Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 207

Zooming to Portales

I am off to the Llano Estecado, for the 35th annual Jack Williamson Lecture, held in metropolitan Portales, NM.
Y'all come.

Democracy

The world is going through some staggering changes.As I write this, it looks as if Libya may be in for a long period of civil war, despite its seemingly being pummeled by every country in the world– including Qatar!— which has an air force.  Saudi Arabia has sent armed forces into Bahrain to help suppress dissent.  The government of Yemen seems shakier by the day.  Egypt has voted on a new constitution, and will elect a new president in June.  Tunisia is trying to establish a new democratic o...

Make of This What You Will, Dr. Freud

So I had this dream the other night in which I joined a Live Action Roleplaying Game.  (I've never joined a LARP in real life.)  The game was rather action oriented, in that I carried a weapon and had to infiltrate a heavily defended area, evading bad guys and fighting the ones I couldn't avoid.  I remember battling my way up a canal or river, and that a medium-sized motor yacht was blown up and sunk by a rocket-propelled grenade as I watched.And then I got "killed," and the game stopped and ...

Hand Jive

It looks like another busy weekend without a lot of opportunity for posting, so while I'm away, please enjoy this latest terpsichorean odyssey (via Gardner).

Early Drafts

Why do good writers do more than one draft?Because instead of being on a list of the Most Disgusting Characters Ever Created, we'd prefer ending up on the list of 5 Insane Early Drafts of Famous Characters.  (Of course, we'd prefer not to end up on either list.)Think what list Spielberg and Lucas would have been on if, as in their original concept, they'd left Indiana Jones as a pedophile.. . . But no possible justification could make Indy anything other than a "sick child molester" if he...

Soft Apocalypse

My sometime student Will McIntosh (Taos Toolbox 2008) has published his first novel, and it's a very fine work indeed. Soft Apocalypse — the very title of which introduces a useful idea into science fiction— is what happens when your civilization starts to crumble and then just keeps on crumbling.  There's no bang, there's no war, there's no great dramatic moment when the cities burn, there are no armies of zombies, there's just a slow and steady erosion of everything that makes your society...

Kickingpunchingscreamingfallingdown . . .

So it was karate weekend here in the Land of Enchantment, with people coming from several states to participate.  Friday was five or six hours of class, most quite vigorous, some not.  This was followed by my requalification as a Kenpo black belt, which is something I have to do every so often in order to demonstrate that I haven't forgotten everything I've learned while I was off learning cool new stuff.Re-cert, as we hip karate cats call it, involved two hours of full-bore all-out...

Plans A-gley, the Way They Do

I had every intention of writing a lengthy post tonight, but after due consideration I decided to imitate Topaz here and take a nap instead.
My gain, alas, is your loss.
The next couple days are going to be occupied with a bunch of full-bore karate events, in which I will be requalifying for my black belt, so I expect it will be a sorer and wiser Walter who posts here next.

The Old Green and Purple

I'm wearing green and purple today.  Why?  Because it's St. Urho's Day, of course!


For those of you not in the know, I present a brief video explaining the cosmic importance of St. Urho.  It's clearly from another year in which March 16th fell on a Monday, but don't let that concern you.

Meanwhile, From Japan . . .

Meanwhile we have via Jeff Kooistra a complaint from Japan about the way foreign media is handling the earthquake story.. . . Then my email started going crazy.  People from all over the world were writing to see where I was and was I safe. I started to reply but there were too many emails and I was wondering why. The Japanese TV was showing exactly the locations were things were happening in and were giving out all the information.  It was a huge area, but not all the country.  There...