Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 126

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...

Watching Now . . .

Someone— Connie Willis, I think— was saying just the other day that when writers want to talk about writing, they rely on movies or TV, because people have these in common much more than books. I think I’m about to prove her right. TV series are treading water right now, because they’re saving all their energy for the Massive Season Finale which will come in May and which will be totally unlike any Massive Season Finale ever seen ever in the history of the medium. Because a protagonist has ne...

The Froomistat Conundrum

Uh-oh. Our hero is in trouble. “Captain! The enemy’s Vetch Cannon are proving more than a match for the shields generated by our Krump Vanes!” “Blast it! I warned the Admiralty that this would happen!” “We’re really getting a pounding, sir!” “Mr. Blazey— do we still have those froomistats in the hold?” “Yes, sir, but what . . . ?” “Those froomistats are composed primarily of omniblendium, which when hooked into our power system can be used to provide a temporary reversal of the Vetch Field.”...

Holograms for Human Rights

The right-wing People’s Party in Spain has passed a series of draconian security laws that criminalize the following: Protesting the government without the government’s permission. Carrying out meetings Taking photographs or videos of police without the permission of the police. For “being present at an occupied space” (like a social center or an apartment, apparently) Meeting or gathering in front of Congress Appealing fines for any of the above. The laws also make it legal fo...

I Seem To Be An Album

Alert reader Andrew Coyne informs me that my novelVoice of the Whirlwind seems to have inspired an album by rising electronic music star Access to Arasaka (whose name is itself a reference to theCyberpunk 2020 card game Netrunner). The album isécrasez l’infâme,the defiant battle cry of Voltaire quoted by Steward in the novel, and the album’s web page quotes me directly. If electronic music is your thing, by all means check this out.