Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 3

In the Coolth

I decided I was out of patience with the summer heat and the frantic pace of my days, and so I proposed an extended holiday weekend in Cloudcroft, a little resort town nestled in New Mexico’s Sacramento Mountains at 8500 feet. We rented a large house overlooking a beautiful mountain valley and settled in for four nights.

We were joined by our friend Louy. Louy has invited us on many occasions to spend time at her family’s cabin in Ruidoso, but the cabin burned down in the catas...

Sunset

A view from our balcony. Wherever you are in New Mexico, the sunsets are awesome.

Brekki

A near-perfect breakfast. Leftover paella with a runny fried egg on top.

Praxis For The Masses

Amazon is selling The Praxis, Impersonations, The Accidental War, Fleet Elements, and Imperium Restored at the sale price of $1.99.

They’ve left The Sundering and Conventions of War out of the sale, I assume for reasons so recondite that a mere author would not understand them.

I don’t know how long the sale will last— again, I’m just the author— so you should probably glom the books while the glomming is good.

Other online markets will probably match the price, but I haven’t che...

Whereat I Have Been

So for the last week I’ve been in the remote mountain hamlet of Truchas, NM, for this year’s Rio Hondo Workshop. Attending were Oz Drummond, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Walter Jon Williams, Alex Jablokow, Michaela Roessner, Tara King, David D. Levine, Susan Forest, Rosemary Claire Smith, Alan Smale, Jen Volant, and Kim Zimring.

We read each other’s work, ate each other’s food, drank each other’s booze, and generally had a fine time. My favorite kind of vacation is the one where I come back mo...

Pointed

The 9th issue of Nathan Toronto’s paperback magazine Bullet Points is now available, with a reprint story by yours truly (“Wolf Time”). Bullet Points “captures the complexity, tragedy, and hope of warfare and violence in human and nonhuman society,” and this issue has an AI theme.

Bullet Points is generously sized, and packs a lot of words between its covers. Feel free to check it out.

Living Genteel

The process of settling into new quarters continues. The living room, pictured here, is almost ready for actual living. The Berlin Wall of cardboard boxes that once blocked access to the bookshelves is gone. In the foreground is our elliptical trainer, which has finally emerged from its container. As the container took up about as much space as a large dining table, it’s a relief to see it gone.

Most rooms are navigable and capable of functioning more or less as intended, with the si...

The Citadel

It’s 2009, and I’m in Turkey to research my novel Deep State. Standing behind is Melinda Snodgrass, and Patricia Rogers is behind the camera.

I’m in the smog-swathed capital of Ankara, the city known to the Hittites as Ankuwash, to the Romans as Ancyra, and to the Ottomans as Angora. Ankara is a modern, largely secular city, with more than 20 universities, but looming above is the acropolis topped by its citadel, mostly Byzantine and Turkish but with foundations that go back to the P...

Storm Swathing

A storm swathes the Sandia mountains, as seen from our balcony.

CoA

So we’ve made the big move, and we’ve sacrificed the joys of country living for the excitement of the big city. As you can see. Excitement everywhere you look.

The move itself took 2 days, the first to pack everything, the second to transport it and unload the trucks. The movers finished at 9pm and I gave them each a nice tip.

There was enough room for all the furniture we cared to bring— lots of bookshelves— which surprised me. Perhaps the apartment is a tesseract.

It’s ...