Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 15

Birthday Surprise

It’s not my birthday today, but it’s close enough for a celebration, and so we met with some of our friends at the Apothecary Bar for drinks and snacks and good conversation.

The invitation mentioned that no presents were necessary, but some people always ignore that. Terry and Jim gave me a special bottle of Remy Martin commemorating an award from King Louis XV back in 1738 (I think), and Kathy and our friend Nadine Pachanian gave me a tropical tapestry made up of couple dozen of my ...

Mysteries of Mylar

Here is Saturday’s partially eclipsed sun as viewed amid a series of bright floating objects, obviously alien in origin.

What happened (I think) was that I had a mylar sun filter on my camera, and a stray beam of light got into the filter and was shining on the mylar from behind.

This may serve as the background to the cover of one of my ebooks. Time will tell.

Days in the Life

A friend in Tel Aviv sent this.

The family is Ok. However, some in the wider circle , we lost people. And many are called to active service.

Here in Tel-Aviv we are relatively safe. As a military observer you would find it interesting to see how we adapted to at least 3-5 rocket attacks per day, aiming at my neighborhood…Each time we have a siren, having about 1,5 minutes alert , then we run into the shelter. We have one on each floor. Meeting the neighbours , sometimes in pajamas… Then w...

Annularity

Thanks to Nan Silvernail for hosting an excellent eclipse party this morning, complete with a fine buffet and jujubes pie. Pleasant snacks and pleasant chat while a cosmic event took place above our heads, reminding us all to keep looking up.

Luck Storm

This week I’ve been the victim of a bad luck storm, demonstrating that I shouldn’t be around animals, electronics, or machinery.

Sunday I got bit by a dog. A woman was walking her two dogs in the park, and I passed them at a respectful distance. Then the smaller dog came at me like a torpedo and ripped at my left calf. My trouser leg was undamaged, but the skin was ripped beneath it. No blood. The dog’s owner made herself scarce. Terry Boren patched me up with antibiotic cream and a b...

I Bitch Nicely France

When I mentioned in the last post that The Green Leopard Plague was reviewed in Le Monde, loyal reader Guillaume Jay retrieved the (rather short) review from the Bibliotek National, along with another, more comprehensive review from Liberátion, a translation of which I append below.I used Google Translate, which broke the text into about 100 paragraphs, mostly sentence fragments, which I have tried to edit in HTML into something resembling the product of something other than a deranged mind.  T...

Still the Beste Peste

Jean-Daniel’s translation of “The Green Leopard Plague” was reviewed in Le Monde on the 7th. I am beginning to be impressed by myself.

It was behind a paywall, so I don’t know what it said. If any of you have an online subscription, could you copy it and send it my way?

The In Crowd

Standing before one of the secret doors in the library, it’s this year’s Rio Hondo workshop: Walter Jon Williams, Kim Jollow Zimring, Rosemary Claire Smith, Diana Rowland, Michaela Roessner, Barbara Ferrer, Alan Smale, Alex Jablokow, Rick Wilber, David D. Levine, Oz Drummond, Rachel Swirsky.

Together we survived high altitude, high tea, and a week’s worth of critique. Thanks to the Truchas Peaks Place for the lovely scenery and the fine hospitality.

Truchas Sunset

Getting High

Rio Hondo I think may fairly claim to be the only writers’ workshop to offer high tea.

Nor was this my idea. Oz, Alan, Barb, and Rosie put this together while I paying attention to other things. We had scones, cucumber sandwiches, crumpets, and trifle, accompanied by various teas, clotted cream, double cream, jams, and other fine things. Later there was Chicken Kyiv for those feeling deprived of protein.

My taste buds offer thanks to the chefs.