Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 105

What Rough Beast . . . ?

Oh noooo! What insidious monster do we see sneaking up on thePride of Baltimore? Why it’s the World’s Largest Rubber Duck, created by the Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman! Which floats 61 feet tall and weighs 11 tons. Apparently that’s big enough to count as a Tall Ship. It would be fun to motor around on this thing, and just watch the folks’ expressions as you came cruising by.

Aces Onscreen

Good news for any Wild Cards fans out there. Universal Cable Productions has acquired the Wild Cards series for television. Longtime Wild Cards writer Melinda Snodgrass will be executive producer, along with Gregory Noveck (REDS,Justice League: the New Frontier). Wild Cards has been a part of our lives since the 1980s, and there are alot of stories, and a lot of ground, that the series can cover. More details over on George’s blog. And be sure to tell him which characters, and which stories,...

Too Many Desserts

Friday night with the Tall Ships was a massive disappointment. I signed up for a “VIP Fireworks Viewing” from the brigNiagara,and they’d sent me a schedule telling me that food and beverage would appear on the quay at 8:30, we’d go aboard at 9:00, and the fireworks would start at 9:15. Somehow I assumed that the ship would actually sail someplace. I mean, why else go on board a sailing vessel to see fireworks? Let alone a warship with bulwarks and lots of rigging in the way of the show? Also,...

Epic Sail

Behold the Harald Hårfagr,or Harald Fairhair for you Anglophones. This is the ““— they are careful not to call it a “replica” because it’s not built to the plan of any historical vessel. It’s arrived in North America after an epic five-week transit of the Atlantic, followed by an equally-epic struggle against U.S. Coast Guard regulations, which require any foreign vessel traversing the Great Lakes to hire a Great Lakes pilot, at a cost of $350,000 or...

Stand Back Ladies, it’s . . .

The beefcake shot! I had the camera and tripod set up for an entirely different reason, and then went about my business, and did my workout, and on my way to the showers caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Hmm, I thought. I’ll probably never be this young, this thin, orthis pretty ever again. I’m not shiny with vaseline, or glycerin, or whatever else they use these days. This is honest sweat. (I’ve just run four miles.) You can see drops running down my face if you look closely enough,...

First Review

It’s Toot My Own Horn Time, because what else is a blog for? Publishers Weeklyseems to be very, very fond of my upcoming Sula story. Which, to reiterate, is available for preorder atBarnes & Noble,Amazon,Kobo(ebook only), iBooks(ebook only). andGoogle(also ebook only). Speaking for myself, I can hardly wait,and I already know what happens!

[via Jonathan Strahan]

Warp Wolf

Strange to think that I’ve known George R.R. Martin (seen here with Gwenda Bond) since 1979. I was a newly-minted historical novelist with my first contract, and he was transitioning from his first career, as a greatly admired award-winningAnalog writer, to his second as a writer of horror fiction. After that came his career writing for television, after which came Career #4, which involvedGame of Thrones and his becoming the World’s Best-Known Writer. Those of you who missed Careers #1-3 mi...

In the Navy!

I had an unexplained bump in the sales of a seven-year-old book, and on checking I discovered that the U.S. Navy had bought 1555 copies of my novelThis Is Not a Game. To which I had a number of responses. Whoa, this is awesome! What’s the heck is wrong with theother services? I’d kind of like to know what the Navy is doing with my novel— I mean, would it help if I came and delivered a talkabout it or something, because I’d totally be down with that— but on the other hand, it’s just abo...

Beneath the Sign of the Bear

Here’s a souvenir of what I’ve been doing the last two weeks: teaching atTaos Toolbox, the master class for science fiction and fantasy, held this year in the isolated mountain fastness of Angel Fire, New Mexico. I taught plotting and contract language, among other things, and Nancy Kress did her usual brilliant thing, not onlyline-editing each submission (which isreally above and beyond any call of duty), but teaching the fine details of how to bring emotion into every scene, managing infodu...

Released

The Turkish government is now using last week’s coup as a bridgehead toward complete control of the country’s education system. 1500 university deans have been ordered to resign, and the licenses of 21,000 teachers have been revoked. These teachers mostly worked at private institutions, many of which had been founded by the Gülen organization as part of its educational mission. The government knows who the Gülenists are, because when the AK/Gülen alliance was in effect, the government helped...