VarleyLog
Opportunity
Three days ago, on 2/13/19, NASA declared the Opportunity Mars rover mission to be over. They had not heard from it since June, and all efforts to revive it for one more trip were futile.
It landed on Mars in 2004. In a bit of cosmic luck, it landed, bounced, and rolled /dead center/ into a small crater that was later named Eagle Crater. The Mars Orbital Surveyor actually took ...
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Irontown Blues
A new noir science fiction novel from a master of science fiction set in the Eight Worlds series about a detective on the hunt for biohackers who have created a dangerous new disease.
Christopher Bach was a policeman in one of the largest Lunar cities when the A.I. Lunar Central Computer had a breakdown, known as the Big Glitch, but it turned out to be a larger war than ...
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Latest Movie Review
The Favourite
This is a great, and against all my expectations, fairly accurate story of the rivalry between Abigail (later Baroness) Masham (played by Emma Stone) and Sarah Churchill, the Duchess of Marlborough (Rachel Weisz) for the affections of and influence over Queen Anne (Olivia Colman). It’s one of the better costume period comedy/dramas. The writing is swell, the acting is terrific. I recommend ...
More details »Latest Collection
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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News
Ezvid Wiki, the World’s First Video Wiki
A few days ago an email arrived at the website from Caroline Eliasson. Subject: You’ve been chosen for a Wiki: 9 Phenomenal Sci-Fi Novels by Contemporary Authors. See it here. Ophiuchi Hotline is number one. I’m honored.
She wrote: “Some ...
More details »Featured Short Fiction
Overdrawn at the Memory Bank
There are many lessons to learn, and many ways to learn them.
PBS turned “Overdrawn at the Memory Bank” into a 3-(out of 10)-Star, made-for-TV movie starring Raul Julia.
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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
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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