David J. Williams

We’ve got only a week to go before the release of BURNING SKIES, but there’s no reason to let that stop you from the chance to win a copy of the BOOK ITSELF. I’m giving away two, count ‘em TWO copies, as well as one of those beasts known as an ARC . .an advance reader copy that Bantam circulated among reviewers a while back. The ARC lacks upfront diagrams and is riddled with typos, but it’s still a Historic Document, so you know you want it.  And all you have to do to get it is . . . .

SEND AN EMAIL TO DJWSPAMSUX@AUTUMNRAIN2110.com AND TELL ME WHO YOUR FAVORITE MIRRORED HEAVENS CHARACTER IS.

There’s no right answer.  If it’s your fave, it’s your fave.  I don’t even care if you’re lying.  But you might want to delete the “spamsux” in the above.

Okay?  Winners will be announced on FRIDAY.

And if you hate competition, then just pre-order BURNING SKIES now and save yourself the stress!

From a packed late Sunday showing on a gorgeous spring evening alongside the Potomac River . . . .

What I Liked:

(1) Abrams being ballsy enough to take the franchise in a radically different direction. Of course, if this parallel universe business takes off, then we’re going to get endless permutations of reboots, but that’s a lot better than the same ol’ stuff. This was a bold move, and it looks to be repaid fully in box office glory.

(2) The Evil Starship, complete with Evil Interior Decorations.  Not a cushion in sight  . . .

(3) That giant drill sequence.  That’s the part I’ll watch again and again on the DVD. And I won’t be the only one.

(4) Watching the dude in the red suit get sucked into the drill.  Probably the only coy inside joke I thought they got mileage out of.

(5) Planet becomes singularity, wrecks everybody’s day.  If you ever see this in real life, just run.

Not So Much:
(1) Kirk seemed like he was far more likely to win the Darwin Awards than end up in command of a ship.  The bit where he opened the pod’s hatch and traipsed off into a wilderness he knew nothing about was particularly classic.

(2) I’m not an expert on military law/justice .. but .  . once you’ve beaten up people on a ship’s bridge and been banished from that ship, I don’t think you’re still in the chain of command anymore.

(3) Eric Bana just wasn’t doing it for me as a super villain.  Though he scored some points with that brain-beetle. . .  .

(4) All the women on the Enterprise have skirts that go down to their belly-buttons.  I appreciated this aesthetically, but c’mon.  After a while, the future started to feel like a big frat-party.

(5) The awards ceremony at the end.  Brought back blacked-out flashbacks of the last scene of STAR WARS . . .

All in all:  delivered what it was supposed to, though I find myself unable to hail it as the second coming like everyone on Twitter seems to be doing.  Must be a zeitgeist thing . .

Tune in tomorrow for a chance to win copies of BURNING SKIES!

I participated in the latest round of SF Signal’s MindMeld: Q: Which SciFi films and/or television shows do the best job in adhering to realistic science? Which ones do the worst? Find out how I manage to come up with an answer that calls for Jar-Jar Binks to be annihilated by space-to-ground weaponry. I’ve also got a friendly exchange in the comments with colleague Mike Brotherton on whether or not OUTLAND can be taken seriously, in spite of the fact that some Hollywood producer got a little too interested in the spacesuits and what ought to happen when you’re not wearing one.

My novel BURNING SKIES can be pre-ordered on Amazon.

The challenge: Praise me, Spartacus the Wonderbeast.

The prize: Dave’s miserable prose, translated into Spanish

The winner:

What a week! I was a little worried about swine flu, until I realized that all it kills are humans. And it’s not like I ever get near pigs anyway. In fact, I don’t even know what a pig is. Hopefully it doesn’t resemble those fake mice I like to chase, because then maybe this could start to get a little hairy. Kinda like those things I love to cough up on Dave’s bed.

But before that happens, we need to wrap up last week’s contest.  Don’t pretend like you forgot, either.  My sources indicate that there are STILL some humans out there who (a) haven’t died a miserable swinish death and (b) have yet to praise me.   You’ve got till the sun sets today to do so, in order to win your copy of the Spanish translation of MIRRORED HEAVENS!  Again, the rules:

1.  Send an email to djw@DAVEHATESPAMautumnrain2110.com, subject line “Cielos Reflajdos”

2.  Praise me—aka Spartacus the Wondercat—and don’t be shy!

3.  So far the best entry is a 30 page equation proving mathematically that cats are the highest form of life on this planet.

4.  But I think you can beat that by just saying something nice and sincere.

5.  Or you can lie.

Ok?   Ok.  The sun’s still in the sky, so GET TO WORK HUMANS!!

The winner will be announced Monday.  In the meantime, why not pre-order THE BURNING SKIES on Amazon?

