From archive (archive) Subject: Angel Station Typos From: chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) Organization: Life is just a Fantasy novel played for keeps Date: 20 Oct 89 23:25:08 GMT [[The following press release was distributed by Tor books about the typos in Walter Jon William's new book, Angel Station. If you are one of those who bought it and want a corrected copy, replacement instructions are included. How many publishers do *you* know that replace faulty books? Kudos to Tor...]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= For immediate release: 11 October 1989 THE STRANGE LUCK OF WALTER JON WILLIAMS Not too long ago, Tor SF author Walter Jon Williams got a very pleasant surprise: His science fiction novel HARDWIRED (Tor, 1986) was prominently featured in a national advertising campaign for Nissan Motors' new "Infiniti" automobile. Apparently the Powers that Be decided that some law of good fortune had been violated. When Williams returned from the World Science Fiction Convention in Boston to linger over the pages of his newest Tor hardcover ANGEL STATION, he got a most un-pleasant shock: Not only was there a rash of very strange typographical errors on page 9 of the book, but fully seventeen lines of type were completely missing from page 354. When Williams called Tor's editorial staff in New York to report the errors, they immediately checked the press run of the book. Sure enough, the defects were present in every copy -- despite the fact that all previous proof sheets, and the book's bound uncorrected galleys, were free of the errors. This isn't "business as usual" for Tor. Although an occasional typo slips by the proofreading process, and minor errors creep into final copies, nothing of this sort has ever happened to a Tor book before. How did it happen? Well, no one knows exactly -- but the evidence points to some sort of software error in the generation of the final "repro proof" long after the stages at which books are normally checked and proofread in house. For example, the typos on page 9 all involve characters that are exactly five letters off in sequence from the correct characters. Tor is offering to replace all defective copies of the ANGEL STATION hardcover with corrected copies from a new printing. To receive a correct copy, simply remove pages 1 through 6 (three leaves) and send them, along with your name and address, to Customer Service, St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010, Attn: ANGEL STATION Replacement. This offer is open to individuals and dealers alike, though copies of the removed pages must be received for each copy the owner wants replaced. Alternately, collectors who wish to keep their "true first" edition, typos and all, may write to Tor's own editorial offices at 49 West 24th St, New York NY 10010 for an errata sheet correcting the errors, which includes the missing text. Meanwhile, Tor's editors are leaving nothing to chance where Williams's work is concerned. They've set up a special Walter Jon Williams Task Force to make sure the author's next work, a short-story collection called FACETS scheduled for publication as a hardcover in January 1990, escapes the strange luck of Walter Jon Williams. For further information, contact Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Administrative Editor, (212) 741-3100. -- Chuq Von Rospach <+> Editor,OtherRealms <+> Member SFWA/ASFA chuq@apple.com <+> CI$: 73317,635 <+> [This is myself speaking] Trust Mama Nature to remind us just how important things like sci.aquaria's name really is in the scheme of things. From rec.arts.sf-reviews Tue Jul 2 09:14:20 1991 Path: herkules.sssab.se!isy!liuida!sunic!mcsun!uunet!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!samsung!know!ac.dal.ca From: HOBBIT@ac.dal.ca (C. Roald) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-reviews Subject: HARDWIRED, Walter Jon Williams Message-ID: <30561@know.pws.bull.com> Date: 29 Jun 91 02:40:00 GMT Sender: wex@pws.bulL.com Reply-To: HOBBIT@ac.dal.ca Followup-To: rec.arts.sf-lovers Lines: 61 Approved: wex@pws.bull.com HARDWIRED Walter Jon Williams review (c) 1991 Colin Roald. %T HARDWIRED %A Walter Jon Williams %C New York %D 1986 %G ISBN 0-812-55796-4 %I TOR SF %O paperback, US$3.50/CDN$4.50 %P 343pp. Cowboy: the last of the white knights in a grey-black world. A panzerboy, riding blazing midnight smuggling runs in his heavily-armoured hovertank, thumbing his nose at a system he despises. He calls it, "delivering the mail", and he calls himself the Pony Express. He has his glory, his legend, his date with Death... until he realizes that it's not enough. It matters not only what he does, but who he does it for. And that's less than clear. Sarah: a dirtgirl from Tampa, a bodyguard and assassin. She tries to be diamond-hard in a ruthless gutter world, but gets tripped up on the one thing in the world she really cares for: her faithless, prostitute brother Daud. She'd sell her soul for a ticket to orbit, away from the muddy clutch of gravity. And she does. The Orbitals: the megacorps that rule the Earth from above the well. Their control has been absolute since the Rock War: Earth surrendered before the orbital bombardment had finished with Asia and