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
Our Hollyweird Christmas
Los Angeles has one of the most ethnically diverse populations in the United States. I’ve heard that classes in the school system are taught in over 80 different languages. The huge majority of the ESL people speak Spanish, and come from one of the nations south of the Rio Grande. But there are large groups of other ethnic backgrounds, too, many of them not Christian, or only partly so. ...
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
Wallander
Henning Mankell wrote a dozen novels featuring Swedish detective Kurt Wallander between 1991 and 2009, and he sure did get a lot of mileage out of them. There was a series of Swedish TV movies from 1994 to 2007, starring Rolf Lassgard. Then there was another Swedish TV series from 2005 to 2013, starring Krister Henriksson. As if that weren’t enough, there is this BBC production, shot in ...
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
Equinoctial
We each need another, but what happens when that other truly becomes part of us?
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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