. . . and Other Stories

I'm pleased to report that I've signed contracts for The Green Leopard Plague and Other Stories, to be published by Night Shade in April 2010.

Yes!!! You have only a few weeks to wait!!! Night Shade moves fast!

(Actually the book has been in production for a while now. The actual contract was somewhat delayed, though.)

This valuable volume was edited by Jonathan Strahan, and contents are as follows:

1. Brilliant Introduction, by Charles Stross
2. Daddy's World
3. Lethe
4. The Last Ride of German Freddie
5. Millennium Party
6. The Green Leopard Plague
7. The Tang Dynasty Underwater Pyramid
8. Incarnation Day
9. Send Them Flowers
10. Pinocchio

This is a very nice selection of my short fiction from the last ten years or so, including two Nebula winners, a Sidewise Award winner, and stories which, while nominated for Nebulas and Hugos, inexplicably failed to win.

The collection also features brief afterwards to the stories in which I explain their genesis in, I hope, an amusing fashion.

I invite you to purchase said collection at the earliest opportunity. It will only make your day a better one.

Story. Plot. Imagination.

Yesterday I saw Terry Gilliam's new movie The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus--- yes, a month or more after the rest of you saw it--- and I came out of the theater with a theory. But first, a brief review.

The movie is dreadfully slow. Much of the dialog just meanders about and doesn't advance the story (apparently a lot of it was improvised by the actors, and it sounds it). Tony, our main character--- the stranger played variously by Johnny Depp, Jude Law, Colin Farrel, and mostly by the late Heath Ledger--- is a mystery on his first appearance and a mystery at the end. (Honestly, how often do I have to say it--- tell us what your character wants!) Terry Gilliam provides plenty of dots, but doesn't bother to connect them in a meaningful way. Part of the inconsistencies of character may not be his fault--- I mean, Tony is played by four actors--- but if I were in charge (of this movie, if not the world) that would make me want to work all the harder to make the character's arc clear.

At the end of the movie, I couldn't tell whether Tony was a con man, a good guy trapped by bad men and/or his own ambitions, a victim, or a player. I didn't know whether he was a genuine amnesiac or a fake one. Gilliam provides evidence for all of these, but never decides between one or the other.

I've liked some Gilliam films more than others, but even my least favorites had moments of wonderful imagination and beauty. This film is no exception, although there's a lot of flat, uninteresting action between the gorgeous fantasy bits. Much of the camera work is simply dull, and much of the action is busy to the point of incoherence.

For instance, a large number of the dramatic scenes between people consist entirely of two-shots--- shots from a medium distance showing both people. There is a surprising lack of closeups. (My god! I thought. This is filmed like a low-budget European movie from the Sixties!)

A closeup lets you into the actor's mind--- you can see from his expression how the line is meant to be understood, or whether he's lying, or confused, or trying to fast-talk his way through a situation. If you can't quite make out the face, all that nuance is lost.

And Gilliam makes it even worse, because during Lily Cole's big dramatic scene, he not only films it in medium shot but has the actress's face covered by her hair! You can't see anything but waving arms and flying red hair. WTF?

So all this leads up to Walter's Theory of Gilliam. Which is that Gilliam is infatuated with Story, and with Image, but disdains Plot.

Story, for the purpose of this discussion, is what actually happens during the course of the film/play/novel. Plot, however, is how the Story is revealed to the Viewer/Reader, each element of the Story arranged so as to enthrall and delight the audience.

Gilliam clearly adores Story. His films are full of references to classic Stories, be they the story of Percival, or Agamemnon and Clytemaestra, or stories about deals or dealings with the Devil. Baron Munchausen, which is my favorite Gilliam movie, is about a storyteller.

And Gilliam loves nothing more than Image. Give him an opportunity to sock the viewer in the eye with a giant phantasmagoric fruit salad of surprise, majesty, and delight, and he'll take it.

He's the great exponent of the unfettered imagination. All his films, in the end, are about the collision between Imagination and Reality. Usually Reality intrudes in an unpleasant way at the end of the film--- Brazil comes to mind--- but Imagination can triumph here and there, as in Time Bandits and Munchausen.

And in any case, Gilliam's sympathies are entirely with Imagination.

