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
Disneyland and California Adventure
Though everyone was smiling and having a great time … I saw a lot of people who weren’t clapping after the big musical numbers. I don’t think it was that they were rude, or unappreciative, believe it or not, I think they just don’t go to Disneyland with the mind-set for clapping. Think about it. In 95% of the attractions, you see the famous audio-animatronic robots. Why clap for them? They’re just mannequins, controlled by computers. I even wonder if some of the people there weren’t sure if these were real people up on the stage. Weird, huh?
More details »Novels
The Ophiuchi Hotline
Varley’s first novel. Cover by Boris Vallejo.
After the effortless capture of Earth by vastly superior aliens, humanity is forced to fight for existence on the Moon and other lumps of airless rock. The invention of the Hotline–a constant stream of data from a star in the constellation Ophiuchus–facilitates survival and enables the ...
More details »Movie Reviews
Subway Stories: Tales From the Underground
HBO held a contest for people to send in stories of their true experiences on the New York subways, and these 10 vignettes are the result. Each has a different director, the best known being Jonathan Demme and Abel Ferrara. I’m not sure I believe all of them; some sound suspiciously made-up. But most of them ring true, in that they are not neat, they don’t tie up as most stories do, they ...
More details »Collections
Picnic on Nearside
Varley’s second story collection, originally published as The Barbie Murders and Other Stories in 1980.
Picnic on Nearside won the 1980 Locus Award for Best Single-Author Collection.
The title story, “Picnic ...
More details »Short Fiction
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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