Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 81

Review Too Late: Nordic Noir

 Over our long winter months, I’ve been watching TV set in brooding northern climes.  How depressing can it get in northern Europe? Very, apparently. Bordertown .  Netflix kept trying to get me to watch this, but I assumed it was set on the US-Mexican border, and I’m all too familiar with that.  But then Netflix played me the trailer, unasked the way they do, and I realized everyone was speaking Finnish.  So hey, that’s more interesting! Bordertown stars acting stalwart Ville Virtanen as Detec...

The Muffin Conundrum

I have an important scientific question here.  The answer may save the world, or at least my breakfast. I am fond of English muffins.  (Or, as I believe they are known in England, “muffins.”) Yet these muffins have one peculiarity that I can neither understand nor condone. When I take a muffin out of the container to drop into the toaster, there is always one corner of the muffin that’s soggy.  (I know a round object can’t have a corner, but bear with me.  You know what I mean.)  Opposite the...

Slammed

I haven’t been posting here much, or posting anywhere really.  I’ve been just a little bit slammed. I’m writing Quillifer the Knight.  I’m working on Taos Toolbox.  I’m doing my taxes, and going cross-eyed looking at all the little receipts that made sense months ago, but don’t now, and looking for the little receipts that I know I once had, but don’t seem to have at present.  And I got hit with the copy-edit for The Accidental War.   Plus I have, y’know, a life.  Which I recommend to those o...

“Searching For Plob Day Smores”

Back in the Sixties, I’m sure it seemed plausible to Arthur Clarke that by 2001, we’d have HAL 9000. Instead, by 2017, we got Alexa.

Sorry, Canada

So John Shuster and his buddies went on to win gold in the Greatest Ever Winter Sport, which is to say curling. The US has never won gold in curling before, but taking 5 points in a single end pretty well speaks for itself. On the other hand, Canada has never lost a medal in curling before.   This is deeply strange, but then the Strange Winds have been blowing for a while. And incidentally, all of these guys live within about 50 miles of my birthplace.  Go, Team Minnesota! In addition to Gre...

Samurai Hat

Over the weekend I went to Boskone, which was such a pleasant scene that I spent no time whatsoever thinking of ways to amuse anyone other than myself.  And then I flew back and was ill by the time I got home.  (Note to self, and to the rest of you: don’t ever order the chicken tikka masala in the Dallas airport.) While I get over the megrims, please enjoy this excellent samurai video, narrated by a guy in a stupid hat.

 

Boskone

I will be spending the weekend in Boston, attending their excellent science fiction convention, Boskone.  Since the convention is a very fine one, and it’s a large regional convention that is still about books, I urge those of you who can be there to attend. Here’s my schedule, for anyone who would care to connect with me. Reading by Walter Jon Williams

Format: Reading
16 Feb 2018, Friday 16:30 – 17:00, Griffin (Westin)

Walter Jon Williams

 

Class Structure in SF and Fantasy

Format: Panel...

Carnival Time!

It’s Mardi Gras, Y’all! And to celebrate, here’s Kermit Ruffins from his Jam in the Van series, with “Drop Me Off in New Orleans.” And to top it off, just cuz I like the video, here’s “When I Die, You Better Second Line” from the series Treme.  It starts a  bit funereal, but doesn’t stay that way for long.

 

Lords of All Media

Having wrapped its Joker tentacles around the world of mass media, Wild Cards is even more out there than it’s been up till now. Pinterest!  Twitter!  Google!  Instagram!  Facebook!  Wherever you hang out, Wild Cards will be there. Here be the links: Wild Cards Official Web Site: http://www.wildcardsworld.com/ https://www.facebook.com/WildCardsWorld/ http://www.instagram.com/wildcardsworld https://www.pinterest.com/WildCardsWorld/ http://www.twitter.com/wildcardsseries https://plus.google.com...

One Way Authors Think

The publisher got around to sending me my contributor’s copy of The Book of Swords, nearly four months after the rest of you had probably got yours. I’ve been reading it, and after  I noticed how damn good an anthology it was, with a double helping of very talented authors like Ken Liu and CJ Cherryh and Scott Lynch and Elizabeth Bear and Daniel Abraham and George RR Martin, I noticed something else, which was that many of the stories had certain commonalities.  Which tells you a certain way...