David J. Williams

Just got back from a week in Wyoming at Mike Brotherton’s Launch Pad workshop, an intensive NASA-sponsored workshop for pro SF writers. It was a fantastic week, and not just because it allowed me to escape the tropical humidity that D.C. has been plunged into for what seems like eons. Awesome lectures, brilliant stargazing, and unforgettable people….and thanks to fellow scribe Jeremiah Tolbert you see the attached picture of all of us.

From left to right, top row then lower row:

Thanks to the good offices of fellow scribe Alex J. Cavanaugh, I’m the July featured author on Prinkipia, which has reprinted the interview that Alex conducted with me a couple weeks back, omitting only a few curse words that I’m sure I don’t remember.

Meanwhile, I leave this weekend for Launch Pad in Wyoming, where me and a bunch of other SF writers will be blowing our minds on the wonders of the cosmos all week.  Not to mention beating the #$# D.C. heat….

I’ll be setting off smoke bombs and firing lasers as I hit the stage tonight flanked by feline units Ajax and Captain Zoom. Zoom will be on drums, Ajax will be manning the bass, and I’ll be on guitar as we thrash our way through…

Sorry. Wrong event.

Here’s what’s going to happen. Really.

7 p.m. Reading at BORDERS, 1828 L Street
to be followed by..
Afterparty at the SCIENCE CLUB, 1136 19th Street

This will be my first reading in D.C. in two years, so I’m super-psyched. See you there!

Balticon was a roaring success, and the book launch party I co-hosted with fellow scribes Benjamin Tate, Laura Anne Gilman, Jeri Smith-Ready, and Patricia Bray was apparently THE place to be at the con Saturday night.

Particularly awesome was the cake that Jeri brought. . . as you can see, it’s got all our book covers on it. My writing never tasted so damn good.

Meanwhile, if you live in the Washington D.C. area, don’t forget about the June 2nd launch tomorrow night! 7 p.m. at Borders 1828 L Street NW, followed by an afterparty at the Science Club. See ya there…

In stores today.

Like any SF author, I’m often being asked this question. Unlike Harlan Ellison and some others, I’m not inclined to get snitty about it. Why should I? It’s a serious question. I’ve spoken at length about how the research that kicked off the Autumn Rain trilogy was triggered by reading some of the U.S. military’s thoughts on the impending weaponization of space.  But if you ever want to fish for off-the-wall ideas, or just blow your mind before breakfast, there are three sites that can always be relied on to deliver the goods:

1.  Stardrive.org The brainchild of maverick physicist Jack Sarfatti, this is dedicated to a discussion of the technologies which would be needed to allow mankind to expand on an interstellar basis.  Cited in the late Robert Anton Wilson’s brilliant Cosmic Trigger, Sarfatti studied under Nobel Laureate Hans Bethe, and recently authored a groundbreaking paper with NASA scientist Creon Levit that may cast dark energy in a new light. And he’s easily the most entertaining conversationalist in all of North Beach.

2.  Clifford Pickover’s Reality Carnival:  Where Cliff finds time to write the scores of books he’s written is beyond me; his daily list of news items would make a book in itself.  And when he’s not sifting for online weirdness (or keeping an eye on the good folks at Wikipedia with his blog Wikidumper), he’s pushing the frontiers of mathematics:  he’s mapped out key features of the Mandelbrot set, and has credited with dozens of patents as well.  (I’m credited with the same number of patents as my cats are, a fact I find somewhat more grating than they do.)

3.  Edge.org Legendary literary agent John Brockman embodies the intersection of edgy science and big publishing money.  And his Edge Foundation is the place to go to see the world’s scientists on display in a slightly more informal setting than one usually spots them in.  Kinda like the Ted Lectures, only you don’t need to sit there and watch the videos.  Which doesn’t mean it can’t be dramatic:  check out this shoot-out at high noon between Lee Smolin and Leonard Susskind on the anthropic principle.

Meanwhile, four days till MACHINERY OF LIGHT!!!!

Two weeks out from launch, and here we go….

My reaction to (re)watching Pitch Black is over at Suvudu, the Bantam/Del Rey website. So check it out.

(For a recap of my previous thoughts on the Riddick-verse, see here and here.)

My analysis of Pitch Black is going to have to wait another day, as my thoughts on another weighty topic have appeared in SF Signal, alongside those of Alastair Reynolds and Allen Steele, among others. Thanks to John De Nardo for the invite. . .

Congratulations to Peter Watts, who is now a free man, thanks to a suspended sentence that brings his ordeal to an end. He’s a convicted felon now, of course, but that’s what a guilty verdict does to your criminal record, even if the statute in question was poorly worded and the border guards were made to look silly in court. It’s an utter travesty that the whole thing got as far as it did.  The main thing is he won’t be serving any jailtime, and can get back to doing what he does best:  writing.

And speaking of, you really should go and get a copy of the Dozois/Strahan anthology The New Space Opera 2, and read Watts’ story “The Island”, which has now been nominated for both a Hugo and a Locus, and is one of the best stories I’ve read in years.  You know those stargates that always get conveniently scattered around the galaxy in space opera?  Well, this is the story of the poor fucks who have to cruise out into the empty at sub-light speeds and build the damn things.  And then switch ‘em on, wondering what the hell is going to come out….