Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 10

Deadline

Just a reminder to you all that The Accidental War, Fleet Elements, and Imperium Restored will be available on Kindle Unlimited only through tomorrow, June 30. If you haven’t got your books yet, this is the time!

Blowing Up

Taos Toolbox is three-quarters done, and a fine Toolbox it is. Every one of the participants is talented, and every one can have some kind of writing career if they want one.

Over the weekend I blew up my left knee, by walking in a straight line on a sidewalk. I would have fallen had not Nancy grabbed me by one side and I grabbed a lamp on the other. I did not “do anything to myself,” I have reached the age when these things just happen to me of their own accord.

I spent part of a ...

We Conquer KU

The Accidental War, Fleet Elements, and Imperium Restored are now available (for free, I believe) on Kindle Unlimited through the end of June. Because it’s the publisher arranging this— as opposed to a mere mortal like myself— the books are also available as regular ebooks on Amazon, and are also available on all other platforms.

You have more choice now than ever before! Go forth and read!

I Don My Divine Aspect

Photo by David Levine

Cured Meats

I’ve been at the Truchas Peaks Place the last week, at the Rio Hondo workshop with a group of my friends. For our first meal I provided a 16-pound Serrano ham complete with carving stand. The ham had been shipped from Iberia after spending 14 months curing in a Spanish cave.

Here’s what it looked like with the layer of fat removed and showing signs of my inexpert carving. I had bought a special Serrano-carving knife when in Spain a few years ago, but hadn’t had a chance to use i...

New Wheels

My trim line may be slightly different

So after seven years with a Subaru WRX, I’ve gone and bought a new WRX. Upgunned with a 2.2-liter boxer engine that wouldn’t be complete without a ginormous turbocharger sitting on it.

My old car was in good shape, and a used WRX is always in demand, so I got a very nice price for it.

One obvious difference is the giant touchscreen of an entertainment/climate system sitting in the middle of the dashboard. I have only the slightest idea of how t...

Pig and Veg

We’re in a campaign to empty out the chest freezer, which contains a lot of stuff that I don’t remember buying, and the result for tonight was this pork loin roast cooked with potatoes, carrots, and onions. You could think of it as a one-pot meal if it weren’t for the fact that it’s in a pan, not a pot.

If I make this again I’ll cook the vegetables a bit ahead of time, since the vegetables that weren’t in the cooking liquid (mostly apple juice) came out hard, dry, and largely uncooked. ...

Tonight’s Sunset

I know it looks as if I produced this in Photoshop, but this is exactly what I saw from our front porch.

I love the Southwest.

One Way to Get to Pylos

Another picture from my 1980 trip. I’ve fled the freezing rain of Northern Europe for the Med, and here we find me on a rare sunny day. Greece turned out to be cold and rainy as hell, and one night I pitched my tent in a tree-sheltered hollow, only to have the rain start to pour down after I went to sleep. When I woke up at maybe 2am, I found my tent was now pitched in a lake, and I had to haul my belongings out of the water toward higher ground, an experience somehow emblematic of the w...

The Small Rains Down Do Rain

Here I am in the UK in the autumn of 1980. I’m in Greenwich doing research for the Privateer books, and I’m standing in front of the clipper ship Cutty Sark. I seem to be an older and more weathered person than I remember.

I seem to attract extreme weather whenever I visit Britain, and 1980 was no exception. The wool cap and bomber jacket were inadequate for the freezing weather, which usually included freezing rain.

From Britain I went to Germany to visit friends, and from there I ...