Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 114

Happy Weekend

Have a great weekend! And wherever you are, I hope you’re having at least much fun as these guys.

End-of-the-Month Sale

The fine folks at Kobo are offering every ebook in the store at 50% off through January 31. Just use the promo codeJAN1650. The best part of this is that authors still get full royalties. CHA-CHING! Here’s the link to my own immortal works. Or if you want someone else’s less-immortal works, you can click from my page to someone else’s. (Note: What if you don’t happen to have a Kobo readers? No problem! Kobo sells books in .epub format, which you can read the books with free readers like iBoo...

Swimming With Sharks

Another photo by Troy, this of a nurse shark taking a nap under a piece of sheltering coral. Contrary to myth, sharks do in fact sleep, though sometimes it’s hard to tell, because they can’t close their eyes. The shark’s man-eating reputation, despite what you’ve seen on Shark Week, is ridiculously exaggerated. People just don’t look like anything a shark would want to eat, and besides, we all taste of neoprene. On this last trip sharks were always cruising around, so many that I got bored wi...

Mr. Norway

Some of you may have noticed that I contributed to a discussion of hard vs. soft science fiction over at Tor.com. One of the things I’ve noticed about so-called hard SF is that a lot of it isn’t all that hard— the science is often extremely speculative or sometimes even non-existent— but the label attaches anyway, because of the book’sattitude toward the science. The science, and the problems the science causes or solves, is front and center, and the characters have to work within a rigorous...

Caviar

Who’s this little guy? Why, he’s one of theOpistognathidae, of course. Otherwise known as a jawfish. If he look as if he’s got his mouth stuffed full of caviar, it’s because his mouth is in fact stuffed with caviar. The jawfish females lay the eggs, after which the males hold the eggs in their mouths until they hatch. That’s how I know this one’s a him, and not a her. Jawfish are like blennies in that they live in little forts they build under the sand. On the surface, a jawfish home just loo...

David

Science fiction editor David G. Hartwell suffered a fall in his home on January 19th, allegedly while carrying a box of books on the stairs, and suffered a “massive brain bleed.” I’ve just received the word that he’s died. I was never one of David’s authors, but I’ve known him for more than thirty years, and I deeply respected him as an editor, a spotter of talent, and an encyclopedia of the true history of science fiction, fantasy, and publishing. He was at 74 the oldest living editor of sc...

Soaring

This is a spotted eagle ray, caught in another photo by Troy. Your heart always gives a leap when you see one of these soaring in silent majesty over the reef. They have a wingspan of over eight feet, and they’refast. They’re shy around people, and if they become aware of you they leave you in the dust in short order. However . . . they often circle around, so you can swim along the radius and often catch them flying straight at you. I saw a number of them on the trip, but I never got a good...

The Goldilocks Zone

For those of you trying to break into this business, this is the season to start thinking about workshops. And we’ve got workshops of for every size, every budget, and every variety of time commitment. First up is the granddaddy of them all,Clarion. Clarion is a six-week-long journey into writing, with an emphasis on short fiction. 2016’s faculty features the stellar lineup of Kelly Link, Ted Chiang, Andy Duncan, Victor LaValle, Delia Sherman, and Ellen Kushner. Hell, evenI could learn a bunc...

Action Me

Here’s another photo by Troy, this time of Action Walter in Action in the Water. And if you don’t like looking at me, you can look at the fish. Win/win! Being on a live-aboard dive boat is sort of like being in the nicest military on earth. Everything’s very regimented and works according to a strict schedule: reveille 0630, breakfast 0700, first dive 0800, snack 0900, second dive 1100, substantial lunch 1230, third dive 1400, snack 1500, fourth dive 1700, substantial dinner 1830, fifth dive...

Reviews in the Nick of Time: The Big Short

First I have to say that, with all respect to The Force Awakens and JJ Abrams,this is the movie I wanted to see this holiday season. Due to various delays, including the movie not showing any closer than 65 miles away, I didn’t get to the theater till this week. Check out the star power here. Brad Pitt, Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Karen Gillan, Marisa Tomei, Ryan Gosling, Casey Groves, Selena Gomez, Margot Robbie, and Anthony Bourdain as “himself.” All of whom are compelling evidence for th...