But Gilliam hates Plot. I'm not sure why. All those Stories that he loves--- Percival and Agamemnon and deal-with-the-Devil--- all have Plots. But Gilliam can't really be bothered to figure out what his stories and ideas and images actually mean.

Maybe he thinks he knows. But he's sure as hell not telling me.

I suspect he feels that the discipline of plotting would stand in the way of the unfettered imagination. (What--- cage all those fabulous, free, delirious Images within the iron bars of Meaning! How ordinary! How bourgeois! How unSpecial it would make me!)

And he's probably right--- at least some of those Images and Ideas would be tempered or altered. But the ones that remained would have a good deal more sock.

But then, I'm Mr. Plot. I like arcs and plot points and reveals. (Arcs! You want my characters to have arcs! Next you'll want them to follow that stupid Hero's Journey!)

((No, Mr. Gilliam, anything but that! I'm as bored with the Hero's Journey as anyone, trust me!))

What an arc means is that the character changes. And if he changes, he's just more interesting. The absolutely flat arc of Raoul Duke in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas made the movie unwatchable. I couldn't stand being penned up with him for two hours, and neither could anyone else!

Now it has to be said that many characters do have arcs in Doctor Parnassus, including Doctor Parnassus himself and his daughter Valentina. Even the Devil has an arc, and the Devil never has an arc. They're all much more interesting than Tony.

I have a feeling that Gilliam started with the idea of a traveling show carrying a magic mirror around, and the magic mirror gave him an opportunity for all sorts of fantastic imagery, and that everything else was kind of an afterthought. Tony entered, hanging by the neck below Blackfriars Bridge, because Gilliam needed someone for the audience to first experience the Imaginarium alongside of. But other than fulfilling that basic need--- that an of being able to put a Bankable Star like Heath Ledger in the film--- Gilliam wasn't that interested in the character.

Now, it may be that I'm completely wrong here. All the answers may in fact be in the script, and if I read the shooting script I may be able to understand the plot a lot better, along with the characters' arcs . It could be that Tony's arc is buried somewhere in his scenes, which are so full of shouting, crashing objects, wild images, and frantic action, that I completely missed it. In which case, Mr. Gilliam, that's still your fault.

And now, here's the one real SPOILER, so if you plan to see the movie you should stop now.

Tony is first encountered hanging beneath Blackfriar's Bridge with mystic runes painted on his forehead. We're led to understand that he hanged himself in remorse for his shady business dealings. But he's later shown to have swallowed a pipe that allowed him to breathe while a noose was around his neck. Why did he hang himself AND CHEAT? I mean, what was the point?

It may be that Tony was hanged by the Russian Maffya types he was in business with, in which case his efforts to cheat death were well taken. But the Russians didn't seem surprised when they saw him alive later in the movie.

And the mystic runes? Mr Nick gives half an explanation, but never mind.

When Latin Tattoos Go Wrong

I knew people tattooed idiotic dog-Chinese on their skins, but Latin? Latin from an online translation program?

You know, I liked Pulp Fiction a lot, too.

But I didn't like it so much that I needed a quarter of my chest devoted to Sam Jackson's badass Biblical quotation. I sure as hell didn't need it put in Latin. If I did need it in Latin, I wouldn't have put it through an online translator, either. Why do you people think this is a good idea?

Look, it even left "of" in your text.

Twice.

That should have been a clue that your translation was not ready to be etched forever into your flesh.

Also, when you're running it through the translator, make sure you've spelled the English correctly in first place, mm?

It should have read "though I walk in the valley..." not "thought I walk..."

How can I tell? You've got "sententia" sitting right there as the third word. Come to think of it, it should read "sententia" but you managed to misspell in Latin the word you misspelled in English.

And many more terrible, terrible examples.


[via Shelly Rae Clift]

The Obligatory Hugo Pimping Topic

I notice that other writers are out in the blogosphere doing what they do best: working hard to get folks to give them awards.

Yes!!! It's Hugo Nomination Time!

I've never pimped for awards (at least, not in such a public place). I've always made the assumption that you know damn well what I've published, and therefore have an obligation to vote for my works, so that any awards I win will reflect glory upon you all.

I have to admit, however, that this approach doesn't seem to be working for me, particularly in regard to the Hugos. I was first nominated for a Hugo in 1988, and I've been nominated any number of times in the years since, and I've yet to win. Over twenty years is long enough to wait, don't you think?

