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
Up a Lazy Concrete River
The Los Angeles River is pretty much a joke, especially to people who live in LA. They say that back east there was a river that was so polluted that it caught fire one day. Probably an urban legend.* But it is a fact that, most of the year, you can rollerblade or drive your car on the LA River.
More details »Novels
The Ophiuchi Hotline
Varley’s first novel. Cover by Boris Vallejo.
After the effortless capture of Earth by vastly superior aliens, humanity is forced to fight for existence on the Moon and other lumps of airless rock. The invention of the Hotline–a constant stream of data from a star in the constellation Ophiuchus–facilitates survival and enables the ...
More details »Movie Reviews
How To Draw a Bunny
Ray Johnson was a member of that group of beatnik avant-gardists that began as starving artists in the early ‘50s and eventually ended up millionaires like Roy Lichtenstein and Christo, who appear in this film, and Andy Warhol, who doesn’t, being dead. Johnson never achieved the success of his peers. He was primarily a collagist, and his work is interesting, but way too deliberately dense. ...
More details »Collections
Blue Champagne
A collection of eight stories, four of which are award winning.
The cover art and illustrations are by Todd Cameron Hamilton.
More details »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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