Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 56

Speaking at Length

The latest issue ofClarkesworld magazine features an interview with me, conducted by Arley Sorg. (I seem to come off as a sort of punch-drunk, heavily scarred boxer staggering around the ring saying, “ME WIN? ME WIN?” Which may be very close to the truth, for all I know.)

Consider the Evidence

Over the last month, I’ve posted ten novel-length (or longer) reasons why, if you want to write SF or fantasy, you should apply to this year’s Taos Toolbox workshop. Our veterans are writing and publishing, being nominated for awards, and building their careers. I’ve mentioned ten novels (or series), but these are only the novels I know about. Others may have escaped my attention. And I haven’t even begun to mention the short stories, by steady sellers like Evey Brett and Larry Hodges. There...

Gifts for R/e/a/d/e/r/s/ Gamers #10: Slaughter in a Box

Taos Toolbox veteran Eric Kelley has spent a lot of time in the gaming field. In 2019 three of his games saw the light of day,Munchkin Dungeon,Trudvang Legends,and Zombicide . InMunchkin Dungeon, you delve into the dungeon, vanquish the monsters, backstab your buddies, and grab the loot! (Can’t miss with that, now can you?) InTrudvang Legends, you enter a rich fantasy world, based on Norse myths and sagas, where no gamemaster is needed to experience story-driven adventure! And as forZombicide,...

2020

2019 is over. While on balance it was a good year for me, it seems to have been a crapshow for the world in general. So happy 2020! (which will be worse) None of our friends were throwing New Year parties this year, so we decided to try something new and go to a party at a hotel. This was a Havana-themed party, with a buffet of Cuban delicacies, a mojito bar, a cigar tent, and a live band, plus we had a lovely suite to stay in and got a made-to-order breakfast on January 1. As it turned out,...

Gifts for Readers #9: Buffalo Dogs

The prolific Lawrence M. Schoen has been nominated for the Hugo Award, the John W. Campbell, and six times for the Nebula Award. He is also a veteran of Taos Toolbox. In 2019 Lawrence publishedBuffalo Dogs, a prequel to his popular humorous adventure series about his interplanetary hypnotist, the Amazing Conroy. He’s the greatest hypnotist in known space. And it might cost him his life. The Arconi take two things seriously — absolute truth and their prize commodity: buffalo dogs. When one of...

Gifts for Readers #8: Boss Fight

Taos Toolbox veteran Josh Roseman published his story collectionBoss Fight in 2019. We all have battles to fight. Some of us rebel against the parasites in our heads; some of us face a choice between life and certain doom; some of us do magic when our parents say no; and some of us have to be dragged, kicking and screaming, toward acceptance of our past mistakes. In the pages of BOSS FIGHT, you’ll find people who do all of these things and more — like the engineers who fight the truths about...

Gifts for Readers #7: Miles Morales and Ms Marvel

Just because Xmas is over doesn’t mean you can’t still buy your favorite reader a gift or two, right? Saladin Ahmed’s novelThrone of the Crescent Moon, workshopped at Taos Toolbox, was nominated for just about every award in the field. Since then he’s made a lateral move into comics, and in 2019 started two series for Marvel: Ms. Marvel: Destined and Miles Morales: Spider-Man V.1: Straight Outta Brooklyn. Also during 2019, Saladin’s previous graphic novel,Abbott, was nominated a Hugo Award. ...

Newtonmass

Our celebration on Newtonmass Eve kept me busy, first preparing the roast beast and then eating it with half a dozen friends, after which I was too exhausted to do anything but nap and watch John Mulany’s extremely odd musical children’s special on Netflix, which is just the only sort of thing you’re capable of watching after too much prime rib, too much wine, and too many espresso. But whether your holiday celebration includes John Mulany or Isaac Newton or not, we wish you the very best of...

Gifts for Readers #6: The Vessel of Ra

Taos Toolbox veteran Catherine Schaff-Stump has had quite the year. Her complex 19th Century familial fantasy novelThe Vessel of Ra appeared along with its sequel The Pawn of Isis. Demonic beings in the form of Egyptian gods have attached themselves to the Klaereon family, and require a sacrifice of each generation: either the demon inhabits the victim for life, or the person would bind the demon and gain magical power. Of course there areother families with their own supernatural power and...

Happy Solstice!

From this day, things will only get better. Unless you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, in which case things will get, at least, darker. Unless y0u’re of the view that things will only get worse, in which case I have to admit that you may have a point.