Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 112

Going Viral

The last few days I’ve been laid out by a virus, and I’ll probably be laid out for a while yet, so let me direct you to James Patrick Kelly’s column inAsimov’s magazine. Jim interviews me, Carrie Vaughn, and new writer Alan Smales on the subject of series. The tag line? “Don’t be afraid to go epic.”

Bright Lights, Big Sale

My Nebula-nominated novelMetropolitan is on sale for a mere 99 cents, and may be purchased at Amazon, Google Play, iBooks, Kobo, Smashwords, and Barnes & Noble. If you’re interested in more about the novel and its, um, colorful history, you’re welcome to check out the series of essays I wrote about it, the Worldbuilding, the Writing & Reception, and the Lawyers. And if you’re not content to takemy word, feel free to check out some reviews: “A spectacular blend of fantastic science, high polit...

Concise History

Hey, it’s Bill Wurtz’s History of Japan! Which is concise and funny and, so far as I know, accurate. Enjoy!

Wild Cards Bundled

Wild Cards fans may know of two “nearly lost” Wild Cards books,Deuces Down andDeath Draws Five. These were published in the early 2000s by ibooks, inc.— which was a company run by publisher Byron Preiss, and is not and never was the iBooks run by Apple. Byron Preiss died in a car accident in 2005, and ibooks vanished soon after. Death Draws Five was barely distributed at all, and has been a collectors’ item ever since. After a long, long, long bankruptcy procedure, ibooks’ assets were purchas...

Toolbox Rocks

Four Taos Toolbox veterans have been nominated for this year’s Nebula Awards! Congratulations to Fran Wilde forUpdraft, Lawrence Schoen forBarsk: The Elephant’s Graveyard, Kelly Robson for the novella “Waters of Versailles,” and David Levine for the short story “Damage.” Updraft has also been nominated for the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy. This situation hasn’t arisen before, but apparently there’s nothing in the rules against a work being nominated for both...

Interview, Part II

Part Two of my interview is now live at Unreliable Narrators! (I didn’t know there WAS a Part II! Enjoy it anyway!)

Boskone 53

I’ll be spending the weekend at Boskkone 53, Boston’s stellar science fiction convention. (Our motto: “It’s still about the books! Except when it’s about the whiskey! But it’s mostly about the books!”) But beforehand I’ll be in Cambridge, MA, for a signing and chat at the Pandemonium bookstore, Thursday at 7pm. The signing will include Charles Stross and Max Gladstone, so even if you’re bored with me— which is hard to picture, frankly— you’ll have some great writers to listen to. The conventi...

The iBooks Store: Stairway to Oblivion

So let’s all do this exercise together, shall we? Let’s say that you want to find one of my books on iBooks, but you’ve never been on iBooks and don’t have an account there. So the first thing you do is Google iBooks, which gives you this: So let’s say you click the link to “iBooks Store,” which is the one right at the top of the page, and the one that Apple is paying Google to display. Now if you’ve already downloaded the iBooks application, you’ll get a page of the Amazon top sellers. B...

Public Service Announcement

I saw last night’s episode ofCastle, in which Richard Castle read from one of his books at a party for $15,000. I would like you all to know that I, too, will read at your party for $15,000, and that you’re more likely to get me than to get Richard Castle. Thank you. Operators are standing by.

Reliable

Unreliable Narrators has posted a podcast interview with me, in which we discussTaos Toolbox and then go on to other subjects. Three of the four interviewers are Toolbox graduates, and their enthusiasm for the workshop is evident. (Which means, folks, that they like the workshop evenafter I’ve critiqued their work and run them up and down mountains. Which means the odds are good that, if you come,you’ll be enthusiastic, too.) Give it a listen!