Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 72

History-ish

I’ve been deep-diving into history here at Rancho Malario, first with the Amazon Prime series Las Aventuras del Capitán Alastriste, based on the novels by Arturo Perez Reverte.    I’ve been a fan of Perez’ fiction for a long while, ever since The Flanders Panel and The Club Dumas.  The Alastriste novels are a very good introduction to his work, being fast-moving, action-oriented, and fun.  They are also influenced strongly by Alexandre Dumas and his Musketeers. I’ve only seen a few episodes o...

A Modest Reminder

My 99-cent sale on the Brig of War ebook will end in just a few days.  If you don’t have a copy and want one, find it at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, iBooks, Kobo, and Google Play.

Encore

Once again, I’ve published a journal of our adventures in the form of a calendar.  This one covers 2019, and features major international holidays such as Alberta Family Day, Lincoln’s Birthday, Toussaint, Cinco de Mayo, Kamehameha Day, and my birthday. I don’t make money off this, it’s just something I do to share experiences with my friends. You could probably use a calendar, and if you don’t, you could probably use some pretty pictures.  Find them here.

Spies and Spinets

One of the oldies channels has been running back-to-back episodes of The Avengers (the British one, with Patrick Macnee), and Danger Man, with Patrick McGoohan, both Patricks playing men named John.  I remember watching the two Patricks as a youngster, and being enthusiastic fans of both.  (Danger Man seems to have been the first British series ever shown on US television, with its name changed to Secret Agent and a new theme song by rockabilly star Johnny Horton, which probably would have so...

Score

Yesterday my Brig of War sale went into overdrive, with an ad placed through Bookbub, which promptly sold a couple thousand copies (without, however, coming near the total required to reimburse myself for the cost of the ad). But the sale nevertheless managed to bring my Amazon ranking to #61, which placed it on the Amazon Bestselling 100 list. As you will see from the screen shot, it also placed ahead of Game of Thrones! I plan to savor the moment while it lasts, because this will never happ...

No Trauma

We saved ourselves untold amounts of trauma by not going shopping on Black Friday and going to the Bernardo Bird Refuge, right at sunset when the sandhill cranes were flying low, dropping their landing gear, and coming in to a soft landing. We saw hundreds of them, but oddly enough saw no other birds at all, though we heard bird calls from the trees, including one rather vocal owl that seemed to want to attract our attention.

No Turkey Here

Here in the States we’re about to enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday, which was established by Abraham Lincoln as a day of fasting, repentance, and prayer, and is now celebrated as a day of feasting and football.  (The repentance comes the day after.) Unfortunately I can’t invite you all to the house to enjoy my Seriously Deadly Stuffing Recipe, so I’m doing the next best thing— I’m putting one of my historical novels on sale for 99 cents, so that you can better enjoy the holiday in its historic...

We’re Baaaack!

Taos Toolbox, master class for writers of science fiction and fantasy, will return in 2019! The workshop will take place July 7-20, 2019, at our location in Angel Fire, New Mexico.  Nancy Kress and Walter Jon Williams will instruct, with the assistance of special guests George R.R. Martin and E.M. Tippetts. Like last year, George will be offering the Terran Award, a full tuition scholarship for students hailing from a non-English-speaking country. The application period begins December 1, 201...

Wild Cards Hulu

Variety has reported that two new original Hulu series will be based on the George RR Martin shared-world series Wild Cards. Hulu is developing multiple shows based on the “Wild Cards” book series, which is edited by “Game of Thrones” scribe George R.R. Martin. Variety has learned from sources that the streamer is set to open a writers room for two shows set in the “Wild Cards” universe. Universal Cable Productions will produce along with Hulu, with Andrew Miller set to write and executive pr...

A Century Ago