Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 93

Racked

Today was the first absolute success with cooking sous vide, as I brewed up a rack of ribs with the master recipe that Paul posted. I created a spice rub with garlic powder, sea salt, Indonesian white pepper, onion powder, smoked paprika, and chipotle.  (The latter two intended not only to add flavor to the rub but to add smoked flavor as well.) I added no sugar, molasses, or honey.  I live amid a cooking tradition that favors picante over sweet. I split the rack in two, applied the rub, and...

Psycho (Covered)

Here’s another addition to this week’s series of unlikely cover songs. This is by the Bobs, who also recorded a lot of original material, for all that there’s nothing on Youtube but the cover songs. (Note: the Bobs are difficult to track down even with Google, which would rather reveal Bob’s Burgers (the New Mexico chain), Bob’s Burgers (the cartoon), the rapper B.o.B., Bob’s Discount Furniture, Bob’s Stores, Bob’s Red Mill, Bob Gear, Bob Marley, Bob Goff, and Bob Evans.  The singing group...

Ginger Marmalade

Last week’s Rio Hondo featured Maureen McHugh’s Anova sous vide precision cooker and some short ribs that had been cooked for 24 hours in a water bath until unbelievably tender. I watch enough cooking shows to have seen TV hosts swooning over sous vide cooking, but for quite a few years a setup cost thousands of dollars.  I found an Anova online for under $150, so I got myself one. Sous vide is particularly recommended for red meat, but I wanted to experiment on better-flavored beef than is g...

Anvilstruck

I’m continuing my prep for the worldcon by investigating Finnish culture, and I discovered this video by Steve’n’Seagulls, with their own interpretation of a modern classic. Gotta love the anvil.  The accordion player with a dead animal on his head.  And the fact that, for the first time, I can actually understand the words.

Shandification

So what does the classic but gonzo 18th Century novel Tristram Shandy have to do with video and console games? Quite a lot, according to this video, which also offers some fairly astute ideas about narrative and structure.  Plus a newly-coined term with which the more pretentious among us can annoy our friends.  Win/win!

 

Long Live the New Zealand Space Corps!

Today we breathlessly awaited the launch of New Zealand’s first rocket, which finally happened after bad weather forced several delays.  Check the video to see the Electron two-stage vehicle leaping into orbit on its fiery kerosene/LOX tail.  (I advise going to full screen.) The Electron is a small, low-cost vehicle, designed to hurl aloft small satellites and/or cubesats (which Autocorrect keeps insisting really means “cubists,” some of whom definitely deserve to be flung into space).  The...

Whereat I Have Been

So I’ve been very, very busy. First, last week was the Rio Hondo workshop, hosted by Michaela Roessner and myself.  This was the 20th Anniversary Rio Hondo, which oddly enough did not make me feel old, but young, young, young!  It was the most trouble-free workshop experience I can remember, and everyone pitched in and worked to make the manuscripts and the food and the fun better. Left to right, we see: Walter Jon Williams, Sally Gwylan, Isabel Whiston, Barbara Ferrer, Maureen McHugh, Diana...

I Am Cover’d

Behold!  The Gregory Manchess cover for Quillifer, my next book, complete with blurb from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Junot Diaz!  How cool is that! The protagonist’s expression turned out to be key for this, and according to my editor went through several versions.  “It was a goldilocks scenario of just too old, too war weary, not enough snark, way too much snark, then, oh no, now you’re embarrassing drunk uncle . . . “ But what they really needed was this guy.  Part Flashman, part James B...

I Just Won’t Shut Up

Carl Slaughter interviews me for File 770.  I talk about Quillifer, so if the cover in the post just above intrigues you, feel free to check this out. And also, File 770‘s appreciation of the Praxis series.

For the Folks Abroad

This is an announcement for my readers outside of North America.  The Praxis, the first in my Dread Empire sequence, is on sale for 99 cents, or 99 cent-equivalents in whatever your currency happens to be.  You can find the book at Amazon.co.uk, iBooks, Kobo, and Google. This is the revised and slightly expanded Praxis, guaranteed to be even better than any Praxis you find at Brand X! I’m sorry I can’t extend the sale to readers in the U.S. and Canada, but I don’t control the ebook rights her...