Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 149

Award List

It’s award nomination season, so I notice other writers’ blogs are listing all their works published in 2013 just in case their readers want to nominate them.
I’d like to follow suit, but the sad fact is, though I’ve been working right along, nothing of mine was published in 2013, all due to the vagaries of publishers’ schedules. (Though due to these same vagaries, a wholelot of stuff written over the past few years is going to appear in 2014, so yay!)
So I thought I’d let you all nominate for...

Name My Sparring Partner

Thanks to Chris Fogel of the karate school, who was downsizing his home, I now have a new sparring partner! View him in his new home!
(He’s an outdoor sparring partner, and Kathy thought he looked cold, and so better equipped him for the season.)
Now the Century catalog says his name is Bob, but he doesn’t look Bobbish to me, and besides, I feel he deserves a more individual name.
So I’m inaugurating a contest. Name My Sparring Partner, and I’ll send you the signed book of your choice (assuming...

From the Karate School

“This stance is called ‘Fist Under Elbow.’”
“‘Fist Under Elbow?’ That’s it?”
“Yes.”
“It’s not ‘Monkey Fist Shelters Beneath the Wing of the Phoenix?’”
“No.”
“It’s not ‘White Crane Feigns a Broken Pinion?’”
“No.”
“It’s not ‘Monkey Reaches Beneath the Bough for the Peaches of Heaven?”
“No. It’s just ‘Fist Under Elbow.’”
“Well, it can’t be any good then, can it?”

Subaquatica

I’m busy today, so please enjoy this picture of a nudibranch.

Coming Soon to a Refrigerator Near You

Bruce Schneier points out that the Internet of Things may well turn out to be the Botnet of Things. Hackers have started to target routers and modems, which are, it turns out, easier to hack than home computers. Routers use cheap, generic chips, and the manufacturers who make the actual router tend to use off-the-shelf software, maybe with a few proprietary tweaks.
The problem with this process is that no one entity has any incentive, expertise, or even ability to patch the software once it’s...

Filmed in ShawScope!

Sir Run Run Shaw, the quintessential Chinese movie mogul, has died at the venerable age of 106.
Run Run and his brother, Run Me (the names are Anglo-Chinese puns), shot their movies in Singapore beginning in the 1920s, and started a theater chain. With the $4 million in gold they buried during the Japanese occupation, Run Run shifted his operation to Hong Kong following the Second World War. At its height, Shaw Brothers released a movie a week, and controlled all aspects of the business: they...

Hard Numbers

My 99 cent sale forBrig of War is going along nicely. Got down– or is it up?— to #67 with Barnes & Noble and #115 at Amazon, and because I can look up sales figures I know what those numbers actually mean in terms of ebooks sold. So that’s good.
Though, sadly, because I only make $0.35 on each copy sold, this is not exactly making my fortune. So far I think I may have sold just enough to pay for the BookBub ad that send everyone stampeding to my site in the first place. An ad for historical...

Stirring Sea-Saga Sale!

My historical sea-adventure taleBrig of War is now on sale for a mere $0.99 wherever fine ebooks are sold!
Which is to say Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iBooks, and Smashwords.
(I’ve got to say, Apple doesn’t make it easy to find my stuff. If you type in my name, it will say “no results found,” though down on the bottom of the page it will display some audio books. If you click on one of the audio books, and then from there click on my name, the actual ebooks will pop up, or some of them anyway...

Hereby Resolved!

If you want to be a writer, here’s a New Year resolution for you: apply to Taos Toolbox, the master class for writers of fantasy and SF.
We have a solid record of producing professional writers who sell and continue to sell, even in our current dodgy market.
Resolve to send us your application. You’ll be glad you did.

Reviews in the Nick of Time: American Hustle

Just check out the star power inAmerican Hustle:Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Renner, Louis C.K., Brad Cooper, and an uncredited Robert de Niro. Holy cripes!
And let’s just say that it wasn’t a second-rate script that attracted all these megawatt actors. It was the chance to fuckingact! Andact their asses off!
And the parts were so good, and so juicy, that the actors didn’t mind if they ended up looking ridiculous. I mean, this movie is set on Bad Hair Planet. And the men...