Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 88

The Triumph of Virtue

The Book of Swords, edited by Gardner Dozois and with my story “The Triumph of Virtue,” is now available for pre-order.  You can order the book at your favorite local bookstore, or via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or (for ebook only) Google, Kobo, or iBooks.  The release date is October 10, but why wait? You might actually want to have a hardback of this, because of who’s in the table of contents.  Me, certainly, but also George RR Martin with a new Ice and Fire story, plus  Robin Hobb, Ken Liu, C...

Criminals?

So . . . the credit rating agency Equifax suffered a data breach that allowed criminals to gain access to the personal details of 143 million people, including names and social security numbers.  All anyone would need to perpetrate massive acts of identity theft. But that doesn’t mean their top executives can’t make a few bucks, right? Within 24 hours of the breach being discovered on July 29, three Equifax executives sold $2 million of their own stock. The announcement of the data breach did...

The Voynich Manuscript—- Solved?

My introduction to the Voynich Manuscript came in the Chaosium RPG Call of Cthulhu, in which it was presented as an item that could (1) increase your knowledge of the occult, while (2) blasting your sanity.  Oops! Despite its appearance in an RPG and the works of Lovecraft, Colin Wilson, and others, the Voynich Manuscript is a real thing, an early 15th Century handwritten manuscript, profusely illustrated by several several different unknown artists.  The text is in an unknown script, widely...

Kiss of Fire

This classic tango was playing in my head all morning.  I don’t know why, maybe I was stalking a pantheress or something. Anyway, here’s Gaby Moreno, Hugh Laurie, and the Copper-Bottom Band doing “Kiss of Fire.”  You’ve probably heard this song all your life without knowing its name, and now you do.

Veyshnoria, My Veyshnoria

The other day Belarus and their Russian allies declared war on three fictional countries.  But now one of the countries seems a little less fictional. As part of a joint military exercise taking place later this month, Belarus and Russia are mobilizing against three enemies: Vesbaria and Lubenia (strangely resembling Lithuania and Poland), along with Veyshnoria, which is located in northwestern Belarus, a part of the country that tends to vote against Belarus’ president-for-life, Alexander Lu...

Let There Be Chat

Live from Helsinki!  (Okay, so it’s slightly delayed.)  It’s the Hugo-nominated Coode Street Podcast, in which I am interviewed by Gary Wolfe, Jonathan Strahan, and Hugo-nominated Toolboxer Kelly Robson. We’re talking mostly about my next book, Quillifer! I had enormous fun with this interview, and I hope you can hear that.

Walter’s Saga Book VIII: the Return

I’ve been back at home for a few days, after seven or eight weeks away.  The cat looked at me like she vaguely remembered me, perhaps from a former life. Here’s a picture of our eclipse gear, the Astroscan and the Canon with their homemade solar filters.  All you need at an eclipse besides beer and snacks. I’m now catching up on all the work I postponed while I was away.  If you’re waiting for something from me, you may have to wait a little longer, but at least all contracts are signed and a...

Forty Years of Voyager

The Voyager spacecraft have been traveling through space for forty years, longer than most people on Earth have been alive. Here’s a brief appreciation of their achievement.

Les Tetons

Here we have the Grand Tetons, named (I imagine) by a very lonely and somewhat nearsighted French voyageur. Some decades ago I was visiting France, and fell into a conversation with a young French woman.  It went something like that. SHE: Is it true that in America you have mountains called ‘les grandes tétons?'” ME: Oui.  C’est vrai.  [Note my immaculate French] SHE: But how is that?  Is it not that America is a Puritan country? ME: American puritans don’t read French. Whatever the Puritans...

From the Earth to the Moon

You can’t say the week was without its variety. First the solar eclipse, and then four days in Grand Teton and Yellowstone parks.  So here I’ve documented the morning rainbow at the feet of the Lower Yellowstone Falls (it vanished a few minutes later as the sun rose), and below is the diamond ring as the sun emerged from behind the moon. I’ve stood on the bring of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, been pelted by the cold drizzle of geysers, and been stuck in traffic jams caused by a bison,...