Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 184

Your Classics, Please

I am off later this week to the annual Jack Williamson Lecture in ever-friendly Portales, New Mexico.  This year's guests of honor will be Carrie Vaughn and Daniel Abraham.   There will also be Connie Willis, Ian Tregillis, Melinda Snodgrass, and probably a good many more.While I'm there, I'll be on a panel about science fiction classics.I have a list of science fiction classics to wave around, naturally, but I don't want to leave anything out.What should be on my list?  What treasures of...

Reviews In the Nick of Time: Hunger Games

I actually went to see a movie on its opening weekend! This almost never happens.  I should probably get a check-up.Hunger Games was, miraculously, a surprisingly faithful adaptation of the book.  (Is it possible that Hollywood has learned that if you adapt a book with millions of rabid followers, and you actually make a film of the book, you will make potloads of money?  As f'rinstance Harry Potter, Twilight, Game of Thrones?  Naaaah, never happen.)It's pointless to approach this film, or...

Give a TOS

Facebook has altered its Terms of Service (TOS), and now states that merely by using Facebook you now assent to their trademark of the word "book."The "book" addition to the user agreement isn't as strong as a registered trademark or copyright, but provides extra protection, says intellectual property attorney Denis Ticak of Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff LLP in Cleveland, Ohio. The difference is that instead of extending to anyone who infringes upon the trademark, the user...

Recortadores

As a co-author of the bull-leaping story "Tauromachia," I've retained an interest in feats of gymnastics performed on and about our Taurid cousins.Here we find some Cretan bull-leapers— well actually they're Spanish recontadores, aided I suspect by some enthusiastic local amateurs— introducing their sport to Canada.  Which may cause a certain conceptual disconnect when you hear "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the start of the video.  (It is played to salute the bulls, who are from Colorado.)...

The Toolbox Abides . . .

There are only a few places left for Taos Toolbox 2012, the master class for writers of science fiction and fantasy.
If you want to come, better get your application in very soon.

Reviews in the Nick of Time: John Carter of M***

Honestly, I have no idea why this movie didn't do better at the box office.  It's not perfect, but in the category of action SF movies that make no sense, this one is head and shoulders above the rest.And it's got a reason why it doesn't make any sense.  The book it was based on was written a hundred years ago, when folks didn't know shit about Mars or space travel or science or anything.  Back in the Nineteen-oughts, people probably thought it was a perfectly sensible thing to carry a sword ...

Creeping On Little Cat Feet . . .

Okay, kinda scared now . . .Turns out that cats can alter our brains.   I mean literally restructure them. I mean, change our freaking behavior.Well, not cats actually.  A parasite that lives in cats, Toxoplasma gondii. It's long been known that Toxoplasma can physically alter the brains of rats, to make them sexually attracted to the smell of cat urine.  It also eliminated the fear response, which means they lose their fear of predators.  This makes them want to hang around cats, who of...

Dance, Other Saint, Dance!

There's this Other Saint that has a celebration the day after St. Urho, but I can never remember his name.  (Probably because of the hangover.)
Anyway, for those of you who celebrate the Day of the Other Saint, here's some Irish Hand Dancing for y'all.
(Note the authentic Irish lyrics to the tune.)
[via Gardner Dozois]

Crowdsource Challenge!

 

My next ebook will be Aristoi, my insanely ambitious 1992 novel that came within a couple votes of a Hugo nomination.But there's a problem.  I can't seem to format it properly.See, parts of Aristoi had a unique structure.  The prose was displayed in two columns, the first a description of what was happening in the scene, the second a description of the complex things going on in the (posthuman) narrator's head.(This wasn't gratuitous, but an attempt to visualize on the page what was...

Heinäsirkka, heinäsirkka, mene täältä hiiteen!

Baby, it's
St Urho's Day!

I need all you Midwestern types to dress up as grasshoppers and start drinking right now!
"Grasshopper, grasshopper, go from hence to heck!"