Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 132

Raucous Homecoming

Back in New Mexico! Hurrah!
The last leg was the shortest but difficult, because of the difficulty of driving an overloaded, underpowered vehicle uphill, into the face of a headwind gusting to maybe 40 knots, on a weekend interstate highway choked with 18-wheelers. When the wind died down I finally made good time, and the welcoming holiday tumbleweed men waved the Joadmobile to its new home.

Medium Rare

We are now in Amarillo, Tx. After two days of crossing the Great Plains, I’m beginning to grow a bit nostalgic for those Pennsylvania mountains. Variety has its virtues.
But tomorrow we’ll be in New Mexico, where there are plenty of mountains. Though alas, the entire drive there will be boring.
The Joadmobile continues to serve brilliantly. It’s even getting close to 30 mpg, which is pretty good for an overloaded vehicle traveling at freeway speeds.
I have only one real beef, which is with beef....

Fields of Springs

We are in Springfield, Mo., having previously passed through, or been within hailing distance of, Springfield, Penn., Springfield, Ohio, Springfield, Ind., and Springfield, Ill. It’s like we’re on the Simpsons tour of the U.S.!
I noted that there were a lot of big gun stores in Indiana, just over the Illinois line, from which I gather that Illinois has more strict gun laws than Indiana. If you live in Springfield (the one in Illinois) and want to kill someone properly, I guess you have to trav...

Joadmobile

I write from a motel near Dayton, Oh., after a long second day of our Cross-Country Odyssey.
The plan was to load the car of Kathy’s late Aunt Dolores with such of Dolores’ things as we wanted to bring west, then drive cross-country in the middle of winter in an underpowered, overloaded 1995 Ford Escort station wagon with 94,000 miles on it. Surely I wasn’t the one who thought of this.
I can’t help but think I’ve been conscripted into the Joad family. We’ll be strapping Granny to the roof any t...

Black Sun, Stalking

So over the weekend we had our twice-yearly black belt weekend, which was mostly devoted to graduating 33 new Kenpo black belts. I also re-certified for my own black belt, in which I re-tested for, well, just about everything I’ve learned over the last thirty-odd years. I was a sweat-soaked bag of silly putty at the end, craving salt and carbs, but I was smiling. Now that it’s over, I
Please enjoy the accompanying video, which has only a thematic relationship to anything I did over the weekend...

Honor/Dishonor

John McCain, the only member of the Senate known to have actually been tortured, speaks on the Senate torture report. I wanted to include this in yesterday’s essay, but ran out of time.
“The truth is sometimes a hard pill to swallow,” [Mccain] said, standing at his desk on the Senate floor as Ms. Feinstein and other colleagues looked on. “It sometimes causes us difficulties at home and abroad. It is sometimes used by our enemies in attempts to hurt us. But the American people are entitled to i...

Rogue

So the U.S. Senate report on torture shows that it was far worse than I imagined, or I imagine anybody imagined. We’ve known about the torture for years, of course, but now we know just how depraved and disgusting and totally without merit it was.
Consider this: numbers are a little vague, but it appears there were 119 captives in the program. Of these, 26 were innocent.
We tortured innocent people, including “Abu Hudhaifa, who was subjected to ice water baths and 66 hours of standing sleep depr...

Speaking of Watching the Tube . . .

What I Are Watching

A few months ago I asked for recommendations about what I should be watching on the tube, and I’m pleased to report that I’m enjoying some of your recommendations.
I’m finding “Continuum” pretty darn good, though I think Keira loses points for somehow not noticing that she is a jackbooted enforcer for an illegitimate slaver regime. And also I’m now at the start of Season Three, and what with a brand-new alternate timeline the plot has now got too complex for even me to follow— and dammit, I’m...

Toolbox in the House!

December 1 is the first date for applications for Taos Toolbox,the master class for science fiction and fantasy, taught by Nancy Kress, yours truly, and special lecturer Carrie Vaughn.
The workshop will take place June 28-July 11, 2015, at the Snow Bear Lodge in beautiful Taos Ski Valley.
If you’re serious about a writing career, or know someone who is, then it’s time to get that application in the mail!