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
Part 2: The Loneliest Place in America
We stayed one night at the Diamond D motel in Delta, Utah. Small as it was, it was the largest town for maybe a hundred miles. It had wide, wide streets. In most of the years since 1776, when some Spanish friars became the first white men ever to visit what the maps call the Sevier Desert, the land hadn’t been worth much, so why be stingy when surveying for streets? We had to cross the ...
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
Seven Days in May
This and Fail-Safe, released the same year, are the classic Cold War dramas (Dr. Strangelove being the best—and only—Cold War comedy). This one is the better of the two, I think, though it doesn’t really involve the threat of nuclear annihilation. The idea of a military takeover of ...
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Short Fiction
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It is said that to understand someone, you need to see the world through another’s eyes. What understanding would come through another’s sex?
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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