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The Eight Worlds are the fictional setting of a series of science fiction novels and short stories by John Varley, in which the Solar System has been colonized by human refugees fleeing an alien invasion of the Earth. Earth and Jupiter are off-limits to humanity, but Earth's Moon and the other worlds and moons of the Solar System have all become heavily populated. There are also minor colonies set in the Oort cloud at the edge of the Solar System. Faster than light travel is not (as yet) possible, though it is mentioned that test-flights will begin soon at the end of The Golden Globe, and the species has not as yet managed to extend itself to other stars.
The series mostly deals with the ways in which technology and necessity shape morality and society. Instant sex changes are considered a matter of fashion, rather than gender identity, and many long-standing human sexual taboos no longer exist.
The Eight Worlds story "Overdrawn at the Memory Bank", published in 1976, was adapted into a TV movie in 1984 starring Raul Julia.
The stories were written at different times and are not always consistent with each other. In particular, the novels Steel Beach and The Golden Globe are explicitly stated as being inconsistent with the original history (see #Consistency, below). Varley has written that the Eight Worlds background should be regarded as a group of common characters and situations that appear in different stories rather than a single consistent setting.[citation needed] Several of the stories feature common characters, and these may be seen as linking together the whole series.