W00t! My novel MAKERS is a finalist for the 2010 John W Campbell Memorial Award. The other nominees include some of my favorite books of the year, such as Bruce Sterling’s CARYATIDS, Bacigalupe’s WINDUP GIRL, Mieville’s CITY AND THE CITY and Wilson’s JULIAN COMSTOCK. I was privileged to win this award for my novel Little Brother in 2009.
W00t! My novel MAKERS is a finalist for the 2010 John W Campbell Memorial Award. The other nominees include some of my favorite books of the year, such as Bruce Sterling’s CARYATIDS, Bacigalupe’s WINDUP GIRL, Mieville’s CITY AND THE CITY and Wilson’s JULIAN COMSTOCK. I was privileged to win this award for my novel Little Brother in 2009.
Here’s part one of the podcast of I Love Paree, a short story I co-wrote with Michael Skeet, originally published in Asimov’s Magazine in December 2000. It’s the story of a business consultant living in revolutionary Paris during an anti-corporatist uprising, and what he does after he’s conscripted into the Communard Army.
Mastering by John Taylor Williams: wryneckstudio@gmail.com
John Taylor Williams is a full-time self-employed audio engineer, producer, composer, and sound designer. In his free time, he makes beer, jewelry, odd musical instruments and furniture. He likes to meditate, to read and to cook.
I’ve just kicked off a new short story reading on my podcast. I Love Paree is a short story I co-wrote with Michael Skeet, originally published in Asimov’s Magazine in December 2000. It’s the story of a business consultant living in revolutionary Paris during an anti-corporatist uprising, and what he does after he’s conscripted into the Communard Army.
Power-armor fired a round into the ceiling, sending plaster skittering over his suit. The screaming stopped. The PA thundered again. “Your attention, please. These premises are nationalized by order of the Pro-Tem Revolutionary Authority of the Sovereign Paris Commune. You are all required to present yourselves at the third precinct recruitment center, where your fitness for revolutionary service will be evaluated. As a convenience, the Pro-Tem Revolutionary Authority of the Sovereign Paris Commune has arranged for transport to the recruitment center. You will form an orderly single-file queue and proceed onto the buses waiting outside. Please form a queue now.”My mind was racing, my heart was in my throat, and my Gitane had rolled off the table and was cooking its way through the floor. I didn’t dare make a grab for it, in case one of the frères got the idea that I was maybe going for a weapon. I managed to spot Sissy, frozen in place on the dance floor, but looking around, taking it in, thinking. The trustafarians milled toward the door in a rush. I took advantage of the confusion to make my way over to her, holding her hat and jacket. I grabbed her elbow and steered her toward Power-armor.
“M’ser,” I said. “Please, a moment.” I spoke in my best French, the stuff I keep in reserve for meetings with snooty Swiss bastards who are paying me too much money.
Power-armor sized me up, thought about it, then unlatched the telephone handset from his chest-plate. I brought it up to my ear.
“What is it?”
“Look, this girl, she’s my mother’s niece, she’s only been here for a day. She’s young, she’s scared.”
(Image: Poor communards, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from moacir’s photostream)
Hey DC! Tor Books is bringing me to your area for the American Library Association conference this coming weekend, and while I’m in town, I’ve signed on to do a couple of public events I hope to see you at!
On Sunday, June 27 at 3PM, I’m speaking at Red Emma’s books in Baltimore, in an event co-sponsored by the Baltimore Node hackerspace.
On Monday, June 28 at 6:30PM, I’m speaking at a special edition of DC Copynight, co-sponsored by Public Knowledge and hosted by the New America Foundation. Many thanks to Thomas “cmdln” Gideon of DC Copynight for setting this up!
Both events are free!
My latest Publishers Weekly column is “New York, Meet Silicon Valley,” about the things that Silicon Valley can teach NYC publishing (cheap experimentation and celebrating failure as the fastest way to learn) and what it can’t deliver (working DRM):
This marks a key difference between New York publishing and Silicon Valley. Unlike New York publishing, Silicon Valley’s products remain experimental long after they reach the marketplace. Google can change its search layout in seconds flat, try it out on a million searchers, crunch the data, revise the experiment and do it again, a hundred times a day if they wish. And bad ideas can be just as interesting as good ideas, because when it doesn’t cost anything to find out how bad an idea is, you can afford to be pleasantly and enormously surprised when it turns out that, say, people really do want to play Pac-Man on their search-results page.
Hey DC! Tor Books is bringing me to your area for the American Library Association conference this coming weekend, and while I’m in town, I’ve signed on to do a couple of public events I hope to see you at!
On Sunday, June 27 at 3PM, I’m speaking at Red Emma’s books in Baltimore, in an event co-sponsored by the Baltimore Node hackerspace.
On Monday, June 28 at 6:30PM, I’m speaking at a special edition of DC Copynight, co-sponsored by Public Knowledge and hosted by the New America Foundation. Many thanks to Thomas “cmdln” Gideon of DC Copynight for setting this up!
Both events are free!
Neale sez, “I liked Little Brother so much that I bought a copy for my niece and then based an entire Summer Hacking School around it. The kids were really excited about the premise of the book when I explained it to them tonight, and the fact that it’s available for free in so many
formats was just gravy. I put ePub and j2me versions on 5 mobile phones before they left for the night.”
Neale sez, “I liked ‘Little Brother’ so much that I bought a copy for my niece and then based an entire Summer Hacking School around it. The kids were really excited about the premise of the book when I explained it to them tonight, and the fact that it’s available for free in so many
formats was just gravy. I put ePub and j2me versions on 5 mobile phones before they left for the night.”
