Walter Jon WilliamsNovelist

Dispatches since 2005

The journal

Announcements, new editions, travel, diving, cooking and the working life of a novelist — 133 entries, all of them here in full.

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  1. December 29, 2019 · 168 words

    Gifts for Readers #9: Buffalo Dogs

    The prolific Lawrence M. Schoen has been nominated for the Hugo Award, the John W. Campbell, and six times for the Nebula Award. He is also a veteran of Taos Toolbox. In 2019 Lawrence published Buffalo Dogs, a prequel to his popular humorous adventure series about his interplanetary hypnotist, the Amazing Conroy. He’s

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  2. December 28, 2019 · 211 words

    Gifts for Readers #8: Boss Fight

    Taos Toolbox veteran Josh Roseman published his story collection Boss Fight in 2019. We all have battles to fight. Some of us rebel against the parasites in our heads; some of us face a choice between life and certain doom; some of us do magic when our parents say no; and some of us have to […]

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  3. December 27, 2019 · 95 words

    Gifts for Readers #7: Miles Morales and Ms Marvel

    Just because Xmas is over doesn’t mean you can’t still buy your favorite reader a gift or two, right? Saladin Ahmed’s novel Throne of the Crescent Moon, workshopped at Taos Toolbox, was nominated for just about every award in the field. Since then he’s made a lateral move into comics, and in 2019 started two series [&h

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  4. December 25, 2019 · 107 words

    Newtonmass

    Our celebration on Newtonmass Eve kept me busy, first preparing the roast beast and then eating it with half a dozen friends, after which I was too exhausted to do anything but nap and watch John Mulany’s extremely odd musical children’s special on Netflix, which is just the only sort of thing you’re capable of [&helli

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  5. December 23, 2019 · 108 words

    Gifts for Readers #6: The Vessel of Ra

    Taos Toolbox veteran Catherine Schaff-Stump has had quite the year. Her complex 19th Century familial fantasy novel The Vessel of Ra appeared along with its sequel The Pawn of Isis. Demonic beings in the form of Egyptian gods have attached themselves to the Klaereon family, and require a sacrifice of each generation: e

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  6. December 21, 2019 · 47 words

    Happy Solstice!

    From this day, things will only get better. Unless you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, in which case things will get, at least, darker. Unless y0u’re of the view that things will only get worse, in which case I have to admit that you may have a point.

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  7. December 20, 2019 · 125 words

    Gifts for Readers #5: Nosy Newfie Mysteries

    I think you can fairly claim that a mystery-solving dog falls within the realm of speculative fiction, don’t you? Taos Toolbox veteran Aleksa Baxter has devoted an entire series to her detecting dog. Here’s the word on Book II, published earlier this year (there are three more): Now that the pesky matter of her grandpa

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  8. December 19, 2019 · 90 words

    Home of the Wakanda Ducks

    The US Department of Agriculture has listed Wakanda on its web site as a free-trade partner. The department’s online tariff tracker hosted a detailed list of goods the two nations apparently traded, including ducks, donkeys and dairy cows. In the Marvel universe, Wakanda is the fictional East African home country of su

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  9. December 17, 2019 · 306 words

    Gifts for Readers #4: Nemesis

    Here’s Number Four in this year’s list of new books by veterans of Taos Toolbox, the master class in science fiction and fantasy. (And by the way, if you are a Toolbox vet, and have published something in 2019 that I don’t know about, feel free to drop me a line, okay?) Today’s works from Brian […]

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  10. December 15, 2019 · 195 words

    Gifts for Readers #3: Causality Bomb

    This is the third of a series of posts highlighting this year’s achievements of Taos Toolbox veterans. Today’s subject is Terry Gene’s Causality Bomb, which comes complete with its own sequel, Causality Rebound. A MIND-BENDING AND SUSPENSEFUL JOURNEY INTO EXISTENTIALISM AND THE INTER- CONNECTEDNESS OF THE HUMAN RACE. T

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  11. December 12, 2019 · 199 words

    Gifts for Readers #2: Riverland

    This is the second item in this year’s roundup of 2019 books by veterans of Taos Toolbox, the master class for writers of science fiction and fantasy. Today’s item is from Fran Wilde, who won the Andre Norton and Compton Crook Awards for her novel Updraft. She’s also received multiple nominations for the Hugo, Locus, a

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  12. December 11, 2019 · 272 words

    Gifts For Readers #1: Enemy Immortal

    Time again to do my year-end roundup of books published by veterans of Taos Toolbox, the master class for writers of science fiction and fantasy. Jim Meeks-Johnson’s Enemy Immortal is a fast-moving, action-oriented space opera that starts at a full sprint and then speeds up from there. Here’s the blurbage: An alien col

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