I have therefore decided to take matters in hand and give you comprehensive instructions in this matter.

First, check out the Hugo Nomination page at the Aussicon 4 website. You're eligible to vote if you have at least a supporting membership at Aussicon, or if you were a member of Anticipation, last year's Worldcon in Montreal.

If you don't fit either of these categories, you should (a) get a supporting membership to Aussicon, or (b) mug someone who's eligible, and steal their ballot.

Once you've got a ballot, your task is relatively easy, because I only published two things in 2009. Here's the information you need to properly fill out the ballot:

Novel:

THIS IS NOT A GAME, Orbit Books, April 2009.

Novelette:

"Abrazonde," SONGS FROM THE DYING EARTH, Ed. Martin & Dozois, Subterranean Press/Harper 2009.

Don't let the fact that "Abrazonde" was set in Jack Vance's universe stop you from nominating it. After all, people will vote for BATTLESTAR GALACTICA even though the original series was a total ripoff of George Lucas and Erich von Daniken. (And besides, mine was an hommage, not a ripoff. And a damn good hommage, if you ask me.)

You may then add any other works to the ballot that you like, providing that they're written by authors obscure enough that I have a chance of beating them. (For God's sake don't nominate anything by Connie Willis or Neil Gaiman. Those guys are so popular that they'll trample me into the dust!)

Follow these instructions faithfully, and soon you'll be able to bask in the reflection of my shiny new Hugo award!

Fail, and we're doomed to another disappointing award season, in which totally unworthy writers are given awards that rightfully belong to me.

The choice is clear--- glory, or sad disappointment. It's all up to you!

Zero Rupees

A new weapon has been deployed in India's war against official corruption--- the zero rupee note.

. . . the idea was first conceived by an Indian physics professor at the University of Maryland, who, in his travels around India, realized how widespread bribery was and wanted to do something about it. He came up with the idea of printing zero-denomination notes and handing them out to officials whenever he was asked for kickbacks as a way to show his resistance. Anand took this idea further: to print them en masse, widely publicize them, and give them out to the Indian people. He thought these notes would be a way to get people to show their disapproval of public service delivery dependent on bribes. The notes did just that. The first batch of 25,000 notes were met with such demand that 5th Pillar has ended up distributing one million zero-rupee notes to date since it began this initiative. Along the way, the organization has collected many stories from people using them to successfully resist engaging in bribery.

I Am A Mere Drudge

Page proofs finished.

2-hour endless dispute with UPS about getting the page proofs back to the publisher. Result: proofs still in hand.

Novelet still unfinished.

All fun postponed to the morrow.

Interviews With the Best

We find a brief but informative interview with me on Scifibookshelf.com.

Revenge/Bugatti

Oh yeah. Conan's having fun now.

Reviews Too Late: The Good Shepherd

The Good Shepherd (2006) was a pet project for Robert de Niro. He'd been trying to make his fictionalized history of the CIA for ten years, but one director after another was, er, "suddenly unavailable." (You might think there might be a story there. I'm sure there wasn't. Ahem. [Looks nervously over shoulder.])

Anyway, in the end de Niro directed it himself, and it must be said that he did a damned good job. Of course the incredible star power of his cast must have made it easier for him.

In this film we have Matt Damon, Alec Baldwin, de Niro himself, Billy Crudup, Michael Gambon, John Turturro, William Hurt, John Pesci, and Angelina Jolie in the thankless but obligatory role of the Wife Who Whines. ("You're off saving the world for democracy, and leaving me in this enormous Georgetown mansion with millions of dollars and nothing to do!")

We open with CIA special operations dude Edward Wilson (Damon) listening to the disaster of the Bay of Pigs over the radio. For some reason this makes him flash back to his days in Yale circa 1939, when he played Poor Little Buttercup in an all-male production of HMS Pinafore. So ravishing does he look in drag that he's immediately tapped for Skull & Bones, the covert society so utterly secret that everyone on the planet knows they run the United States. We are then plunged into the mayhem of a Skull & Bones initiation, which is so brainless, juvenile, and casually cruel that it immediately convinced me that I didn't want these guys running an ice cream stand, let alone a country. Let alone the world.

