Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 136
October 10, 2014
First Glimpse of the Holy Land
It’s the Sacred Train of Savidor!Except it’s the Sabbath, so it’s not going anywhere.
October 8, 2014
Launching Monday!
If you happen to read from right to left, you might want to check out the forthcoming Hebrew editions ofHardwired andThe Green Leopard Plague and Other Stories. And if you happen to be in Tel Aviv this coming Monday, you should definitely attend the launch party for the books, which will take place alongside the Icon Festival for Science Fiction and Fantasy. Which in turn takes place alongside the religious festival of Sukkoth, which judging by the web page seems to be the festival in which p...
October 7, 2014
Riding for a Showdown
My alternative-history novella “The Last Ride of German Freddie,” a tale of Tombstone, is now available for your highly discriminating reading pleasure at Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Smashwords, Kobo, and Amazon. It’s a mere $2.99. At that price, you should buy lots of copies!
It’s one of two stories I’ve set in the Old West, the other being “The Golden Age.” “The Golden Age” is a Weird Western that teeters somewhere between superhero fantasy and steampunk, but “German Freddie” may best be descri...
October 6, 2014
Harper Slips In
My sometime publisher HarperCollins has quietly re-entered online retail by relaunching its online site, hc.com, and announcing thatwriters would earn an additional 10% royalty for ebooks sold through the site.
Bully for them! Ebook royalties offered by major publishers are, let’s face it, low. 25%, maybe, against 70% or more for self-publishing. So 35% is clearly a step in the right direction.
And, as Harper’s press release goes on to say,”Our authors can also be certain that their books will...
Bully for them! Ebook royalties offered by major publishers are, let’s face it, low. 25%, maybe, against 70% or more for self-publishing. So 35% is clearly a step in the right direction.
And, as Harper’s press release goes on to say,”Our authors can also be certain that their books will...
October 3, 2014
Bardabunga
I know that “Bardarbunga” sounds like something Silvio Berlusconi might do with one of his teenage girlfriends, but in fact it’s the volcano in Iceland that’s presently erupting. And the “d” isn’t a “d”, it’s a ð, which is to say a thorn, and pronounced like a “th.” (Vikings didn’t mind their Ps and Qs, they minded their ashes and thorns.)
All of which has little to do with today’s video, in Eric Cheng, director of aerial photography for drone maker DJI, flew his Phantom 2 drone so close to th...
October 1, 2014
Episode Three Goes Live!
Episode Three of the Hardwired serial is now live at iBooks, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Smashwords.If you have the first two installments, you’ll want this one!
Episode Three comes with special bonus content, an essay explaining why the term “panzerboy” has to do with Belgian butter smugglers.
Reviews Too Late: Young Detective Dee and the Rise of the Sea Dragon
A title like that tells you pretty much all you need to know, neh?
Directed by my onetime creative associate Tsui Hark,Young Detective Dee is a prequel to Tsui’s 2010Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame,which I reviewed a couple years ago. The first film was set at the court of the steely, rather homicidalEmpress Wu (Carina Lau), China’s only reigning empress. Carina Lau still plays the character, but the story is set earlier, when she’s ruling China through her husband, the amia...
September 27, 2014
Strati-Cumulate
Here’s the Strati, the first car created by a 3D printer.
Well, except for the mechanical bits. The parts that actually make it drive an’ stuff. The parts that make it an actualcar. Those aren’t printed, those are manufactured elsewhere.
But still. Pretty, no?
In the old days, people would buy a frame and engine, and then bring them to a coachmaker who would build a custom body to order. This is like that, only faster and cheaper.
So soon we can all have custom cars. How cool will that be?
September 25, 2014
September 23, 2014
Globalquerque, Part II.
The second night opened with Oumar Konaté from Mali. He’s something of the spokesman for his generation, those who watched their republic overthrown by a military government that was so inept that it promptly handed half the country to a guerrilla army of Islamist fanatics. Within days. If a military government can’t even domilitary well . . .
Oumar came out alone, with an acoustic guitar, then gradually added a bass player, drummer, and electricity. After a while I began to think, “Hmm, big l...
Oumar came out alone, with an acoustic guitar, then gradually added a bass player, drummer, and electricity. After a while I began to think, “Hmm, big l...
