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
Dick Wolf Gets a STAR
When: Thursday, March 29, 2007 at 11:30 a.m.
Location: 7040 Hollywood Blvd, west of Orange Drive.
Comment: Wolf’s least favorite of more than 350 episodes, up to this point, is the one in which the daughter of Det. Lennie Briscoe (played by Jerry Orbach) gets killed by a drug dealer. “It was exactly what the show wasn’t, but Jerry has pled for ...
More details »
Novels
Steel Beach
More details »
Set in a future where humanity, expelled from the Earth by the alien Invaders, now lives in artificial habitats on the moon, Mars and other planets. Advanced technologies ensure a fairly effortless and secure life–almost any injury or disease is curable; people can change their features or even their gender with an afternoon of painless surgery. But all is not well on ...
Movie Reviews
Jane Eyre
This story by Charlotte Brontë has been filmed no less than twenty-two times, all the way back to 1914. Somehow, I was able to avoid every one of them until now, so I won’t be comparing it to past performances. This is a beautiful production, great photography, great acting, great adaptation. But it’s still a gothic romance, and I’m afraid that’s a genre that holds few attractions for me, ...
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
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 ...
More details »