Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 230

Pounding. Throbbing. Throbbing. Pounding.

I was reading a review of This Is Not a Game today that mentioned it was a "heart-pounding" thriller.I didn't actually intend TINAG to be heart-pounding. I was going for suspense rather than terror.But if your heart pounds anyway, that's okay with me. I have no objection at all.

Haitian Relief Page

100,000 dead in Haiti. That's 9/11 times 33. That's twice the number of casualties in the London Blitz. Google has set up a disaster relief page for contributions to relief organizations, including UNICEF and CARE. Doctors Without Borders gets mine.On this page you can also donate directly to Haitian hospitals, which would probably be a good thing even if they weren't overwhelmed by a titanic

A Question of Import

Something I always wanted to know:Is the "wang dang doodle" the same as the "do wah diddy?"

Walter's First Contest

I've never run a contest before, but now that This Is Not a Game has appeared in paperback, I find myself in a generous mood. As in years past, this year we produced a calendar for 2010, in this case featuring photos taken by me in Turkey and in France, including this one of the travertines at Pamukkale. The calendar includes holidays for Canada, the US, and Mexico, and also features notable

The Praise is Endless as the Sea

This Is Not a Game has grown up, into a mass-market paperback! (Yeah, okay, that doesn't make sense, but bear with me.) Probably on that account, there have been a lot of reviews appearing in the last few weeks, so I'm going to take a few moments to point to them with pride.From Hornswoggler:And if you know anything about Williams -- if you've read his sophisticated and witty Drake Maijstral

Hardly Twee At All

The cleverest headline ever.[via Janice Gelb:]

On The Beach

The Dutch artist Theo Jansen has been building odd wind-powered beach creatures for years now, intending that eventually they will live and roam in herds, independent of their human creators. Here's a video of Jansen explaining the method behind his madness. [via Bob Norton.:]

Your Brilliant Writing Career Awaits!

Amazingly, applications for Taos Toolbox are still open! This means you can still have that brilliant writing career you've been dreaming about!All you have to do is go to the Taos Toolbox web site, and follow the instructions thereon! If you're accepted, you'll join me and Nancy Kress and Carrie Vaughn in Taos next summer for an intense two-week master class in the writing of science fiction and

News Hour

Just some news tidbits that flew my way.#1. Why economists are skinflints. In recent research, University of Washington economists Yoram Bauman and Elaina Rose found that economics majors were less likely to donate money to charity than students who majored in other fields. After majors in other fields took an introductory economics course, their propensity to give also fell."The economics

Getting Elfy-Welfy With It

What to Icelanders do during those long winter nights?Elves, apparently.[thanks to julien:]