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 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
Manchester by the Sea
Casey Affleck is a janitor in Boston when he learns that his brother has died of heart failure. It’s not a surprise because they knew he had a bad heart, and he takes it reasonably well. In Manchester he learns that his brother has left him in charge of his modest estate, and the guardianship of his 15-year-old son. This is all news to him, and he wants no part of it. It’s clear that he ...
More details »Collections
The John Varley Reader
The John Varley Reader is a representative collection of 18 of the science fiction short stories by John Varley, first published in paperback in September 2004. It features five new stories. Each story is preceded by an autobiographical introduction; until this book Varley had avoided discussing himself, or his works, in print.
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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