Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 32
March 12, 2022
Kicking Off
The Kickstarter for Shaper of Worlds, v. III, has kicked off. Here’s your link.
Shaper of Worlds features fiction by writers featured on Edward Willett’s Aurora Award-winning podcast The Worldshapers. (My interview may be found hereabouts.)
Besides myself, contributing authors include Cory Doctorow, James Morrow, Cat Rambo, Griffin Barber, Jane Yolen, and Many Many More.
In addition to anything you wish to plunk down for the anthology, if you pony up CDN $400 (a little over $300U...
March 9, 2022
Return to Caraqui
I’m currently writing my Great Lost Opus, which is to say the third book in the Metropolitan sequence, which was never written because my editor was fired and his fiction line canceled before I could get started. I’ve been promising it for 25 years, and I’ve decided that it’s time to deliver.
Starting work on this long-delayed project involved my reading the first two books, Metropolitan and City on Fire, for the first time in many years. And my reaction, from the perspective of 25 years, ...
March 5, 2022
St. Javelin Bless Ukraine
St. JavelinThe heroic resistance of Ukraine has inspired volunteers from all over— most impressively American veterans, who are carrying their weapons and skills over the water to join what Zelensky is calling his “international legion.” Since over the last twenty years the U.S. military has become the most efficient, competent, and dangerous fighting force in all history, this is nothing to sneeze at— although there’s a chance that the war will stagger to a bloody end before any of these ...
March 1, 2022
Live From the Mother in Law Lounge
Okay, people, it’s still Mardi Gras till I say it ain’t!
Here we see Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Band playing “Hold That Tiger” in a live performance from the Mother in Law Lounge.
Life on a Cruiser
Disney has opened their Star War: Galactic Starcruiser resort. The reviews have not been ecstatic.
Billed as the ultimate immersive Star Wars experience, the Galactic Starcruiser (centred on its Halcyon hotel) is a top-to-tail recreation of a Star Wars spaceship. During a two-day stay, which costs around £4,500 for a family, guests will be plunged into their very own app-dictated storyline where they’ll be sent on missions, asked to sneak away to clandestine meetings, trained in the art of ...
February 28, 2022
Kick That Starter!
Editor and podcaster Edward Willett is opening a new kickstarter for Shaper of Worlds, v. III, featuring stories by authors interviewed in his Worldshapers podcast. The actual Kickstarter hasn’t launched yet, but here’s a preview page.
I’ll have a story in the anthology, along with Cory Doctorow, Cat Rambo, James Morrow, Jane Yolen, and a couple dozen more.
Bravery
Recent events in Eastern Europe bring to mind a day in Finland’s archipelago back in 2017. Author Marcus Prest had arranged for me to take a boat through the archipelago to an island owned by his outgoing pal Bjorn. Other guests included philosopher Joel and Glen, a retired colonel in the Royal Artillery, now working in Ukraine as a military advisor.
Glen’s job was to try to convince Ukraine’s elites not to steal so much of the aid money given to them by the West. Money meant for the ...
February 24, 2022
Pleasing Surprise
A few weeks ago I was pleased to sell the audio rights to my sea-adventure historicals. (I never thought it would happen, frankly.)
I was even more pleased to discover that the narrator for the books is Bronson Pinchot. Color me stoked!
February 20, 2022
The Praise Runs High
Paul Di Filippo has reviewed Lord Quillifer, and the praise, to coin a phrase, is unstinting. Some choice selections:
Williams’s powers of invention have not paled. The interpersonal affairs of all the schemers exhibit the same baroque intricacies of yore. The big military setpieces show a flair for clarity of action and surprise of developments, mimicking the real ups and downs of warfare. The worldbuilding details are richly strewn and often amusing—Quillifer’s regular introduction of new...
