Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 65

The Rat Flew Straight and True

So I finally saw Avengers: Endgame, two weeks later than most of you.  I made up for the delay by seeing it in IMAX and 3D, which I suspect really didn’t improve it that much, though I did duck when Starlord kicked the rat at my head. If this is the sort of movie you like, then you’ll like it.  If you don’t care for films in which costumed characters bash each other in a fight over a bunch of plot coupons, you won’t care for this one, either. I’ll leave detailed analysis and criticism with th...

Flash Fortuna

My time seems fully occupied today, so while I’m buried in the frustrating trivia of daily life, please enjoy this video of an unexpected performance.

The Shuffle

A note for all you completists out there.  The ninth Wild Cards collection, Jokertown Shuffle, has been reissued by Tor with new material, two never-before-seen stories by Carrie Vaughn and Cherie Priest. In addition to the original stories by Stephen Leigh, Lewis Shiner, John Jos. Miller, Melinda Snodgrass, Victor Milan, and Walton (Bud) Simons. And me.  This volume contains my Black Shadow story, “When Night’s Black Agents to Their Preys Do Rouse.” Black Shadow was the first Wild Cards char...

Sport Xtreme

In my Worldcon GoH speech a couple years ago I mentioned Finland’s habit of inventing new sports, conceived I suppose in the winter when they have little else to think about while drinking.  Finland is the home, for example, of swamp football, competitive sauna, and competitive hobby horse riding. Of course Finland is also the home of heavy metal, with bands such as Finntroll, Eurovision winner Lordi, Stratovarius, and Night Wish.  In fact Finland, per capita, has more metal bands than anypl...

Unconventional

A lot of my posts lately seem to be about new editions of one of my books or another. That’s a good thing, right? Today’s post brought copies of the Author’s Definitive Edition of Conventions of War.  Read and enjoy!

10:32

Ten hours and thirty-two minutes of auditory pleasure await you!  The Implied Spaces audio book has been released, and is available at your local store or online in the usual places. Apparently the book has been available for a while, but as I’m only the author, I was left to find it on my own.

Terran Prize Awarded!

The Terran Prize for 2019, sponsored by George RR Martin and consisting of a scholarship for a foreign writer to this year’s Taos Toolbox Workshop, has been awarded to Chinese author Zhou Wen (昼温.) Zhou was born in Jinan, Shandong province, and has a double B.A. in English and finance, and a Master’s degree in translation from Shandong University. She is currently enrolled in the Chinese University of Hong Kong for another Master‘s degree in translation.   She is 24 years old. As a translator...

The Mead Story

A friend laid some home-brewed mead on us, and last night we opened a bottle and shared it with some friends who’d never had mead before.  A strong, sweet honey odor and a taste to match.  Pretty nice. All of which reminded me of the time I tried to brew some mead. I was maybe nineteen and had found a recipe somewhere.  I bought the ingredients, and my friend Jeff offered the use of his kitchen. Jeff was my age and into theater, and in fact lived in a theater annex.  The theater was a former...

Inverted Soup Bowl

Tonight’s sunshower sunset.

Soldier of Arete

Alas.  According to multiple sources Gene Wolfe has died at the age of 87 in his Illinois home. I’ve been on a mini-binge of Gene’s books lately, mostly recently Home Fires, and I think the mini-binge will have to continue. I admired Gene’s plain, clear style, which was an ideal surface beneath which to hide the machinations of his unreliable narrators, and to gracefully unwind his diabolically complicated plots. (Not that all his unreliable narrators were deliberately trying to deceive.  Som...