Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 34

Same Words, Prettier Picture

I’ve long been dissatisfied with the purposefully odd but decidedly amateurish cover I designed for my novel Aristoi, and so I decided to do something about it, and approached the splendid artist Elizabeth Leggett, who very graciously agreed to fit me (and the book) into her schedule.

Here are the results. Striking, ne?

The revised file has now been uploaded everywhere but B&N and Smashwords, because B&N is very slow and because there are technical issues with Smashwords, which I’l...

I Am Scoundrelized

Once again I find myself bundled with a bunch of other writers.

The Science Fiction Writers of America have curated Scoundrels in Space, a bundle of twelve novels, all available for a more than reasonable price. The featured four novels are available for whatever you want to pay, but if you want all twelve, it’ll set you back a whole $20. Considering that buying them individually would drain you of at least $60, the $20 deal is a bargain however you look at it.

My own contribut...

Audio Books on Sale!

Chirp, which appears to be a division of BookBub, has put a number of my audio books on sale for $4.99. (Their usual price is anywhere between 20 and 30 dollars.)

So if you’d like an audio book of The Rift, Hardwired, Implied Spaces, Metropolitan, or City on Fire, and you don’t want to pay full price for them, now’s your chance! But hurry— I didn’t arrange this myself, so don’t know how long this deal will last.

Out of Jail Free

I’m out of COVID Jail, having completed the 10 days of isolation recommended by the CDC following my first positive test.

Not that I went anywhere or did anything. I’m not inclined toward frenzied celebration at the moment.

I am free of symptoms. Today I ran on the elliptical trainer, did my normal workout, and apparently have lost none of my conditioning, which argues for no lung damage.

I’m not sure if my brain has quite recovered, because right now I seem to be Short Attention...

Pawn Takes Prize

Gabrielle Harbowy attended Taos Toolbox in the last pre-pandemic year, 2019. Since then she’s made good use of her time. A story, “The Dybbuk Ward,” will appear in the March issue of Fantasy magazine, and her novel Aether’s Pawn will appear at the end of February. Here’s a synopsis:

Indigo Steelquill — Quills — left her native realm a thousand years ago and hasn’t looked back. A jinn, an inker in the long and magical tradition of her kind, she enjoys the simplicity of life as a tattoo ar...

New Arrival

A copy of Lord Quillifer has turned up on my doorstep. I have to say I’m more pleased with the book’s appearance than I thought I’d be.

The book’s official released date is February 15, but now that print copies actually exist, they may start infiltrating bookstores ahead of that date.

There’s never a bad reason for browsing bookstore shelves, but now you have another good one.

Eye-Catching

Behold a proposed cover for the next Praxis book, launching next September. This isn’t the final cover, so the published version might be somewhat different.

In the meantime, Tor.com published a piece by James Nicoll on five novels featuring a depopulated Earth, with my Knight Moves among them. Depopulating the planet seems to be a motif in some of my fiction, as a small-population Earth features in other work, including Implied Spaces and Aristoi (where the original population was wip...

COVID Day Six

Late on Day Five (Friday) I began to feel better, at least insofar as I wasn’t spending hours of every day coughing and sneezing and otherwise spending all my time battling the Phlegm Monster. Just as when I have a cold, the Phlegm Monster prowls from sunset to sunrise, keeping me awake and coughing and unable to sleep until— just as the sun tops the eastern horizon— the Monster quiets down and I can get a few hours’ rest.

Circadian rhythms can be annoying that way.

The Phlegm Monster wa...

COVID Day Four

I’m lucky. Mostly it’s like a bad cold. My head is stuffed, and I have coughing and sneezing fits. I can function and perform basic tasks. I didn’t sleep well last night, and I don’t have a lot of energy.

But there’s no fever. My O2 levels are 91+. I still have an appetite, and I can taste what I eat.

My heart rate was over 100, but then I reflected that I’ve been dosing on sudafed, which is basically speed. So that explains that.

Kathy’s still out of town, so I don’t have t...

Take Two

The second Covid test came out positive. I don’t know which test to believe, but I guess I’ll be hanging around the house for a while.