Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 66

Metropolitan for the Masses

My novel Metropolitan is now on sale for $0.99, or for whatever $0.99 is worth in your local currency.  The ebook may be found at the following online retailers:  Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Apple, Google, Kobo [NOTE: the price has not yet dropped on Kobo, but it should.  Very soon now.  Really.] I’m stupidly proud of this book, and I think that if any of my works is remembered 100 years from now, it will probably be this one. Here’s your night’s blurb: NOMINATED FOR A NEBULA AWARD....

No Longer Anonymous

Friend of the blog Anonymous— I presume not the entire hacker collective— tells me that the audio book of City on Fire is available! Go forth and listen! (While checking to see where I could find the book, I discovered that the reader reviews of City on Fire on Amazon all properly belong to a more recent book of the same title by one Garth Risk Hallberg.  I have asked Amazon to put Mr. Hallberg’s reviews in the proper place and to find the ones belonging to me.  [I got more stars than he did....

Estecado

This year I am once again in Portales, NM, the cultural capital of the Llano Estecado, for the Jack Williamson Lectureship.  The usual gang of fun-lovers is here, including Connie, Courtney, and Cordelia Willis, Toolbox survivors Sheila Hartney and Lauren Teffeau, Emily Mah, Sarena Ulibarri, and many others. Cordelia, who works in a crime lab in California, gave a talk this afternoon about DNA genealogy, which had me wishing I was a crime fiction writer, just so I could use all the cool infor...

Toolbox Nominees!

Once again Hugo voters have inexplicably failed to recognize my greatness, but I’m very pleased to note that they have recognized the greatness of a number of veterans of Taos Toolbox, the master class for writers of science fiction and fantasy. Kelly Robson got a novella nomination for “God, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach.” Simone Heller received a nomination for the novelette “When We Were Starless.” Saladin Ahmed authored the graphic novel nominee Abbott.   Best of luck to these, and congra...

Microsoft Hurts Kitten!

Microsoft continues their slide down the slippery slope into security work by going after the Iranian hacking group Charming Kitten, also known as Ajax, Phosphorous, and APT35.  They’ve successfully petitioned a court to take over the group’s 99 domains, which were used in spear-phishing attacks on journalists and dissidents. Last summer, they also took down a network run by the Russian group Fancy Bear. Is Microsoft doing this out of the goodness of their silicon heart, or as a proxy for a g...

“Black as the Pit From Pole to Pole!”

I have lately been enjoying some examples of black humor, which may confirm my moral depravity the eyes of some of you, but if so I think you’re wrong.  According to Wylie Sypher, black comedy strengthens the oppressed and damages the morale of the oppressors.  “To be able to laugh at evil and error means we have surmounted them.” So I’ve been surmounting evil as I clutch at my sides and howl at the degrading spectacle of human misery.  Good for me! I  am your moral superior! Death at a Funer...

Souvenir

Apparently I brought a souvenir home from ICFA, to-wit: the common cold. It’s mild as colds go.  I function normally for a while, and then I have to cough and sneeze for five minutes, and then I’m okay again. Hope I don’t run out of Sudafed.

Sunder Yourself!

I’ve spent most of the last week with colleagues at the International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts, which involved basking by the pool in the balmy Florida weather, enjoying the hospitality of the hotel bar, and a number of excursions to local restaurants. I believe some mention was now and again made of science fiction, but my memory on that point is hazy. I have returned with no less than thirteen mosquito bites on the triceps area of my left arm.  I don’t know if it was a swarm...

Every Story is a War

So I did some writing on the new novel the other night, and I thought it was okay, but when I went back the next night I realized I’d written crap.  Not uninspired, not unfocused, just plain bad writing.  It sucked. I found this so demoralizing that I didn’t write much the second night, but I did fix up the bad writing and made it less bad.  I won’t say it was great or anything. (I should point out, for the purposes of this anecdote, that I write late at night.) The next night I hammered away...

Collected Again!

My story “Foreign Devils” may be found in the new collection Making History, edited by Rick Wilber.  This is a collection of classic alternate history stories, by Karen Joy Fowler, Gregory Benford, Sheila Finch, Rich Larson, Lisa Goldstein, Kathleen Goonan, Harry Turtledove, Eileen Gunn and Michael Swanwick, Maureen McHugh, Nisi Shawl, Alan Smale, Michaela Roessner, Louise Marley, Ben Loory, Nicholas DiChario, and Michael Bishop. And more!  Apparently.  I don’t actually know what stories are...