Blue Champagne

Although the promise of Varley's early work has petered out, he retains a remarkable storyteller's voice that supersedes his lack of good stories to tell. The reader is thus drawn into these tales examining the way technology complicates human relationships. From the computer and space flight to future prosthetics, the author asserts, greater options lead both to increased possibilities and to problems. While a few of the selections are affecting, the heavy streak of sentimentality leaves the reader feeling manipulated. Best of the lot are ''The Pusher,'' about one solution to the loneliness of the space traveler; ''Tango Charlie and Foxtrot Romeo,'' featuring a little girl alone on a satellite who has adapted to life with only a computer and a mob of dogs as companions; and the award-winning romantic whodunit ''Press Enter.''