Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 171

October Comforts

So I was annoyed at the way my investments have been declining over the past ten days or so, and it led to the following conversation.
ME: “I’m annoyed at the way my investments have been declining over the past ten days or so.”
INTERLOCUTOR: “Don’t worry about it. It happens every October.”
ME: “But the papers said the decline had to do with discouraging economic news.”
INTERLOCUTOR: “Naw. The decline happens every year, and every year people look for a reason and claim to find it, but even if t...

Cårven Der Pümpkîn

Soon it will be All Hallow’s Eve, a night of terror, when monsters walk the earth.
And speaking of monsters, is anything more frightening than the Swedish Chef with a battleaxe?
Maybe the Swedish Chef . . . with a bazooka!

Earwigs

I’ve been bushwacked by a tune. It was a tune I hadn’t heard, or thought about, for years, most likely decades, and suddenly it’s there in my head, and I can’t make it go away.
So I thought I’d pass the ear bug on to you. Maybe you’ll take it with you when you leave.
I’m being stalked by “If You Go Away,” by the Belgian singer/songwriter Jacques Brel, the song known to you Francophone types by its original title, “Ne Me Quitte Pas.” I don’t know quite how I avoided hearing it for all that time,...

Cat Island

I am pleased to report that Cat Island, my long out-of-print sea-adventure tale, is now available via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords.
Cat Island is the final volume in a sort of inadvertent trilogy. I had planned to write only one novel about Favian Markham— in the outline, my story was neat and tidy— but then once I started writing it, it kept sprawling. I found a natural place to end Brig of War, and figured the rest would fit a single volume, but I spent most of The Macedonian just...

Toolbox 2012

Every so often I feel compelled to remind readers about Taos Toolbox, the master class for science fiction and fantasy, which will be held July 28-August 10, 2013. I will be teaching along with Nancy Kress, and with special lecturer Melinda Snodgrass.
Applications will be accepted beginning December 1, 2012, which means you have six weeks to hone your prose before sending in your manuscripts.
If you’re serious about writing, this is the place to go.

Blue Hole

I’m off to Blue Hole this weekend for a bit of scuba diving. It’s unlikely I’ll meet anyone there with a navel as tasty as Adinetha’s, but I guess you never know.

Trusting My Readers

I’ve been working on Cat Island, the next of the old seas stories I plan to release in ebook formats. While I’ve generally been pleasantly surprised to read my earlier works, this is the first of the re-issues that have made me want to go through the book with a machete. So that’s what I’m doing.
I found the first forty or fifty pages to be solid exposition, in which I catch the reader up on my main character’s history, his past naval commands, his battles, and his love life. I also talk about...

Hopping

I am of an age where, on a regular basis, I’m forced to contemplate my age. But I’m not old. Not by the Hopping Standard, anyway.
I’ve decided that I’m young so long as I can don my trousers standing up, hopping from one foot to the other. When I have to put my trousers on sitting down, I shall be old.
So yaaaaah to you, young punks of the world! I am still your peer.

Reviews In The Nick Of Time: Argo

Argo does not seem to be a movie that appeals to the teenage audience. I don’t think there was a single person under forty in the theater, and most were eligible for Social Security. I haven’t been in an audience of so many gray-haired people since The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. (Retirees love them some Salander. Go figure.)
I’m not sure that anyone else in the audience was there for the same reason I found myself present: to trace the line from Roger Zelazny’s Lord of Light and the ar...

Maples

There is exactly one canyon in New Mexico where you can find maple trees, trapped here by changing climate after the last Ice Age.
This is clearly the time of year to go see them.
We went about ten days ago, but the leaves were just starting to turn. We returned yesterday to find the color at its height. Walking along the trails was like walking beneath flame-colored Gothic arches.
The canyon? It’s tucked away in the Manzano Mountains about a 90-minute drive from home, and appropriately enough i...