 He was serendipitously present at Woodstock in 1969 when his car ran out of gas a half-mile away.He also has lived at various times in Portland and Eugene, Oregon, New York City, San Francisco again, Berkeley, and Los Angeles.Varley has written several novels (his first attempt, "Gas Giant", was, he admits, "pretty bad") and numerous short stories, many of them in a future history, "The Eight Worlds".