(There is naked mud wrestling involved. Since I don't see the point in male naked mud wrestling I conclude that the Bonesmen really must have thought Matt Damon was a chick.)

Part of the initiation involves the pledge lying naked in a coffin and confessing something embarrassing or disgraceful so that his brothers can blackmail over it the rest of his life. Wilson confesses that he's kept secret the suicide of his father (who was an admiral and a Bonesman himself).

So right in the opening scenes we discover all that we need to know: that we're right smack in the middle of the East Coast Establishment--- all male, all white, all Republican, all Old Money, all Protestant (with a teeny-tiny democratic sprinkling of Catholics). We find out that our story's about secret societies, about people pretending to be what they're not, about keeping and revealing secrets, and that it's all going to lead to disaster at the Bay of Pigs. (We also discover a surprising amount of cross-dressing among the upper classes, which they seem to be able to keep secret from the rest of us.)

Back in the film's present, the CIA concludes that the Bay of Pigs failed on account of a mole giving the Cubans the location of the invasion. (Of course the plan itself wasn't at fault: attacking 225,000 armed Cubans with 1500 lightly-armed exiles couldn't possibly go wrong.) Our hero discovers that he's up for the chopping block if he doesn't find the mole pronto.

Meanwhile, in Flashback Land, we see Matt Damon being asked to spy on one of his professors who's suspected of being a not-so-closet Nazi; we see his falling for a deaf-mute girl but being forced to marry Angelina Jolie after he accidentally knocks her up (better men have been there before you, Matt); and we see his recruitment for the wartime OSS by a crusty old general (de Niro).

What follows is a pretty darn good history of the CIA, with the serial numbers not very thoroughly filed off. (I wonder why they bothered to sanitize the movie at all.)

I'll even give you the key. Bill Sullivan is Bill Donovan, Phillip Allen is Allen Dulles, Arch Cummings is Kim Philby, Joseph Palmi is Sam Giancana, Richard Hayes is Richard Helms, Yuri Moldin is Anatoly Golitsin, and Matt Damon's character is (mostly) Richard Bissell, though there's a school of thought that he's also James Jesus Angleton. (Personally, I think Angleton was a much more interesting character.)

Oh, and MK-ULTRA is MK-ULTRA.

The film is exceedingly well made and well directed. There's symbolism, foreshadowing, a fine music score, well-drawn suspense, fine acting, lots of murky sets, and really brutal and unpleasant violence, and excellent use of sound--- I mean, the use of sound was so good that I actually noticed the use of sound, which is not something I usually notice. The movie probably benefitted enormously from the production delays, which allowed fine-tuning of the script.

All the more odd, given the time the filmmakers had to think about it, that the central character remains such a blank. Matt Damon does an excellent job with what he's given, but he's not given much. Edward Wilson is such a stick-up-the-ass mannequin that we never find out why he's in the spy game at all. Is it because he's a patriot? A romantic? Because he can't think of anything else to do, or because he's only doing what's expected of him? Is he a cold-hearted manipulative prick, or is he just playing one for the CIA?

We find out he's an arrogant SOB. When he's trying to recruit a mafia don to kill Castro, the gangster says: "Let me ask you something... we Italians, we got our families, and we got the church; the Irish, they have the homeland, Jews their tradition; even the [blacks], they got their music. What about you people, Mr. Wilson, what do you have?"

"The United States of America," Wilson says. "The rest of you are just visiting."

He's also described as "a serious son of a bitch with no sense of humor."

But we never find out what makes him tick. The film commits the cardinal sin of leaving its main character a blank.

We are told that the KGB call Wilson "Mother," because he cares so much for his agents. But we never see him caring about anything except his family--- and even them, not so much.

Rule Number One for characters is: tell us what your character wants. If you don't, the audience won't care.

I wasn't interested in Wilson but I was fascinated by his milieu. I still give it three and a half cyanide capsules--- and if you're interested in how movies are put together, it's well worth watching just to admire the movie's structure.

Possibly the Longest Year of Your Life

Did I mention that I've completed the rewrite of Deep State, the sequel to This Is Not a Game? This would be the New Improved Deep State, Now with Editorial Input.

I expect the book will appear in a year or so. You'll all have something to look forward to in 2011!

