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
Vanna White gets a STAR
Walking down Hollywood Boulevard always makes me a little dizzy. It’s not that I’m overly impressed by the names of the people on the stars in the street—though you can’t help remarking on some of them you particularly like, from time to time (there’s Stan Freberg! and Ray Bradbury! and Crosby, Still, and Nash!). It’s just that I’m a compulsive reader, and no matter how I try not to, I ...
More details »Novels
Red Lightning
“The heart-pounding space race is on,” exclaimed Publishers Weekly about Red Thunder, while The Washington Post called it “realistic – and funny.” Now, award-winning author John Varley continues the adventure with a novel featuring a new generation of spacefaring heroes…
“Mars sucks.” And if anyone’s allowed to say it, Ray ...
More details »Movie Reviews
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest
The literal translation of this title from the Swedish, I am informed, is “The Air Castle That Was Blown Up.” I think we will all agree that it just doesn’t work in English. “Air castles” or maybe “dream castles” in Swedish seems to mean much the same as it would in English, that is, “pipe dreams,” but I suspect the idiom is something that doesn’t translate. I’ve tried to think of a better ...
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
In the Hall of the Martian Kings
Mars will be colonized, but just what might we find?
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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