Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 199

Question for the Group Mind

 

So here I am in this huge resort/casino thing, and to get anywhere you have to wander by hundreds of gaming tables.  I've been watching the gamblers, and none of them seem to be having a good time.   They're all grimly working away at whatever it is they're doing.
Why is that?  Any idea?

Postcard Shot

I'm writing this from the Peppermill Hotel in Reno where I'm attending Worldcon.  (And is the pseudo-renaissance decor ever tackeeee!)Yesterday Calgary writer Tim Reynolds took me out into Banff National Park.  There was cloud and a lot of rain, which enabled me to take some spectacularly broody shots of the Canadian Rockies.  But the clouds opened up long enough for me to take this postcard shot of Moraine Lake.(Hmm.  For some reason the right side of the picture is cut off.  But if you...

Cruising With the Waiter

 

The writer Lawrence Schoen has been collecting stories from writers about their most fabulous meals.
I couldn't decide what my most fabulous meal was, but I did make an attempt to describe my most fabulous dining experience.  Which lasted for over ten years, in two countries.
Oh my god, the gumbo . . .

All Good Things . . .

When Words Collide is over.   I feel as if I've been talking nonstop for five days.I'm looking forward to a couple days in which I don't need to talk at all.   Perhaps I will communicate only by gesture.For those of you concerned about how best to spend your travel dollar, I can thoroughly recommend the trip to WWC in 2012.  Though this was the first WWC, the con committee is very experienced, and they really know how to throw a convention.  It was extremely well organized, and the events...

Calgary Crew

Here I am with the twelve brave Canadian writers who actually volunteered to have me run their workshop!
They are a talented crew, and I expect that you'll be hearing from some of them soon.

My Horrible August

 

Lots of wonderful things are going to happen to me in August.  The problem is that they're all going to happen in August.This coming weekend, August 12-14, I will be at When Words Collide in Calgary, a brand-new literary SF convention, where I will be sharing Guest of Honor privileges with Jack Whyte, Rachel Caine, and Rob Sawyer.  I'll also be running a writers' workshop prior to the convention.   For any Albertans or others who may wish to meet me, I'll include my schedule below.Without...

Downgraded

 

So now S&P has downgraded US government bonds from AAA to AA+.  The result is that people are stampeding to buy them.Perhaps they remember that it was the ratings agencies who gave AAA ratings to sub-prime loans, and S&P who rated Ireland's debt AAA until April Fool's Day, 2009, and Spain as AAA until January 2009.  Maybe they remember how S&P rated Iceland's debt at AA+.Or perhaps they noticed that S&P made a 2 trillion dollar error in their calculations. (Two trillion is the cost of two...

Meanwhile, On the Western Horizon . . .

I spent eight hours today at the karate school, during which time I learned many things that do not necessarily translate to this medium.
Most notably I brushed up on my Iron Palm work— and, in one case, my Iron Elbow.
The end result is that I'm too tired to do much of anything but contemplate the sunset.  Here it is, so you can contemplate it with me.
And no, it's not retouched.  That's the actual color.

Days of Atonement, Newly Duplicated Along the t Axis

I'm pleased to report than Days of Atonement is now available as an ebook.   For Kindle, for Nook, and on Smashwords— which has it available in a multiplicity of formats, and whence it will eventually migrate to other platforms such as the Sony Reader and iBooks.The price is a modest $4.99.  Surely a better bargain than that big summer blockbuster you have your eye on.This is also the first book to be made available after my plea for crowdsourced material.  (Good work, everyone!)Y'all enjoy....

Keeping it Real

A few days ago I saw Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen's new movie.  All the reviews told me how wonderful and magical it was, and the last movie the Woodmeister made in Paris, Everyone Says I Love You, actually was wonderful and magical, so I went to see it.I was reasonably charmed by Midnight in Paris, but I have to say that the movie's focus stayed resolutely on all the wrong characters.  This is a fantasy film in which a modern writer travels back to Paris in the 1920s to meet Scott, Zelda, ...