Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 16

Wilt Thou, Walter, Take This Library . . .

This week is the Rio Hondo workshop, and we are at Truchas Peaks Place in Truchas, NM. The top floor is composed of a library, complete with hidden doors and secret rooms.

Perhaps I am in love.

Starr Time

The other night we went to see Sir Richard Starkey, MBE, and his charming little orchestra.

He achieved worldwide headlines by tripping and falling during his final song, but I blinked and missed it. I hope I’m that spry when I’m 83.

Local Sunset

Maybe Not Russian

In the previous post, I identified my spammers as Russian, because much of theirs spam was in Cyrillic. But since I cleared my Pending file and erased everything in the spam file, and only enabled comments on maybe half a dozen topics, I’ve been getting a little trickle of spam that seems to be in Turkish, posted by folks with names like Mustafa and Usran.

Maybe it’s a Turkish bot after all! Maybe the bot’s masters are gently taking credit for their work. If so, I would like to restate th...

Six Thousand Russian Spam

I apologize if you tried to post a reply here in the last few weeks, because as your post was waiting for approval it was buried under nearly 6000 Russian spam. I was delating the spam as fast as I could, but I could only delete one spam from the Pending file at a time, and during that period hundreds of spam could fly up. I believe only one post, from James Strickland, actually made it to the public.

I had to delete the entire Pending file and block anyone from posting on my blog. I hope...

Screaming Oppie

I finally saw Oppenheimer, and it’s an absolute achievement of a film. It’s not to be enjoyed— there’s very little joy in the movie— it’s to be experienced. A terrific script, an absolutely great ensemble of first-rate actors, and it’s surprisingly faithful to the history. Lots of special effects, but none are CGI, they’re old fashioned effects you have to film with an actual camera, which has the effect of making them seem a lot more authentic than pictures created by a computer.

The fi...

I Am At Bubonicon

Bubonicon, New Mexico’s finest SF convention, is in progress, and so am I. Come by and say howdy.

My schedule:

Friday

Reading, 5pm, Cimmaron

Panel, 6:30pm, Salon A-D: Time’s Making Changes

Saturday

Panel, 11 am, Salon E: Alternative History

Signing, 4:25pm, Salon A-E.

Sunday

Panel, 12:30pm, Salon E: Writing in the Near Future

Injure. Heal. Repeat.

I’ve been having a frustrating time with one leg injury after another. I’m guessing it began three years ago, when hip replacement surgery resulted in a tilted pelvis, which resulted in my right leg seeming longer than my left. Also, because my spine wanted my head to remain atop my torso instead of pointing to one side, I also got scoliosis. This resulted, for whatever reason, in chronic pain in my legs.

After three years of physical therapy, chiropractic, spinal injections, massage, t...

Time Off

I’ve spent the last four days at a cabin in the Sacramento Mountains, a property shouldered up against the Mescalero Apache reservation (who, contrary to standard practice, managed to get some very good land out of the American government). The cabin is about 100 years old, and is owned by the extended family of Louy, our lovely host. Her great-grandfather used to drive a buckboard to the cabin with his family and a whole summer’s worth of supplies, then leave his family to their summer while...

Mere Days

You have only two days remaining to download the Take No Prisoners Bundle of thirteen novels, including my own Metropolitan.

Pay $5 to download four books, or at least $20 to unlock an additional nine novels.

Details, including descriptions of all thirteen novels, are to be found here.