Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 126

The Broken Road

I’ve just finished The Broken Road,the long-delayed third volume of Patrick Leigh Fermor’s memoir of the walk across Europe that the 18-year-0ld Fermor took in 1933, just after Hitler took power in Germany. I have mentioned the earlier volumes, A Time of Gifts andBetween the Woods and the Water elsewhere, and added a little appreciation of my ownon hearing of Fermor’s death, at the age of 96. Though the books are a window into the personality of the bumptious young protagonist (as remembered b...

Floating

SeaLife DC1400 I’m variously occupied at present, what with one thing and many other things, so I thought I’d give you a pretty picture to look at.

Days and Days

It’s Mother’s Day here in the States, so I thought I’d post a photo of my mom, on the right, enjoying a typical evening with her pal Sylvia Aakre. It occurs to me that my idea of a fun time just might be hereditary. Mom met Sylvia at university, where they were both studying to be teachers, and began a friendship that lasted their whole lives. My family used to vacation with Sylvia and her husband Hilman, usually at a lakeside cabin somewhere, where Hilman could spend much of the day fishing...

Superhero O.D.

I sawAge of Ultron,and I’ve reached Episode Seven ofDaredevil, and so I’m pretty well experiencing a superhero O.D. right now. What I’ve learned from both is a lesson in the limitations of the superhero genre, even if you gussie it up with A-list actors and a $250-million budget. I’m enjoyingDaredevil, and Charlie Cox’s take on the character, the bravura action scenes, and Vincent d’Onofrio’s chilling portrayal of Fisk. And I’m beginning to suspect that Matt Murdock isn’t merely a dark avenge...

Edible!

My longtime friend Nadine Panache is a badass baker. For my birthday one year she created a cake of a sculpted Dracula lying in his sculpted coffin. (I was born around Halloween) For another friend, born on the anniversary of the Titanic sinking, she built a sinking Titanic going down by the bows, with little screaming people visible through the portholes. And . . . all edible. There are all these reality shows about people doing elaborate cakes. If Nadine appeared on these shows, she’d kick...

Princess Whatzername

So the entire world, apparently, is holding its breath waiting for the Windsors to make up their minds about what to call the latest Blessed Event. Public opinion seems to be holding out for “Victoria,” which is certainly keeping it in the family. But I think the Windsors should go a little more 21st Century with their names, and I humbly offer the following: Ariel Aurora Jasmine Belle Mulan Pocahontas Snow (All the Disney princesses in one go!) Spume Montana Python Bacon (because eve...

I Am Play’d

I am gradually uploading my ebooks to Google Play. They’re not all uploaded yet, but they should be within the next week or so. I haven’t moved my stuff onto Google for a number of reasons, among them (1) I’m still mad at Google for trying to glom the copyright of every living writer in the world, (2) the interface was said to be daunting, (3) nobody I knew was making any money there. But now some people are starting to report significant amounts of cash flowing through Google, so it behooves...

Who You Gonna Call?

I was chez Abraham last night, and watched as Kat played one of theXCom series, video games about an elite force of soldiers tasked with repelling an alien invasion of what looks to be Middle America. Just as Master Chief leads the elite alien-fighting Spartans in theHalo series, and Nathan Hale leads another elite alien-fighting outfit inResistance, and an elite force of ninjas fight aliens in Ninja Crusaders.
And I thought, why hasn’t anyone made a video game in which the aliens have to be...

POV

The other day, I wrote a few pages. And when I looked at them, they struck me as mediocre. They weren’tbad, mind you. They got the job done, they got my protagonist where she needed to go. But they didn’t sparkle, they didn’t fizz, and when I read them I didn’t hear the little voice that says, Hey, boss, that’s just about perfect.” They were just . . . adequate. Now if the pages werebad,I could have thrown them out and rewritten them, or performed some major corrective surgery and made them b...

La Vie Bohème

This article points out that authors’ incomes have declined nearly 30% since 2005. “The creative industries are thriving, generating 76bn per annum, yet professional writers have seen a near 30% reduction in earnings in recent years . . . Consequently many are no longer able to sustain a career. The one truly irreplaceable link in the value chain is being stretched to breaking point.” Let’s just say that I’m not surprised. The article specifically deals with British authors, but I doubt it’s...