Europe, but the Orbitals continued, working over North America just to prove their point. They are leeches, vampires sucking the life out of Earth. The mudboys hate them and envy them, and desperately line up to work for them because there's no other choice. HARDWIRED has everything I like about cyberpunk: the struggle for life and hope and sanity in a world that flays the soul open with a jagged scalpel; and unlike other cyberpunk in my experience (admittedly limited), recognizes that, yes, the good guys do still exist, and yes, they can occasionally win one or at least force a draw, and yes, there are things worth striving for beyond bare survival. Cowboy and Sarah emerge scathed and scarred and changed, but not shattered. It's a novel of the collision of high ideals with amoral power, in a world where the ideals are obsolete and the power is at its height. Cowboy's life is picked up and shaken out, and his innocence is a prime casualty. And yet, when he has made his compromises with evil, we find there is something left: a nucleus of hope that has been touched but not corrupted, and that manages to infect Sarah; and we find that the Power is rotten at its core. HARDWIRED's future is grim, but recognises that this, too, shall pass. That said, I must add a cavil. The passion is subtly flat; the intensity falls a notch short. My expectations were perhaps too high, but I was really hoping that this would be the kind of book that puts you through the wringer and leaves you gasping for breath at the end. But it doesn't, quite. So we don't have perfection here. We do have a damned good book. Recommended. From rec.arts.sf.written Tue Sep 15 12:08:09 1992 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Path: isy!liuida!sunic!mcsun!uunet!walter!quasar From: quasar@ctt.bellcore.com (Laurence R. Brothers) Subject: ARISTOI: Walter Jon Williams Message-ID: Sender: news@walter.bellcore.com Nntp-Posting-Host: samurai-cat.ctt.bellcore.com Organization: Bellcore Date: 14 Sep 92 12:42:59 Lines: 62 I just finished Walter Jon Williams' new hardcover, "Aristoi". The cover blurb says it is the logical extension of the "Hardwired" universe, but really it has nothing whatsoever to do with it, so far as I can tell. The basic concept is that virtual reality tech, nanotech, and ftl tech have together created a universe where almost anything is possible. However, only the most talented individuals are capable of handling the strain of manipulating artificially induced multiple personalities to deal with the complexity of the combination of the virtual and the realized worlds. These Aristoi (all the societal terms in the book derive from the Greek) are the rulers of human society, living a life which is sort of a cross between that of an absolute dictator and creative artist. The Aristoi are very reminiscent of the denizens of the End of Time according to Michael Moorcock, although on the whole they are somewhat more responsible and serious. The thing that really distinguishes the Aristoi from superhumans from other works is their collection of "limited personalities" they spend their lives cultivating. These LPs are exactly like unto the characters in the Fox sitcom "Herman's Head", and I wonder if that could have been one of the sources of inspiration for the book. The first part of the book is very carefully done, introducing all the elements of the virtual and realized worlds without stopping for prolonged explanation. The world of the Aristoi brings to mind that of an internet MUD more than any other kind of world I can think of. If you want some effect, either in the virtual world or the realized world, you have to code it up yourself, and the quality of the effect you get is proportional to the care you put into it. The book kind of bogs down in the middle though, and I found it rather disappointing that the characters, with all their bizarre enhancements and abilities, turn out all to be pretty much like ordinary humans in their drives, motivations, and foibles. In fact as the book progresses, the characters seem to get more and more ordinary, and their technology seems to become more and more ephemeral, irrelevant and contrived, along with the plot, which I found to be quite implausible, even given the basic assumptions of the milieu. Those mudra for example -- even given a lifetime of conditioning, I find their effects hard to believe.... But perhaps I am being too harsh on the novel, which was, withal, quite entertaining; I think my expectations were raised by the careful detail given the first part of the novel; if it had been less intricately thought out, I probably would have been less disappointed with the rest. Meanwhile, a couple of questions: can anyone give a plausible explanation or etymology of the terms "mataglap" (destructive runaway nanotech) and "reno" (an intelligent brain implant interface to the network). "Mataglap" might translate, using some creative etymology, as "Death Glop", but the source of "reno" escapes me. Just about all the other neologisms in the book are either direct usages or learned borrowing from Greek. -- Laurence R. Brothers (quasar@bellcore.com) Bellcore -- Computer Technology Transfer -- Knowledge-Based Systems "There is no memory with less satisfaction in it than the memory of some temptation we resisted." -- James Branch Cabell From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Feb 15 15:32:51 1993 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: lysator.liu.se!isy!liuida!sunic!mcsun!Germany.EU.net!news.netmbx.de!mailgzrz.TU-Berlin.DE!math.fu-berlin.de!ira.uka.de!