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
St. Francis Dam
William Mulholland was a colorful character. He was responsible for the Los Angeles ...
More details »Novels
Mammoth
Multibillionaire Howard Christian is one of the wealthiest – and most eccentric – men in the country. Not content with investing his fortune and watching it grow, he buys rare cars that he actually drives, acquires collectible toys that he actually plays with, and builds buildings that defy the imagination. But now his restless mind has turned to a new obsession: cloning a ...
More details »Movie Reviews
The Canterville Ghost
Here’s a short story by Oscar Wilde that has been filmed no less than 11 times and, from what I can see about the versions that have a plot summary, never very close to the original story. It seems that all the producers wanted was the idea of a ghost in a castle, then worked endless variations on it. Oh, well. This is the first version, and it’s very good. Charles Laughton is the ghost. ...
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 ...
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