Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 60

Six Days

So.  Six days at home after completing surgery. Today I was able to take off the surgical dressing and view my eight-inch scar.  I don’t want any of you to faint, so I won’t post a picture, but it looks was if I sat down on last week’s centipede attacker and it was somehow fused with my hip.  Disturbing.  Maybe it will look better after the staples come out. I am learning the limitations of my training.  At the hospital they ran me through occupational therapy and such, teaching me how to get...

I Become Bionic

Behold my world for the next few days. Monday morning at 5:30am I reported to the hospital for total replacement of my right hip. Anesthesia came via a spinal, but I slept through the procedure anyway. The surgery was brief and trouble free, and I was alert and chatting in the recovery room, and on into my hospital room. The first physical therapy session was a few hours later, and I nailed it. I was in considerably less pain after the surgery than before it, although loads of painkillers mig...

Highway in the Sky

I’m going to be intensely occupied for the next few days— so totally unlike me, right?— so I’m going to leave you with this lovely picture of the Kerry countryside.

Sticking to the Ribs

Prepared for any grilling emergency, I am and remain the Master of Meat !

Westlake on Publishing

This from Donald Westlake: “Publishing is the only industry I can think of where most of the employees spend most of their time stating with great self-assurance that they don’t know how to do their jobs. “I don’t know how to sell this,” they explain, frowning, as though it’s your fault. “I don’t know how to package this. I don’t know what the market is for this book. I don’t know how we’re going to draw attention to this.” In most occupations, people try to hide their incompetence; only in p...

The Sands of Dingle

Sunset at Inch Beach, in or near Dingle.  Fine golden sand, beautiful setting, and surfers!  If it weren’t for the kids playing with their hurling sticks I would have thought I was in Monterey. I also had ice cream at the legendary Murphy’s parlor.  The elderflower ice cream was particularly fine on a hot afternoon.

Mere Observation

So I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I had a kind of Theory of Dunsany that I wanted to put forth when I had the time, and I seem to have time right now.  Because I’ve had a while to ponder the matter the theory has expanded from its origin point to a consideration not only of the sort of fiction people were writing a hundred years ago, but the sort of people who were writing it. Two things stand out about Lord Dunsany.  The first is that he could write volumes and volumes of short, ironic...

Out of the Mist

These are the Skellig Islands off the west coast of Kerry, home to an ancient abandoned monastery, and the location of a key scene in Return of the Jedi. The Skellige Islands also feature in Witcher III, one of that game’s jokey references to cinema.  (Another is an elven swordsmith named Hattori.) I’ve been back from the mists of Ireland for a few days but am still suffering from jet lag and various bodily ills that come from sleeping in beds not one’s own.  (I am also subject to acute hunge...

Flitting

Here’s today’s picture of a butterfly. The rollicking Wilbercon around Ireland is over, and I’m now in Dublin for Worldcon. I’d love to post my con schedule, but I can’t because I don’t have one.  I’m not on programming, go figure. Whether I’m on a panel or not doesn’t signify, but it would be nice if people who wanted to meet me had the chance.   As it is, I’ll be flitting from flower to flower around the con, so you’ll have to hope you run into me.

Big Boat

This is the flight engineer’s station on a Pan-Am Yankee Clipper, circa 1941, as displayed at the Flying Boat Museum in Foynes.  (Flying Boat Museum!  This trip is so geeky I want to swoon.) The flight engineer was kept pretty busy, having to nurse four big radial engines all the way across the Atlantic.  (Or Pacific, more likely.) The Foynes flying boat station was active 1943-45, taking advantage of Ireland’s unique position as a neutral country  From Foynes the boat could fly on to the we...