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
Crosby, Stills, Nash and Watts
David Crosby kindly comped us to a couple tickets to the Crosby, Stills, & Nash concert at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, the fourth or fifth-to-last appearance on their 2005 American tour. So on September 10 we got up bright and early and motored on down 101 to Hollywood, where we’d booked a room at our old standby, the Motel 6. It was a little hard to find it; 99% of Motel 6s are ...
More details »Novels
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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Movie Reviews
Rashomon
Rashomon (1951) (Japan) In 1964 I went to the only theater in Port Arthur, Texas, that occasionally showed movies that didn’t star John Wayne or Doris Day. That’s where I saw 8½ and a few other foreign films. This one wasn’t foreign, but it was not quite like anything I had ever seen. It was called The Outrage, and it starred Paul ...
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
Retrograde Summer
In the varied landscapes of Mercury, the truths about family might be more fluid than mercury.
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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