Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 107

The Final Hours

We’re down to the last hours of the 99-cent sale onVoice of the Whirlwind, so if you want an inexpensive ebook with a preposterous number of five-star reviews, now’s your chance. Check out the linksatAmazon,Google,Smashwords,Barnes & Noble,iBooks, andKobo.

Super. Liminal.

I’m still slogging through the final pieces of the book, trying to mop up the subplots in something resembling an organized manner. But you don’t have to wait for my new work to be published, you can read something by meright now in Lightspeed Magazine! Admittedly “Surfacing” is a novella that’s decades old, and that you may already have on your hard drive, but it’s one of my best, and there’s alot more to this issue, like stories by Genevieve Valentine, Lochita Loenin-Ruiz, Ted Kosmatka, Jil...

Struggle

I’m fully engaged in trying to finish a novel, while also preparing for this year’s Taos Toolbox, so I’ve not been posting much here. I recently came across a quote from Vladimir Nabokov: “In a first-rate work of fiction the real clash is not between the characters but between the author and the world.” I’m inclined to agree with him, but what do you think?

That Seems to Have Worked Out Well

My new sale has putVoice of the Whirlwind at #1 for SF at Kobo, and landed me on Amazon’s best-seller list. Which is not bad for a thirty-year-old book. Should you desire a copy for your ownself, feel free to click the link toAmazon,Google,Smashwords,Barnes & Noble,iBooks, andKobo.

WRX– First Impressions

Britain didn’t merely shoot itself in the foot, but managed somehow to slice off both legs below the knee. At least it will be cheap to visit there in the future, if I can avoid being eaten by the starving cave dwellers lurking in the cellars of the once-great metropoleis. But anyway I want to talk about something more cheerful, namely my new car. The WRX has been immense fun, though so far most of my errands have been pretty mundane, and I’ve had relatively few occasions to really let the ca...

Return of the Whirlwind

The recently-ended promotion ofHardwired turned out to be the best ever, so I’d like to thank those of you who clicked the buy button. On the theory that one should reinforce success, I’m hoping to repeat or even top Hardwired’s sales witha 99-cent sale onVoice of the Whirlwind. You may findVotW at Amazon, Google, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, and Kobo. Voice of the Whirlwind takes place in the same universe asHardwired, about eighty years later. Here’s the pitch: Steward is a Beta— a c...

Smokin’

So I was making the black roux gumbo of Chef Francoise le Vison, and when I make the roux there’s enough smoke to set off every fire alarm within a hundred yards. But this time the alarm for the whole lodge went off, and the whole building was evacuated except for maybe half a dozen of us standing on our balcony, drinking wine and telling the people below that nothing was on fire but the chef. We had to call off the fire brigade, and I tipped the maintenance guy who was sent to turn off the a...

Dueling Hams

Does anyone remember the TV series “Slings and Arrows,” which opens with the theater manager being run over by a truck full of hams? That’s probably how Tim Minchin feels in this tribute to the Bard, which features a rather formidable cast. This one’s been around for a while, but it hasn’t been available in North America due to copyright issues. See it before it gets taken down!

[via Oz Drummond]

How Much Work Could a Workshop Shop if a Workshop Could Shop Work?

I’m up a mountain in northern New Mexico, at the Rio Hondo Workshop. We’re in a beautiful valley of the Sangre de Cristos, so what did I do? Hike in the beautiful mountain wilderness? Go bird-watching? Get a workout on the ol’ mountain bike? Nope, I spent the day cooking a meal for twelve people. Linguini in ginger-garlic sauce, chickpea salad with hard-boiled eggs, fresh mint, and capers. And roasted pork loin with herbs. Michaela Roessner served up chocolate chip cookies for dessert. I ate...

The Scum Also Rises

It’s been a couple months since we’ve heard from the Panama Papers, the 11.5 million documents extracted from the Panamanian law firm of Mossack Fonseca, and detailing the financial shenanigans of the rich, famous, and connected. After various revelations about Putin’s clique, David Cameron’s father, Li Xinping’s relatives, the prime ministers of Pakistan and Iceland, and a clutch of British celebrities, the story seemed to sort of fade away. Which led me to wonder if the whole thing had been...