Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 115

Lion Fish

I’ve taken a lot of photos of lion fish over the years, but none this good. This was taken by Troy, theAggressor’s pro photographer, who had the advantage of a camera that probably cost about $10,000 more than mine, which is the underwater equivalent of a Kodak Brownie. That said, this is an invasive species in the Atlantic, and I can only hope that sharks will figure out a way to eat them all in the next few years.

Things Seen

From the boat I saw the green flash for the second time in my life. Rob, the chief engineer, told me that conditions looked about right, and so I paid special attention as the sun went down into the sea, and was rewarded by a moment of purest, brightest, emerald green. The video doesn’t do it justice, really. Once you’ve adjusted the camera so that it can properly film the sun, it tends to wash out anything that is less bright than the sun.
I kept looking for the rest of the week, but the we...

Iron Dome

WTF? Qu’est-ce que c’est? Scattered about the ocean floor off the Northwest Point of Providenciales are found a number of these curious objects. Once upon a time, they formed an actual iron underwater dome used during the filming of a pilot episode for a French reality show, a sort of Francophone version of “Survivor.” On this program, contestants on a nearby uninhabited island performed tasks such as building huts, finding water, making tools, etc. When a task was successfully completed, a c...

Iron Diver

I am in port but not yet ashore, and will leave the boat early tomorrow to catch my 0900 flight home. Here I am with my medal and certificate as an Iron Diver, for “completing all available dives” during my week aboard theTurks & Caicos Aggressor. (That would be 26.) They misspelled my name, but I’m used to that. There were only two other Iron Divers aboard, and both were women my age. Which leads me to ask: What’s the matter with the youth of today? Please note that I’m flashing the same Sa...

Shake

I’m off to an Undisclosed Location in the Caribbean at 0800 tomorrow morning, for seven days on a boat with (I’m hoping) NO INTERNET CONNECTION! Nothing to do but hang out with some interesting people, say hi to the fishies, and grok the natural world. I thought I’d leave you with something in the festive Caribbean spirit, so here’s “Jump In the Line” by the Mavericks. This classic was a big hit for Lord Kitchener (seen at right) back in 1946, just before he moved to London and became the Ex...

Knight for 99

It’s not as if you haven’t already had plenty of chances to buy my novel Knight Moves, but here’s another: as a way to welcome in 2016, I’ve put it on sale for 99 cents. Happy New Year! You may find this Philip K. Dick Award- nominated masterpiece at Amazon, iBooks, Google, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo. If you want to know more about the book, you can find an essay about it here. Have a great 2016!

In the Best Possible Way

So over on io9, Charlie Jane Anders refers to me as “messed up in the best possible way.” If only she knew, right?

[You know what else is messed up? Autocorrect, which insists with amazing persistence that io9 is actually “ion.”]

The Year in Toolbox

Looking back from late December 2015, it’s clear that veterans of Taos Toolbox had a great year. Lawrence Schoen’sBarsk: The Elephant’s Graveyard has only been available for a few days, but is already creating quite a buzz. One review claims it “resurrects the smart science fantasy novel,” which is a nifty trick for a book with “graveyard” in its title. As for me, I have three words for you about this book. Intelligent. Arboreal. Elephants. Bet you didn’t see that coming, did you? Fran Wilde’...

On to Ottawa!

The Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) might be just a wee bitbehind on their paperwork, because they finally got around to declassifying the U.S. Navy’s plan to invade Canada. In 1887. The U.S. and Canada were having a dispute over fisheries, so the enterprising Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Charles C. Rogers, USN, having just finished a covert mission to examine the defenses of Eastern Canada, penned a war plan for his chiefs at the ONI (which was itself only 5 years old). And by “penned,” I me...

Completely Your Choice

2016 is almost upon us, and of course you’re going to want a large, full-color, deluxe wall calendar, because they areawesome. Not to mention full of great photos that you can frame and pretend you took yourself. And of course you’ll have a choice. Here, for example, is the Vladimir Putin calendar, in which you can view the Russian Federation’s beloved president fishing without his shirt, playing with a dog, or “appreciating the beautiful women of Russia.” Doesn’t that sound, just, completel...