As an aside, I have an idea for an alternate title: Revolution Creep. What are y'all's preferences?

Pounding. Throbbing. Throbbing. Pounding.

I was reading a review of This Is Not a Game today that mentioned it was a "heart-pounding" thriller.

I didn't actually intend TINAG to be heart-pounding. I was going for suspense rather than terror.

But if your heart pounds anyway, that's okay with me. I have no objection at all.

Haitian Relief Page

100,000 dead in Haiti. That's 9/11 times 33. That's twice the number of casualties in the London Blitz.

Google has set up a disaster relief page for contributions to relief organizations, including UNICEF and CARE. Doctors Without Borders gets mine.

On this page you can also donate directly to Haitian hospitals, which would probably be a good thing even if they weren't overwhelmed by a titanic natural disaster..

A Question of Import

Something I always wanted to know:

Is the "wang dang doodle" the same as the "do wah diddy?"

Walter's First Contest

I've never run a contest before, but now that This Is Not a Game has appeared in paperback, I find myself in a generous mood.

As in years past, this year we produced a calendar for 2010, in this case featuring photos taken by me in Turkey and in France, including this one of the travertines at Pamukkale. The calendar includes holidays for Canada, the US, and Mexico, and also features notable dates such as Jules Verne's birthday, as well as my own (so you'll know when to send presents).

So here's what you need to do. Send me a photo of yourself along with your personal copy of the new mass-market paperback of This Is Not a Game. I'll put the photos in a hat (as it were), and the first two names drawn will receive copies of the calendar. Autographed, if you like.

Where do you send the photos? My email address is not hard to come by. It's a simple ARG-like puzzle, which should be easy to solve, and is appropriate to the subject matter of the book.

My favorite photos will also be published here, assuring your image instant immortality. And if you're immortal, you'll need a calendar in order to know what day it is. It's a win/win situation!

The Praise is Endless as the Sea

This Is Not a Game has grown up, into a mass-market paperback! (Yeah, okay, that doesn't make sense, but bear with me.)

Probably on that account, there have been a lot of reviews appearing in the last few weeks, so I'm going to take a few moments to point to them with pride.

From Hornswoggler:

And if you know anything about Williams -- if you've read his sophisticated and witty Drake Maijstral novels; or Aristoi, the great lost SF novel of the early '90s; or the two magnificent far-future science fantasies Metropolitan and City on Fire; or incredible short stories like "Prayers On the Wind" -- you know that he's one of the best writers in the speculative fiction field, as consistently inventive and exciting and as compelling a storyteller as anyone. If you haven't read Williams yet, go grab whichever of those earlier books sounds the most intriguing -- or Days of Atonement, one of the best near-future police-procedurals ever written, or the great cyberpunk novel Hardwired, or...you can get this book, which is still available, and practically new . . .

This Is Not a Game has one of the best subtitles I've seen in many years -- "A Novel of Greed, Betrayal, and Social Networking" -- and that's a good description of this novel. It's a compelling story about the kind of people that have been driving the future for the last generation, and what might be next; a thriller on both a conceptual SFnal level as well as in its plotting. As always, Williams tells a story that keeps the pages turning while creating real, rounded characters in a deeply believable world -- he's just one of the best out there at the SF game.

From Mystery Book Blog:

For a 462-page book, this is a pretty fast read, because Walter Jon Williams does a great job of moving this action-based thriller along. One of the underlying concepts is complex, but Williams doesn't let that stand in his way of writing a good tale. He distills what readers need to know into digestible packets and lets it rip . . .

I'm going to use that word again: surprise. It was a pleasant surprise to find a realistic female character who didn't feel it necessary to be a superwoman or to compete with the big boys, but who turned out to be brave and resourceful despite her self-doubts.

And from Fantasy Book Critic's list of Favorite Novels of 2009:

Expertly written and executed, scarily relevant, and massively entertaining, "This Is Not A Game" should be on everyone's reading list…

That summed it up rather nicely, I thought.

Now that the book is available at popular prices, you should be able to afford to buy lots of copies.

And by the way, isn't the new cover purty?

Hardly Twee At All

The cleverest headline ever.

[via Janice Gelb]

On The Beach

The Dutch artist Theo Jansen has been building odd wind-powered beach creatures for years now, intending that eventually they will live and roam in herds, independent of their human creators.

