Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 7

Moonrise at Sunset

Moonrise at the Bernardo Refuge. Just tonight.

And a little closeup of Earth’s satellite.

Adrift

Waiting for pickup in the Philippine Sea. Palau, 2015.

Wee Crabby

A tiny crab snuggles into its home in an anemone. I never owned a camera capable of taking this kind of picture, so I suspect this was taken by Atti, one of our group.

Sulawesi, 2013.

Meridian

From 1995, a picture of Kathy at the Royal Observatory, at Greenwich. She’s standing on the prime meridian, but the scanner’s cut off her feet so you can’t see it.

The photo may have been taken by Sue Casper or Gardner Dozois, who joined us on the excursion. We were zigzagging our way to the first Glasgow Worldcon.

We got on a ferry near Tower Bridge and cruised down the Thames, where History lines both banks of the river. In Greenwich we walked through the lovely Christopher Wre...

Lepidoptery of the Mind

When we were in New York State in October, we spent half a day cruising around Ithaca, viewing Kathy’s alma mater of Cornell. We didn’t see much, because pouring rain pretty much confined us to our car. But there was one exhibit I really wanted to see, which was for some reason stuck in a corner of the Agriculture Building. With the entrance under construction, I snuck into the Ag Building through a basement door, shook the rain off my jacket, wandered through an underground labyrinth fil...

Horizon

The moon and Venus near the horizon. Earlier tonight.

Latomia

This modest bit of Sicilian landscape has an infamous history. This is the Latomia dei Cappuccini, an ancient stone quarry on the north side of the city of Syracuse. In 413 BCE, the Athenian attempt to capture Syracuse collapsed, and the entire Athenian army, its allies, and 200 ships were forced to surrender.

The captives were confined to a stone quarry on this site. (You can see the stone galleries on the cliffs in back of the photo) While the non-Athenians were enslaved and sold...

The Green Hamster Plague

No doubt you all remember my Nebula-winning story, “The Green Leopard Plague,” which revolves around a contagious virus which allows people to take energy direct from the sun.

Well, guess what? I’ve scored another hit on the WJW Predict-O-Meter!

According to this video, “scientists” (as they are always called in these presentations) have worked out a way to implant chloroplasts in mammalian tissue— specifically hamster tissue.

We may soon anticipate swarms of green super-ham...

Approaching the Rainbow Bridge

Maid of the Mist approaches the Rainbow Bridge. Niagara Falls, 2024.

Row of Cheaters

From 1980, Olympia in Greece, home of the original Olympic Games.

The tow of plinths on the left memorialize those caught cheating. Their home cities were expected to purchase a bronze statue of Zeus to be placed on one of these plinths, which was then carved with the name of the cheater, the name of his father, and the name of his city.

The statues have long been scavenged and melted down, but you can still read the names of the cheats.

Infamy can last forever.