Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 48

At MileHiCon

I am at MileHiCon this weekend, at least in virtual.  The guests of honor Rebecca Roanhorse, Mur Lafferty, Cory Doctorow, and artist Alan Pollack.  It’s a full weekend with lots of programming and begins at 10am Friday, Mountain Time.
Here’s my schedule:
Fri, 1:00-2:00pm: Neverland – Planning Your Series

You have an idea – and it’d make a great trilogy, or longer! Now what? Join our panelists as they discuss how to successfully plan and plot a series that your readers will be excited about and c...

The Word From Annie

Annie’s Book Stop of Worcester, MA, has kindly offered me an Author’s Spotlight Interview.
Annie rejoices in the slogan “The little bookstore that’s bigger on the inside,” so they very likely have what you want  Please consider Annie’s for all your bookshop needs.

Sanity Trip

I badly needed a sanity trip, so I drove to the Ski Valley and checked into a condo.  I’ll be alone up here for several days, self-isolating in nature.  I may meet some folks on the trails or whatever, but I’ve got a mask for that.
As for why I needed this trip, just look at the headlines for the last couple weeks.
Trump’s income taxes were excavated by the New York Times, and weren’t that much of a surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention the last five years.  They also revealed that I pa...

On Sale Now!

I am reliably informed that the ebooks of Conventions of War and The Accidental War are both on sale for $2.99 for the month of October, more or less everywhere that ebooks may be found.
Click!  Read!  Enjoy!

 

Another Fine Review

The Nerd Daily posted a fine review of Fleet Elements.
With a pace that is faster than light, Walter Jon Williams’s fifth book in the Dread Empire’s Fall series, Fleet Elements is a space opera that doesn’t disappoint . . .  great soap opera science fiction, full of gung ho rebels trying to save themselves, with a side of power hungry aliens, and some witty banter.

Back on the Keyboard

I haven’t been visible on social media in the last week because my MacBook Pro was off in the shop.  The keyboard had (mostly) held together through the completion of Lord Quillifer, but was clearly on its last legs, so off to the Genius Bar I went.
Fortunately the butterfly-switch keyboard on my machine had generated such outrage in the Apple community that Apple announced they will fix the problem for free.
When I asked how long the repair would take, the Genius said “Usually three to five day...

A Few Good Things

First, I finished Lord Quillifer in the early hours of the morning, and sent it on to my editor and my agent.  I was so afraid that the project would be Dance with Dragons-sized that I’d stopped doing word counts for the last ten chapters or so, but when I finally added them up, the book turned out to be shorter than Quillifer the Knight.  So hurrah!
My MacBook’s keyboard managed to avoid complete disintegration before I wrote THE END to the project, and I’ll be taking it to the local Genius Ba...

Final Sprint

I feel as if I’ve been sprinting to the finish of Lord Quillifer forever.  Up till now, with every page I added, the finale seemed to have receded farther out of sight, but now I think I’ve got a handle on it.  I’ve written the last big action scene, I’ve written the last big revelation scene, and now all I’ve got is the denouement, which is a collection of short scenes and shouldn’t take long.
But I’m still in a race, this time with my three-year-old MacBook Pro.  It’s a dreadful machine, with ...

And Now . . . Winter!

The big storm struck as predicted, and the temperature dropped nearly 50 degrees overnight, complete with hours of heavy freezing rain.  We didn’t get any snow, but Colorado got quite a bit.
Yesterday the high was in the 90s and the air conditioner was going all day.  Today I had to light the boiler so we could stay warm.
By next week we’ll be back in summer with the AC on again.
Autumn is usually my favorite time of year, but so far it’s not working out for me.

After A Quarter Century

The Wild Cards anthology Dealer’s Choice is back in print after 25 years.  Normally I’d say “I have a story in it,” but Dealer’s Choice is a braided novel, a single narrative written by several authors, and one of the braids is mine.