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
21 Missions – Part 3
15) SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO. What can you say about Capistrano? Lots of things, not all of them good. It’s the only mission we’ve been to that has TWO shrines. One is called Serra’s Church, and is really an oversized chapel that was built when the Great Stone Church came crashing down. The other is ...
More details »Novels
Red Thunder
The US space program is effectively over. The loss of the Ares Seven ship was the final blow. Everyone has accepted that the manned Chinese ship, Heavenly Harmony, being prepped for a mission to Mars, will be the first vessel from Earth to land on the Red Planet.
In a deserted warehouse near Daytona, a band of seven suburban misfits – including a Cajun boy genius and a ...
More details »Movie Reviews
Mrs. Miniver
This is simply one of the best war movies ever made, and there’s only one soldier in it. It’s the story of a family in England during the early days of the Big War, how everything changes for them, very gradually. We in America suffered nothing like the people in Europe, and one has to admit that the Brits suffered less than most Europeans, in that Hitler’s planned invasion never happened, ...
More details »Collections
Good-Bye, Robinson Crusoe and Other Stories
“This stellar collection by John Varley contains eleven provocative, utterly distinctive stories and novellas. None of them are currently available in any other book. Some have been unavailable in any form for twenty-five years or more. The result is a publishing event that no admirer of Varley—or of first-rate imaginative fiction—can afford to miss.
“The ...
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Short Fiction
Lollipop and the Tar Baby
Spacetime might not be the only thing that gets warped near a black hole.
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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