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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 ...

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Looking Back

Up a Lazy Concrete River

The Los Angeles River is pretty much a joke, especially to people who live in LA. They say that back east there was a river that was so polluted that it caught fire one day. Probably an urban legend.* But it is a fact that, most of the year, you can rollerblade or drive your car on the LA River.

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Novels

Millennium

In the skies over Oakland, California, a DC-10 and a 747 are about to collide. And in the far distant future, a time-travel team is preparing to snatch the passengers, leaving prefabricated smoking bodies behind for the rescue teams to find. And an air disaster investigator gets a phone call that changes his life … and the world as we know it.

This novel was based on John’s ...

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Movie Reviews

Cops and Robbers

Donald Westlake may just be my favorite writer. At least he’s up in the top five. He’s prolific, versatile, and I can always rely on him to entertain me. He writes mostly comic novels under his own name, many of them featuring a hard-luck burglar named John Dortmunder and his motley gang. When I say comic novels, don’t be put off. These are exquisite little gems, with plots that work like ...

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Collections

Blue Champagne

A collection of eight stories, four of which are award winning.

The cover art and illustrations are by Todd Cameron Hamilton.

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Short Fiction

The Phantom of Kansas

Art can take many forms, some more obvious than others…

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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.

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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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