Varley seems to have a great deal of insight into sexual roles, and his projected attitude is much like mine. I enjoyed Steel Beach much more than Titan, but not nearly as much as Blue Champagne. The novel dragged somewhat in places, and there were one or two extraneous characters (I'm thinking of Fox in particular). For the most part, however, it was very well written. I'm not up-to-date on sf as a genre, so I probably missed many references, but having read Stranger in a Strange Land, I did pick up on a lot of the Heinlein references, notably the character named "Valentine Michael Smith" (with quotes).