. . .has now been detected by astronomers: a gamma ray burst from a star that collapsed 95% of the age of the universe ago. . .almost 13.7 billion years. Nothing more distant has ever been spotted—nor has a higher redshift (8.2). This is the kind of thing that gives me a twinge of regret at confining my science fiction to the Earth-Moon system.  Sure, you can get up to a lot of fun within it, particularly if you leverage those libration points.  But there are times I miss the rest of the Universe. . .

“Chains of logic so far gone they’ve done the redshift.” –Stephan Lynx

My novel Burning Skies can be pre-ordered on Amazon.

Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist (which reviews all manner of SF) renders its verdict on BURNING SKIES:

Hard to imagine that The Burning Skies could be even more action-packed than its predecessor . . . but somehow David J. Williams found a way to raise the bar even higher. This sequel is a veritable train wreck, and you never know what’s going to hit you next. I loved it!

What’s more:

David J. Williams sucks you into this one right from the start, and the rhythm is such that you’ll get through this novel before you know it. If The Mirrored Heavens suffered from any shortcoming, it likely was lack of depth. Not so in this sequel, however. The author demonstrates that the first volume offered us just a glimpse of the overall story arc. Revelations about the origins of Autumn Rain, the American hierarchy and structure, the Eurasian Coalition, and more, imbue this one with much more depth.

Alright!  We’re off to the races!

BURNING SKIES will be released on May 19th, and you can pre-order it on Amazon.

Just when it looked like nothing could trump the Global Economic Crisis, along comes the Dreaded Swine Flu. This may yet prove to be yet another false alarm/overblown SARS-like scare, but the fact that you can catch this from humans (and not just pigs) means that the virus has taken the key step required towards becoming a pandemic.  Whether or not it will:  who the hell knows. (though you gotta admit that soccer teams playing before empty stadiums is a bit of a mindfuck).  Particularly problematic is that it looks like this virus is one of those rare types that is MORE rather than less lethal to people with healthy immune systems, as it sends those systems into frenzied overdrive.

And, I might add, if you’ve got allergies, that means you have an overdeveloped immune system already.  So you’re doubly fucked.

And if you’re like me—with one of the highest allergy levels possible without being confined to a bubble—then you’re triply fucked.  Thanks, overzealous immune system.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to re-read The Masque of the Red Death.

If you believe you can avoid dying miserably for the next few weeks, then why not celebrate by pre-ordering THE BURNING SKIES on Amazon.

You know what’s great about being a cat? Every day is the WEEKEND. All the more so as now Dave has switched my chicken-turkey combo to “Ocean Fish and Tuna Formula”. The stuff stinks up the house, but the day the smell of finned creatures gets old is the day I retire from all this cat stuff anyway. And now it’s spring, and BIRDS ARE EVERYWHERE. What a great universe, I can tell it was created just for me.

Certainly not for Dave, though. He’s locked himself in his study with the last three years of New Scientist magazine and God only knows what the hell he’s cooking up.  In the meantime, I’m here to announce that I’m GIVING AWAY A COPY OF THE SPANISH TRANSLATION OF MIRRORED HEAVENS WITH MY COOL SIGNATURE NOT DAVE’S LAME ONE.  You don’t even need to speak Spanish to get your hands on it—and believe me, the trippy cover is something you will WANT on your bookshelf.  All you need to do is obey the following not-at-all arbitrary rules:

1.  Send an email to djwATautumnrain2110.com.

2.  Subject line should be Cielos Reflejados

3.  This is the important part.  The email text should offer some words of praise to me.  You could say, for example, that I’m a Sleek Beast, or that I run really fast, or that I can catch more mice than any other cat.  I don’t care, as long as it sounds like you mean it.

4.  The best panegyric will get the book.

5.  You have until 5 p.m. eastern standard time next Friday to send in the praise.

6.  Multiple entries are encouraged, particularly if you feel like you were a little begrudging in your initial laudatory comments.

Sound good?  Good.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go wonder where my balls went.  I know Dave hid them somewhere.

The sequel to Mirrored Heavens is BURNING SKIES, and you can pre-order it right now on Amazon!

The first review of BURNING SKIES is in. . ! Steven Klotz of Mentajack describes it as “as perfect a middle book as you could ask for . . . it ratchets up every element that made Mirrored Heavens what it was, and laid some pretty sturdy foundations for the third book.” The “remember to breathe” injunction was what he wrote on his bookmark. Probably a wise precaution.

You can read the whole thing here.  Mentatjack’s also giving away two signed copies of the mass-market of Mirrored Heavens, so head on over there if you’re feeling lucky!

BURNING SKIES will be released on May 19th.

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