Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 191

Centaur In Your Stocking

 

One reason I haven't been posting much this week is that I've been laboring to get the ebook of Knight Moves, my Philip K Dick nominee, available for your reading pleasure.I'm pleased to report that though I did my job, the book is currently available only on Smashwords.   I guess it'll be available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble whenever their staff returns from their holiday break.However, Smashwords does have it available on whatever format you could possibly desire, so if you have a...

Miraculous

Behold my photo of Santa Fe's Loretto Chapel, where we attended Pro Musica's annual Baroque Christmas Concert the other night.  The chapel was built by the Sisters of Loretto, who came to Santa Fe in the 1850s and ran an orphanage and hospital until 1968, after which the chapel was de-sanctified and is now a private museum that you can rent for weddings and other functions.The Sisters arrived at the request of Archbishop Jean-Baptiste Lamy, the aristocratic Frenchman who is the central...

Angel Station

I have to admit it, Angel Station was not one of the books I was looking forward to reading during the process of converting the book to e-formats.  (Wherein it is now totally available via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords.  Just in case you forgot.)I've always had a problem with Angel Station.But before I get into all that, a little bit of history.  I wrote the first part of Voice of the Whirlwind around 1980 or early 1981, and I know this because the original typescript is in fact a...

Bill of Rights Day

So the National Defense Authorization of 2012 has passed, aided by the lobbying efforts of defense contractors such as Honeywell and Bluewater Defense, who are no doubt looking forward to being paid billions for building LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of prisons and torture chambers.The bill passed on December 15, which happens to be Bill of Rights Day.  Thank you for the fucking irony, asshats!Thirteen senators voted against, neatly divided into six Republicans, six Democrats, and one Independent.Se...

In the Now

I am pleased to announce that the ebook of Angel Station is now available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords.
Just in time for the winter gift-giving holiday of your choice!
Enjoy!

Cyclopean

Here's another picture from our 2012 calendar.  This is the Basilica Cistern in Istanbul, built by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian in the 6th Century AD.I'd say it's holding up pretty well.The photo gives you an idea why the Turks call the cistern the "Sunken Palace."   It's the size of a cathedral, with the roof standing over 60 feet high, and can hold nearly three million cubic feet of water.It's one of hundreds of cisterns beneath the city,  most of which have been forgotten.The roof is...

And Now, a Message from Mr. Fawkes . . .

The hacker collective Anonymous has, to no one's surprise, come out against the National Defense Authorization Act, which recently passed the Senate on a 93-7 vote.For those of you unfamiliar with the act— which may be most of you, since the mainstream media seems too caught up in the doings of the Kardashians and the Republican Flavor-of-the-Month to report anything about this— it contains a provision jointly authored by John McCain (R-Ariz) and John Levin (D-Mich) that (1) declares that...

Got 2012?

Once again, by way of sharing our adventures with our friends, we've published a calendar.This one, interestingly enough, is for 2012.  Why, that's next year!You'll probably need a calendar for that.  You might as well have this one.Once again, I make no money from this.  I just make calendars out of the spirit of sharing the good things that happen to me.This photo was taken on May 16, 2011, and features the final launch of Endeavor, STS-134. Since the launch was delayed the first time, we e...

Preview of Coming Attractions

Behold, the cover for the forthcoming e-release of Angel Station!

Reviews in the Nick of Time: Hugo

Martin Scorsese directing a fantasy?  A fantasy with a juvenile protagonist?  A fantasy with a juvenile protagonist based on a Caldecott Award-winning children's book in which absolutely no one is stabbed in the jugular with a kitchen knife to spray gallons of blood over the scenery?  Say it ain't so, Marty!Yeah, it's so.Despite its general air of wholesomeness, the movie had me right at the opening scene, in which a clockwork mechanism slowly dissolves, or maybe mutates, into a panoramic...