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SFF Author: Walter Jon Williams

(1963- )
Walter Jon Williams Williams was born in Duluth, Minnesota and attended the University of New Mexico, where he received his BA degree in 1975. He currently lives in Valencia County, south of Albuquerque in New Mexico. Williams played roleplaying games (in a group with other sf authors including George R.R. Martin and Melinda Snodgrass) and has written both fiction and rulebooks for the games Privateers and Gentlemen from Fantasy Games Unlimited and Cyberpunk from R. Talsorian Games. In 2006, Williams founded the Taos Toolbox, a two-week writer’s workshop for fantasy and science fiction writers.

Angel Station: Needs some humans we can root for

Angel Station by Walter Jon Williams

Ubu Roy and Beautiful Maria are a couple of young adults who were genetically engineered by their “father,” a spaceship pilot and explorer who recently committed suicide on his ship, leaving his two “kids” to fend for themselves. The money is gone, and so are their prospects, so Ubu and Maria set out to try to make enough money to avoid foreclosure on their ship.

Luckily, they both have a couple of special skills engineered into their DNA. When they happen upon an unknown alien civilization,

The Boolean Gate: Mark Twain saves the world?

The Boolean Gate by Walter Jon Williams

Walter Jon Williams’ The Boolean Gate is a story about the famous friendship between Sam Clemens / Mark Twain and Nikola Tesla. Clemens was fascinated with Tesla’s scientific experiments and spent a lot of time in Tesla’s lab. Williams’ version of this relationship suggests that Clemens discovered that Tesla’s genius had some supernatural help. When Clemens realizes what’s going on, he has to make a decision that may affect the future of the human race.

The Boolean Gate is a fast-moving novella (I read it in just a couple of hours) filled with lots of interesting facts about Sam Clemens,

Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Walter Jon Williams | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Best of Walter Jon Williams: 12 smart stories

The Best of Walter Jon Williams by Walter Jon Williams

The Best of Walter Jon Williams (2021) is a 663-page tome containing, as its name implies, twelve of Walter Jon Williams’ best stories spanning four decades of his writing career. Fans will appreciate Subterranean Press’s beautiful hardcover edition of this collection (there’s also an audio edition). And for readers who aren’t familiar with this prolific writer, The Best of Walter Jon Williams is a good place to start getting to know him.

Magazine Monday: Subterranean Magazine, Fall 2012 and Winter 2013

Welcome news: Subterranean Magazine, a quarterly publication, has announced that it will be available for free download from here on out. The announcement was accompanied by the free editions of the Fall 2012 and the Winter 2013 issues, each of which contains a number of excellent novellas — a length for which Subterranean Press, as well as the magazine, are known. Many, including me, consider the novella to be the ideal length for science fiction, fantasy and horror: it provides the author with enough space for world building, but not more space than many stories need.

Wild Cards: Try this in audio format

Wild Cards edited by George R.R. Martin

Sept 15, 1946: Wild Card Day. When aliens from the planet Takis wanted to test their newly developed virus on a species that is similar to them, naturally, they brought it to Earth. Though they were thwarted by one of their own princes, a foppish alien who has become known to Earthlings as Dr. Tachyon, the virus fell into the hands of evil Dr. Tod, a Nazi sympathizer who, thinking it a biological weapon, decided to drop it on New York City. His archenemy, Jetboy,

Aces High: There’s always something fresh and new in WILD CARDS

Aces High edited by George R.R. Martin

Aces High is the second volume of George R.R. Martin’s long-running WILD CARDS anthology. In the first volume, Wild Cards, we learned how aliens from the planet Takis decided to test their new virus by using humans as their guinea pigs. In the 1960s, they let loose what has now become known as the Wild Card virus on Manhattan. Much of the world population died and many of the survivors became grossly deformed and are now referred to as “Jokers.” A much smaller proportion of those who were infected gained one or more superpowers and are now known as “Aces.” In Wild Cards,

Down and Dirty: Lacks cohesion, but still entertaining

Down and Dirty edited by George R.R. Martin

Jube: Hear who won the Miss Jokertown Beauty Pageant last week?
Croyd: Who?
Jube: Nobody.

I continue to listen to the new audiobook version of the WILD CARDS books as they are released by Random House Audio. Down and Dirty, the fifth volume, was published a few weeks ago. If you haven’t read the previous volumes (Wild Cards, Aces High,

Ace in the Hole: WILD CARDS gets back on track

Ace in the Hole edited by George R.R. Martin

Ace in the Hole (1990), the sixth WILD CARDS mosaic novel, is a vast improvement over the last two novels (Aces Abroad and Down and Dirty). Down and Dirty, especially, lacked cohesion due to George R.R. Martin’s lack of editorial control over his authors, something he laments in that book’s afterword. I suspect the experience was a good lesson because he’s fixed the issue in Ace in the Hole.

Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honor of Jack Vance

Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honor of Jack Vance edited by George R.R. Martin & Gardner Dozois

Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honor of Jack Vance is the best anthology I’ve ever read. These stories will be enjoyed by any SFF reader, but they’ll be ten times more fun if you’ve read Jack Vance’s The Dying Earth, because they are all written in honor of that fantastic work. Each tale is written in the style of Vance,

Kat Hooper´s rating: 5 | Dan Simmons, Elizabeth Hand, Elizabeth Moon, Gardner Dozois, George R.R. Martin, Glen Cook, Jack Vance, Jeff VanderMeer, John C. Wright, Kage Baker, Liz Williams, Matthew Hughes, Mike Resnick, Neil Gaiman, Paula Volsky, Phyllis Eisenstein, Tad Williams, Tanith Lee, Walter Jon Williams | Audio, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 6 comments |

Golden Reflections: Stories that boldly blend sci-fi and alternate history

Golden Reflections (Mask of the Sun & stories) edited by Joan Spicci Saberhagen & Robert E. Vardeman

Golden Reflections is an anthology of stories based on Fred Saberhagen’s Mask of the Sun, the premise of which is the existence of certain goggles that allow the wearer to see events in the future. But it only works sometimes, and it’s unclear what it chooses to show the wearer and why. Golden Reflections includes Saberhagen’s original Mask of the Sun while bringing together several well-known sci-fi/alternate history writers who build on his original concept and its world.

Rogues: A diverse and satisfying collection

Rogues edited by George R.R. Martin & Gardner Dozois

Rogues, a short-story anthology by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, is a marvelously diverse collection of stories and genres, tied together by those scoundrels, those tricksters, those rascals, those rogues that you can’t help but love. I listened to it on audiobook and loved the experience, especially because a few of the readers were actors from Game of Thrones.

When I picked this up, I was most excited to hear two stories in particular: “How the Marquis Got His Coat Back,”

Kate Lechler´s rating: 4.5 | Cherie Priest, Gardner Dozois, George R.R. Martin, Joe Abercrombie, Michael Swanwick, Neil Gaiman, Patrick Rothfuss, Phyllis Eisenstein, Scott Lynch, Walter Jon Williams | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |

Next SFF Author: Bill Willingham

Previous SFF Author: Tad Williams

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Do it! One of the best things I've read in recent years.
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David C Walton on Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil: Ambitious, atmospheric, and ultimately unevenJuly 3, 2025
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