Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 75

Launch Day!

 

Launch Day! It’s no accident! Two new books drop this week! September 4 is the release date for The Accidental War, which continues the story of star-crossed lovers Martinez and Sula begun in The Praxis.  Seven years after the conclusion of the Naxid War, they find themselves caught up in a war that no one wanted, no one planned, no one expected, and no one knows how to stop. Look for The Accidental War at your local bookstore, or find it at Barnes & Nob...

Fraught. (And Schizophrenic)

My life at the moment is fraught, because I’m juggling two important tasks.  First, I’m gearing up for the launch of The Accidental War next week.  Second, I’m madly trying to finish Quillifer the Knight, which is also due next week. I’ve got three scenes to go, but the problem with my scenes is that I never know if they’re going to be 3000-word scenes or 15,000-word scenes.  Since my books tend to end in a great big rush— plus maybe a few explosions— I think the scenes will be short, but I c...

La Reina

I have been lax in not posting a tribute to Aretha Franklin, so here it is.  This is a Kennedy Center Honors tribute to Carole King, in which the Queen of Soul takes one of King’s most famous songs and shows what she can do with a piano, a mink coat, and her own astounding voice. I have a strangely precise memory of first hearing this song when I was a kid in Duluth.  I, my father, and some friends had just been to the arena to watch a hockey game, and we were heading home down Michigan Stre...

I Am At Bubonicon

. . . or will be shortly, anyway. The weekend will be spent at the 50th annual Bubonicon held in Albuquerque.  In the time, I’ve missed maybe 6-8 of them, and attended all the rest. I’ll be doing a reading, participating in panel discussions, and giving a speech. But if you don’t come for me, come for guests of honor John Scalzi, Mary Robinette Kowal, Lee Moyer, and Eric Velhagen.  And if not for them, for the other confirmed guests: Daniel Abraham, Arlan Andrews, Sr., John Barnes, Jeff Benha...

It Begins

Another set of goodies arrived in the mail over the weekend, copies of The Accidental War fresh off the press. The official release date is September 4, but apparently the books actually exist, and in my experience books that actually exist do manage to find their way to stores.  So if you’re interested in the further adventures of Sula and Martinez, you might just want to take a stroll through your favorite local bookstore.

Top of the World

Now here’s an interesting phenomenon.  It’s raining on the left side of this photo.  On the right side, it’s clear. This is Taos Ski Valley, which is quite narrow.  This allows you to observe weather as it creeps along between the walls of the canyon.  There was one memorable day when I was sitting on the balcony of the lodge and watched a snowstorm soar up the canyon.  Except I was above the weather, and so I saw sunny white clouds above, and a dark snowstorm below plastering everything with...

What’s Happening?

My current reading is Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, an amiable, eccentric pseudo-Victorian work.  Reading it is pleasurable, but I’m over 100 pages in and as yet have no idea what the novel is about, if anything.  Amiable eccentric Victorians amble through the work encountering one another, and there either is or isn’t a sea monster lurking off in the estuary (I rather think there isn’t), and people might or might not love one another, but everyone is reasonably reasonable and there doesn’...

Loin

Here at the height of summer, fruits and veg are flying in from the farmers’ markets, as wonderful accompaniments to the vast hunk of protein I cooked tonight.  Here we see a pork loin, to which I added aromatic herbs from the garden (not ours), and which I then cooked sous vide to a nice juicy pinkish medium, after which I browned the exterior on the grill and sliced it up just as it was bathed in the rays of the setting sun. Served with organic sweet corn and gazpacho made with heirloom tom...

New Format Quillifer

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What should arrive in the mail but a box of Quillifer!  These aren’t the hardbacks that have been out since October, but brand-new trade paperbacks! For those of you who didn’t want to shell out for the hardback, and prefer fine crisp paper to ebooks, this is clearly for you! Order Quillifer at your favorite bookstore, or find it hereabouts: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Google, iBooks, and Kobo

Aloy vs. the Apocalypse

I just finished playing Horizon Zero Dawn after 150 hours of gameplay.  It’s not like I’ve been slacking off my other duties to play the game, because those 150 hours started back in January.  I had to slot in a few hours here, a few hours there, and sometimes a month or two would have to go by before I could get back to it.  My understanding of game continuity suffered.  I’d forget who those minor characters were. The game has been widely praised and won a fistful of awards, including the “...