Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 201

Mystery Thing

I'm still up at Taos Toolbox teaching and doing critiques, and it's taking up most of my time, so here's something to amuse you while I'm otherwise occupied.
What is this thing?
Is this a still from a movie?  Photoshop magic?  An object that exists in our world, or only in someone's imagination?
And even if you already know what it is, you can tell us what you think it should be.
Discuss.

Steampunk Cool

We see here Toolbox student Jeff Dunteman's Aetheric Concentrator.  Jeff was concerned that he might not get his wi-fi here in our remote mountain lodge, so he built this nifty two-way antenna out of a 1919 bathroom heater and a pill bottle, among other things.
The desk is also made out of plumbing bits so as to put Jeff's keyboard exactly where he likes it, which is 26 inches off the floor. Jeff knows what he wants, and how to get it.
Taos Toolbox— mad improvisation for better literature!

Peace

Here's a rainbow that I captured with my Pentax just outside my door, just a few minutes ago.
Shortly afterward, a mule deer wandered  into sight, then wandered out again.  I took her picture, but it wasn't very successful.
We've had a good day of workshopping here at Taos Toolbox, with some very smart and talented students keeping us on our toes.
Just focus on the rainbow, people.  Focus on the rainbow.

Stormy Weather

Here's a picture taken from just outside my door.
"But Walter," I hear you say, "this picture's all dark and murky!"
Yes.  Isn't it great?
These are storm clouds.  In a short while, rain is going to come pouring down.
For someone who's lived in drought conditions since February, this is wonderful.  And this is the third rainstorm in three days!
Sometimes water falls from the sky! I'd almost forgotten.

Up the Mountain

Nancy Kress and I are in Taos Ski Valley, where the Taos Toolbox workshop will begin tomorrow.
It's lovely here.  It's cool, unlike the 100-degree waterless desert— my home— that I left this afternoon.  The air is scented with pines.  And it rained thoroughly this evening— the first rain I've seen since early February.
No bears yet.  But it's early days.

Expectations

 

I've recently completed the video game L.A. Noire (sic), which has prompted some thoughts about audience expectations, and how to satisfy them— or at least mollify them, assuming that actual satisfaction turns out not to be possible.For those of you who haven't somehow been swept up in the hype, L.A. Noire (sic) is a video game that charts the rise (and fall and rise) of a Los Angeles policeman circa 1947.  The game took all of seven years to develop.  It looks quite gorgeous, and the...

Listen to Me!

 

Hey, everybody, Hardwired is now available as an audio book in multiple formats!
Whether you listen to CDs, MP3s, or cassette tapes, Blackstone Audio is willing to oblige!
Check it out.

 

March of Time

I keep telling myself I need to post on this here blog, but then I keep saying, "I got all this other stuff to do, why don't I do that first, and then do my blog post?"  Except that all this other stuff keeps growing, and the blog posts keep getting postponed.I don't have a solution to this except to suggest that we all contemplate the eternal march of time, as illustrated by this photo I took in Turkey a couple of years ago.  This was taken at a place called Pinara, which no longer exists...

Low-tech High Tech

 

Via Chris Mills, it's the tale of FabFi's contribution to the movement for Internet freedom sponsored by, among other things, the American government.The American effort, revealed in dozens of interviews, planning documents and classified diplomatic cables obtained by The New York Times, ranges in scale, cost and sophistication.Some projects involve technology that the United States is developing; others pull together tools that have already been created by hackers in a so-called...

Ebook Updates

 

All three Maijstral books have been uploaded to Smashwords.Smashwords pretty much requires that books be submitted in Microsoft Word, a program I've never used because it was designed by aliens intent on world conquest.  But I'm better at Word by now, and I'm happy to report that my Smashwords .epub formats are now much more successful.  Pretty, even.I've uploaded a newer, cleaned-up version of The Crown Jewels, which has none of the formatting errors seen in the earlier version.    Enjoy...