(Introduction by Algis Budrys)
The Phantom of Kansas
Air Raid
Retrograde Summer
The Black Hole Passes
In the Hall of the Martian Kings
In the Bowl
Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance
Overdrawn at the Memory Bank
The Persistence of Vision

These first appeared from 1975 to 1978 - in Magazine of F&SF (5), Galaxy (3), Isaac Asimov's.

Varley's first collection - collecting many of the stories he made a "big splash" with in the SF magazines. Some of these are part of his "Eight Worlds" series. "In the Bowl" and "Retrograde Summer" were Nebula award nominees (1977,1976); "Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance" and "The Phantom of Kansas" were both Hugo nominees (1977); "Air Raid" (basis for the movie MILLENIUM) was nominted for both Hugo & Nebula awards (1978); "In the Hall of the Martian Kings" was a Hugo-nominee (1978); the title story was winner of both Hugo & Nebula awards (1979.) As a reader at the time, "The Phantom of Kansas" and "Overdrawn at the Memory Bank" both impressed me and made me seek out more by Varley. This collection makes my "top-5" SF collection list - I strongly recommend it.

Just to show I am not alone with my high opinion of this book, here's a short review by Charles N. Brown (of LOCUS fame):
"The publicity blurb for The Persistence of Vision by John Varley starts out by saying, "These nine stories show the best work of the decade's most exciting new science fiction writer." I fully agree and can't really add very much to it. I like some stories better than others, of course. The title story is my personal favorite with "The Hall of the Martian Kings" not far behind, but that's just hair-splitting. They're all good to excellent. Persistence of Vision is the best short story collection of the decade." [in Isaac Asimov's September-October 1978]

A word of advice to collectors: this SFBC edition follows the appearance of the 1978 Dial Press/Quantum first edition, but is standard-size (shorter than the first) - and with MUCH better paper quality. When I saw the poor paper-quality of the first edition (it tends to brown easily), I avoided buying it, and got my SFBC copy autographed in preference.