial beings conquered the Earth, people live to tell the tale colonized planetoids. A hack reporter with a dying want (named Hildy Johnson after a reporter within the play "The entrance Page", a component variously performed in movie types through either Rosalind Russell and Jack Lemmon) can't cease attempting to kill himself. After he hooks up with the colony's laptop overseer to attempt and discover why, Johnson starts to suspect that the basis of his challenge may perhaps lie within the computer's subroutines, numerous of which additionally appear to be suicidal, and threaten the colony's persevered life.

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All my furniture was unique. Nowhere in Luna would you find another sofa like that . . like that hideous monstrosity over there. And what a blessing that was, I mused. Two of them might have mated. Damn, but it was ugly. I had selected almost nothing in this room. The possibilities of taste had become so endless I had simply thrown up my hands and taken what came with the apartment. Maybe that was what I'd been reluctant to let Brenda see. I supposed you could read as much into what a man had not done to his environment as what he had done.

One of the brontosaurs made a mournful honk and moved along a little faster. In one-sixth gee, even a thunder lizard could be sprightly. I doubt they set any speed records back on Old Earth. In fact, I wondered how they stood up at all, out of the water. The reason for the burst of speed was soon apparent. Callie entered the barn, mounted on a tyrannosaur. The big predator responded instantly to every touch of the reins, hurrying to block an attempted retreat by the male, rearing up and baring its teeth when it looked as if the female might make a stand.

It got a laugh, and the announcer looked grateful for the interruption in the boring paragraphs the law required him to read. He brought them out to the middle of the ring and read them the rule— which was simply to stop fighting when they heard the bell. Other than that, there were no rules. He had them shake hands, and told them to come out fighting. # "The first stinking round. " Brenda was still complaining, half an hour after the finish of the match. It had not been a contest that would go down in history.

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