Here's a video of Jansen explaining the method behind his madness. [via Bob Norton.]

Your Brilliant Writing Career Awaits!

Amazingly, applications for Taos Toolbox are still open! This means you can still have that brilliant writing career you've been dreaming about!

All you have to do is go to the Taos Toolbox web site, and follow the instructions thereon! If you're accepted, you'll join me and Nancy Kress and Carrie Vaughn in Taos next summer for an intense two-week master class in the writing of science fiction and fantasy--- and then, on to literary glory and immortality!

I'm so excited about it, I can't stop using exclamation points!!!

Incidentally, far too much of the response has fallen into one of two categories.

#1. "It's so expensive!"

(Whiner. Sniveler. Firstly, it's not expensive as workshops go. You even get catering! Secondly, this is literary immortality we're talking about--- it's priceless! And thirdly, if money's a problem, just take out a second mortgage! It's easy! Interest rates are at an all-time low!)

#2. "What's Walter's problems with adverbs, anyway?"

(Do you have Asperger's, or what? Do you really think this is a suitable topic to obsess about? Tell ya what--- get accepted to my workshop, and I'll damned well tell you what my problem with adverbs is!)

The gates are wide open, kids! You can walk through them, or not! But if you don't, one of us is going to be kicking himself, and it ain't gonna be me.

That's all I'm sayin'.

News Hour

Just some news tidbits that flew my way.

#1. Why economists are skinflints.

In recent research, University of Washington economists Yoram Bauman and Elaina Rose found that economics majors were less likely to donate money to charity than students who majored in other fields. After majors in other fields took an introductory economics course, their propensity to give also fell.

"The economics students seem to be born guilty, and the other students seem to lose their innocence when they take an economics class," says Mr. Bauman, who has a stand-up comedy act he'll be doing at the economists' Atlanta conference Sunday night. Among his one-liners: "You might be an economist if you refuse to sell your children because they might be worth more later."

#2. Was there a neotenous giant-brained super-race that lived in Africa 10,000 years ago?

“There’s just one thing we haven’t quite dared to mention. It’s this, and you won’t believe it. It’s all happened already. Back there in the past, ten thousand years ago. The man of the future, with the big brain, the small teeth. He lived in Africa. His brain was bigger than your brain. His face was straight and small, almost a child’s face.”

Yes!!! The Greys!!!

Our big brains give us such powers of extrapolation that we may extrapolate straight out of reality, into worlds that are possible but that never actually happened. Boskop’s greater brains and extended internal representations may have made it easier for them to accurately predict and interpret the world, to match their internal representations with real external events.

Perhaps, though, it also made the Boskops excessively internal and self-reflective. With their perhaps astonishing insights, they may have become a species of dreamers with an internal mental life literally beyond anything we can imagine . . .

Perhaps the Boskops were trapped by their ability to see clearly where things would head. Perhaps they were prisoners of those majestic brains.

Or, on the other hand, this story may just be colossally bogus bad science.

#3. Jaron Lanier has become a disappointed old grump.

Like others who have been on the Web from its early days, Lanier thinks the place has "lost its flavor." Perhaps homepages in the mid-'90s did have a folk-art quality to them, though one heavily dominated by Simpsons and Star Trek references. Perhaps our regimented Facebook selves have made things more vanilla. Perhaps you did stumble down more idiosyncratic paths of knowledge before Wikipedia dominated the top Google search results. But these are the kinds of nostalgic observations that are ridiculous to anyone young. The Web hasn't lost flavor; you've lost flavor. What Samuel Johnson said about his hometown holds true for the Internet: "No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford."

Me, not so tired of London yet. Nor even Albuquerque.

Getting Elfy-Welfy With It

What to Icelanders do during those long winter nights?

Elves, apparently.





[thanks to julien]

Grand Masters

A video featuring all the Grand Masters of the Science Fiction Writers of America (through 2000, anyway).

The video features voices that the years have stilled. I got chills.



There's a kind of prequel to this video featuring Jack Williamson, which for some reason is not available for embedding in such untrustworthy sites as this, but you can find Jack here.

Go hang a salami; I'm a lasagna hog!

Today is National Palindrome Day.