Dispatches since 2005
The journal
Announcements, new editions, travel, diving, cooking and the working life of a novelist — 3,179 entries, all of them here in full.
December 24, 2020 · 327 words
One 9/11 Per Day
Hey, does anybody remember that when 9/11 happened, people got really shocked and upset and angry? The towers were smoking ruins, nearly 3000 people died, “United We Stand” banners appeared everywhere, and we invaded a couple of countries at the cost of hundreds of billions of dollars. Well, guess what? A 9/11 death to
Read entry →December 14, 2020 · 72 words
Updated!
I’ve updated my interview page, adding links to every interview I could track down over the last years, including one in Finnish and another on Swedish-language radio. The interviews were all listed on the blog when they first appeared, but now they’re all in one place. Good thing too, since the page was nearly five [&
Read entry →December 10, 2020 · 80 words
Explosive Celebration
Today I celebrated the release of Fleet Elements with a virtual cocktail party attended by several of my favorite writer friends. I decided to have a champagne cocktail, and to open the champagne bottle by a traditional method employed by the French military— slicing off the top of the bottle with a sword (or in
Read entry →December 9, 2020 · 78 words
Speaking to Excess
Suddenly there is a lot more of me out in the aether than there was a couple days ago. Perhaps more of me than you actually want, but if you ration yourself a little, at least I won’t be taking up your whole day. First up, a brief Q&A with Deborah Kalb. Next, […]
Read entry →December 7, 2020 · 904 words
The Sort of Thing That It Is
Fleet Elements releases on December 8, which is Wednesday! Available in both trade paperback and ebook formats, please locate Fleet Elements at your favorite local bookstore (which deserves your support), and also at the Bigs: Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Google Play, Kobo, Apple Books Two long, thoughtful reviews have rece
Read entry →December 5, 2020 · 255 words
Not Present
I haven’t been present here much, and for the most discouraging of reasons. About four weeks ago, Kathy’s younger sister Alice Emigh went into the hospital with a dreadful illness (not Covid). Kathy flew East to be with her, but New York got new lockdown rules, and Kathy wasn’t allowed into the hospital to see [&hellip
Read entry →November 17, 2020 · 275 words
New and Better Than Ever!
The acknowedleged inspiration for the games Cyberpunk Red and Cyberpunk 2077, my novel Hardwired has been re-released in its Thirtieth Anniversary Edition. My most popular SF novel now has new content, essays about the novel’s origins, another essay about the bizarre first German edition, plus a spiffier cover. The sub
Read entry →November 13, 2020 · 365 words
Record Numbers
So New Mexico today posted another record number of Covid cases. Most days we post a new record number. Our lowest numbers were in early September. Since then, daily reported cases have risen by a factor of 45. That’s 45 TIMES THE NUMBER WE HAD JUST TWO MONTHS AGO. The hospitals are at full capacity. […]
Read entry →November 1, 2020 · 396 words
Two Bulletins
Two bit of good news arrived on the same day! First, a review of Fleet Elements from Booklist. Fleet Elements. By Walter Jon Williams Dec. 2020. 512p. Harper Voyager, paper, $16.99 (9780062467041); e-book (9780062467065) This follow-up to The Accidental War (2018) fulfills the promise of the first book, which seemed to
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