VarleyLog
We Bought a Tesla!
Here’s what happened. Lee came across what looked like a tiny, yellowing IOU at the bottom of some ancient records. It was from the Tooth Fairy, and she said she was a little short of cash and would pay me a dime the next night. It was dated May 8, 1954. I was seven! She’s still in business, you know, the Tooth Fairy, so Lee tracked her down and demanded payment. The old biddy was not ...
More details »Looking Back
Jules Verne in the Last Remaining Seats
Awhile back we had an eventful 10 days. First, we joined the Los Angeles Conservancy, an organization dedicated to saving what scraps of history remain in this town after the developers have been tearing stuff down for 50 years. It’s too late for the historic Ambassador Hotel, as seen in The Graduate and almost 100 other movies, the place where Bobby Kennedy was ...
More details »Novels
Red Lightning
“The heart-pounding space race is on,” exclaimed Publishers Weekly about Red Thunder, while The Washington Post called it “realistic – and funny.” Now, award-winning author John Varley continues the adventure with a novel featuring a new generation of spacefaring heroes…
“Mars sucks.” And if anyone’s allowed to say it, Ray ...
More details »Movie Reviews
Min and Bill
This was one of the big movies of 1930, and the one that made Wallace Beery the biggest star at MGM. No kidding. Until Clark Gable came along, Beery had a clause in his contract that said he would always be paid one dollar more than anyone else on the lot! It was so successful that a sequel was made, Tugboat Annie, which many people believe was even better than ...
More details »Collections
The Persistence of Vision
This is Varley’s first story collection — a multiple award winner. It won the Locus Award and the Prix Apollo for Best Single Author Collection. The title story also won a Locus Award and a Hugo and a Nebula. Five other stories were near awards.
PBS turned “Overdrawn at the Memory Bank” into a 3-(out of ...
More details »Short Fiction
Blue Champagne
No matter the technological wonders that come to pass, it is still a story of human needs and desires that effervesce.
More details »Titan: An Overview
A Short Overview of Titan
Here's a very short but quite impressive video made by Jean-Paul Verne, a fly-through of Gaea from my trilogy. M. Verne wants to be involved if a movie ever gets made. Over the years many, many people have written to me wishing these books would be made into a movie. Naturally, I'd like that, too. Let's hope this is not as close as we'll ever get.
More details »Accidental Hippies
Accidental Hippies
Sometime not long after my high school graduation I was studying at Michigan State University when my long-time girlfriend dumped me. I entered such a state of depression that I could not continue in college. So I dropped out and decided to hit the road with Chris Kingsley, my best friend in the world. Chris had much more experience of life on the road than I did, had actually hitched to ...
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