Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 195

A Social History of British Dentistry . . .

. . . circa 1964.
As my late friend Dick Patten once remarked, "They look like their mothers made them wash."

Taos Toolbox 2012

I'm happy to announce that Taos Toolbox 2012, the master class for writers of science fiction and fantasy, will take place June 10-23, 2012, in Taos Ski Valley.
Teaching will be Walter Jon Williams, Nancy Kress, and special lecturer Daniel Abraham.
Submissions will be accepted beginning December 1.  Start honing your manuscripts!

Wild Visitor

I was alone in the deserted Snow Bear lodge, but I thought I heard someone moving around, and on the assumption it was the landlord, I went looking for him.  Instead I found this golden-eyed beauty perched on the rear balcony.A brief web search indicates that this is a Great Horned Owl, though if any informed strigiphiles care to correct me, they are welcome.The owl made to fly away as I rounded the corner, but as soon as he realized I wasn't advancing on him, he settled down and settled for ...

I Am At Snow Bear

 

I am at Snow Bear for a one-man writer's retreat, wherein I plan to exercise mightily, eat simply, and write lots and lots.I could use a little less snow and ice, frankly.  But I'll just have to go below the snow line for my trail hikes.I would also like to upload some pictures of the lovely mountain scenery and golden aspens, but I'm having a lot of problems uploading pictures right now.  WordPress seems to be traumatized in some significant way.I'll let you know when normal service has...

Goldman's Game of Life

Does anyone remember The Game of Life?  You drove in a little plastic car around the game board, and if you made all the right decisions, you'd end up with a home in the suburbs, a mortgage, and 2.5 children.  Which was the game's definition of happiness, I guess.Those zany jokers at Goldman have created their own version in a flowchart of Europe's current fiscal dilemma, with outcomes ranging from Euro Happiness to Euro Misery.  The chart seems reasonably comprehensive, except for the box...

Skynet Got Drones!

 

A computer virus has hit the entire U.S. drone fleet.  The virus— a keylogger— was first spotted a couple weeks ago, and is proving very difficult to scrub from the drones and their servers.
So far the virus hasn't interfered with the drones' missions, but that only means that Skynet is biding its time . . .

Reviews Too Late: Max Manus (2008)

Fearful, apparently, that American audiences might not know that Max Manus was a celebrated Norwegian resistance fighter, the American release is subtitled MAN OF WAR, so everyone will think the film is about a race horse.Max Manus was the most expensive film ever made in Norway, and is based on Max's two autobiographical works, It Usually Ends Well, and It Gets Serious.Max had an adventurous life, leaving sch0ol at 15 to sail to South America.  The film picks up his life in 1939, after he...

Doom Plus. Gloom Plus.

Last week I linked to a BBC video interview with Alessio Rastani, a trader who predicted that, well, Europe is well and truly fucked, and the rest of us with it, and that he and a lot of other people were prepared to make a lot of money off Europe's misery.  The response from the Powers That Be was immediate: Rastani wasn't a real trader, Rastani was one of the Yes Men, Rastani was just a showoff wanting TV time, yadda yadda.Okay, fine.  Here's Dr. Robert Shapiro, advisor to the IMF and...

Prayers on the Wind

I got a little weary of copy-editing entire novels, so I decided to make my Nebula-nominated novelette, Prayers on the Wind, available for your reading pleasure.  You may download it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords.It's only 99 cents!  What have you got to lose?The story was written at the request of the writer Lewis Shiner, who was putting together an anthology in response to a brand new fiction category— military SF.The Eighties were very kind to subgenres.  Although there had...

Reviews Too Late: 13 Assassins

13 Assassins is a terrific film, but only if you're the sort of person who enjoys films that end with an excruciating 40-minute bloodbath in which a couple hundred people are sliced, decapitated, shot, disemboweled, stabbed, run through, blown up, buried under collapsing buildings, and trampled by a herd of stampeding cattle that have been set on fire!There's a certain awesome genius in that last, isn't there?13 Assassins is a remake of a 1963 film which I haven't seen, the remake directed...