Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 205

Hard Landing

Endeavor is having its electronics checked, the astronauts are home in Houston, and the earliest possible launch day is May 8.I tried to get my airline tickets changed to tomorrow, but all flights were fully booked, so we're flying home on Tuesday.  After which we will improvise.We've learned that NASA is very good at making us wait.On the other hand, we're enjoying life at an excellent beach resort with the ocean right there, in an interesting part of the world with a lot of history and...

On the Beach . . .

We are spending the weekend in St. Augustine, the USA's oldest European settlement.  (As a resident of the state with Acoma in it, I am resolutely unimpressed.)We arrived in late afternoon, and then had to deal at length with a mixup in reservations (not our fault), so all I've seen so far is the fort, which as a European star fort is rather rare on this continent.  (Ticonderoga's still there.  Any others left standing?)Dinner was at a local hangout called the Conch.  Tiki bar, Hawaiian...

Freefall

The shuttle launch was scrubbed due to an electrical problem, so now either it'll be Monday or it won't.  So either we'll hang around till then or not.  And that's where we're at now, until we learn something different.  Or not.Here's the most coherent description of the problem I've found so far:"If there's a thermostat that's failed such that it might have an open circuit in it, not necessarily a short circuit but just an open, that would open up to ground," he said."These things are...

Endeavor Awaits . . .

Endeavor is waiting down at Launch Pad 39A.Waiting for me, among a few other people.I'll be viewing the launch from the VIP area, as a guest of Col. Mike Fincke, with whom I had a brief conversation three years ago when he was commanding the International Space Station.  This year Colonel Fincke will be on board Endeavor as a mission specialist, where he will get to do no less than three spacewalks!President Obama and his entire family will also be attending, along with Rep. Gabrielle...

It's 2011, Writers! Do You Know Where Your Toolbox Is?

There are still a few seats left at Taos Toolbox, the master class for writers of science fiction and fantasy.  This year's instructors are Nancy Kress and Walter Jon Williams, along with special lecturer Jack Skillingstead.
(Last year a Toolbox grad won a Hugo award.  You want to win a Hugo Award, don'tcha?  Just whisperin' here . . . )

Interviewed Again

Friend of the blog Tom Chandler interviews me over at The Writer Underground.For those of you who are tired of reading my interviews,  let me cut to the chase:What I need is a claque. I need people not to suggest, but to insist that everyone read my books. Whenever someone's talking about a book he liked, I need someone to say, "Well, that book's okay, but you really need to read Walter Jon Williams!" I need skywriters to write WALTER JON WILLIAMS IS AWESOME in the sky above every...

Our Tribe (Gabba Gabba Hey)

So when did it become okay to write about our tribe?I am prompted to this question by reading Among Others , by Jo Walton.  Which is about growing up as an Anglo-Welsh science fiction reader in the 1970s— the sort of person who reads Delany and Heinlein and Plato's Symposium all at the same time, and who listens to the dialog the books are having  in her head; but there's absolutely no one to share this with, because there is no one else who's part of the tribe or would remotely understand.Mor...

1983: The Writer's Life

This is one of a long dang series of posts on my early days as a professional writer.But first, a confession.  There were two versions of my post for 1982.   The first relied on my memory.  The second, in which I relied on my tax records for 1983, is the more accurate.  (That's the one you can read now.)  The inaccurate post was up for maybe twelve hours before I discovered my mistake and posted a correction.Here's what happened.  As I wrote in my previous post, my job writing historical...

Dagger and Coin

Daniel Abraham writes unconventional fantasies like The Long Price Quartet and the Hugo-nominated "Cambist and Lord Iron" (available here in podcast form).  Now he's launched a new high fantasy series, Dagger and Coin, with its first volume, The Dragon's Path.The packaging is rather conventional, leading you to believe that this is going to be a huge, sprawling fantasy epic with a varied cast involved in a giant, continent-wide war against the forces of ultimate evil.Which is true.  So I...

I'm Tired . . .

. . . so listen to these guys talk while I take a nap.
Thank you.


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