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!gatech!enterpoop.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!nobody From: ecl@mtgzy.att.com (Evelyn C Leeper +1 908 957 2070) Subject: ARISTOI by Walter Jon Williams Message-ID: <9302091946.AA10938@presto.ig.com> Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Sender: news@news.media.mit.edu (USENET News System) Organization: Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1993 19:51:09 GMT Approved: wex@media.mit.edu (Alan Wexelblat) Lines: 45 ARISTOI by Walter Jon Williams A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1993 Evelyn C. Leeper The Aristoi are the technocrats of Earth-2 (Earth-1 having been destroyed, presumably before society realized that the rulers should be scientists). With the help of nanotechnology, they have basically unlimited power. Unfortunately for the reader, they seem to use a lot of this power to throw fancy parties. It's sort of like "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous," but with nanotechnology. This is not to say there aren't some good ideas in ARISTOI. The problem is that there is too much stuff around them. It took almost half of the book to get to some of the ideas I found most interesting: that of the responsibility of a creator to the created, that of free will, the drawbacks of freedom over slavery, and so on. And getting to that point was not easy. For some books you need a dictionary by your side; for this you need a GREEK dictionary. Towards the middle of the book we leave the neo-Greek society that Williams has drawn (one friend thought it seemed more Oriental, but I kept feeling as if I had fallen into a Hellenic SCA creation) and enter a sort of Euro-feudal society. It is here, in this microcosm, that the conflict begun on the macrocosm is engaged. Layers within layers, here as in so many other areas of the novel: multiple levels of personality, multiple levels of reality, multiple levels of Life. (I was reminded of this watching a recent STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION episode!) ARISTOI is certainly a thought-provoking novel, but a bit tough-going in parts. Williams uses some stylistic techniques which, while serving a useful purpose, are often more distraction than guide. I personally would have preferred a different focus, but I can't say this is a bad novel or not worth reading. But you should know what you're getting into. %T Aristoi %A Walter Jon Williams %C New York %D September 1992 %I Tor %O hardback, US$22.95 %G ISBN 0-312-85172-3 %P 448pp Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | ecl@mtgzy.att.com From rec.arts.sf.reviews Sun Sep 3 14:50:17 1995 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews,rec.arts.books.reviews Path: news.ifm.liu.se!fizban.solace.mh.se!paladin.american.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!news!nobody From: reederp@lot.eng.ohio-state.edu (P Douglas Reeder) Subject: Review of _Hardwired_, by Walter Jon Williams Message-ID: <4255eu$gq@charm.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Sender: news@media.mit.edu (USENET News System) Organization: Electrical Engineering Dept., Ohio State University Date: Sat, 2 Sep 1995 14:08:40 GMT Approved: wex@media.mit.edu (Alan Wexelblat) Lines: 34 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:831 rec.arts.books.reviews:818 A Review of _Hardwired_, by Walter Jon Williams Review copyright 1995 by P. Douglas Reeder %T Hardwired %A Walter Jon Williams %I Tom Doherty Associates ("A TOR Book") %C New York %D copyright 1986 %N ISBN 0-812-93303-7 Lib. of Cong. CCN 85-52255 %O hardback, 343 pages %X cyberpunk shading toward paramilitary action-adventure Okay cyberpunk action-adventure, shading toward paramilitary action- adventure at the end. The characters are not terribly deep, but the two main characters, Cowboy, a smuggler pilot out of the Rockies, and Sarah, a bodygaurd based in Florida, have some differences of outlook that carry some interest in the middle section of the book. Cowboy believes he is living the last free life, while Sarah has had to struggle and compromise her values to survive on the dystopian future Earth. Williams could have done more with the difference of outlook, and made the book deeper. The characters fail to come alive for me, partly because of their conventionality and the conventionality of their problems (Sarah is burdened by her brother Daud). You may find them more compelling than I. Cowboy and Sarah's romance is predictable, but competently done. The novel explicitly echos Zelazny's _Damnation Alley_ in places, and Willams acknowleges this. The happy ending with the ray of hope for Earth will come as a surprise to few. -- P. Douglas Reeder Graduate Student Electrical Engineering Dept.,Ohio State University reederp@er4.eng.ohio-state.edu Path: news.ifm.liu.se!solace!eru.mt.luth.se!news-stkh.gsl.net!news.gsl.net!news-paris.gsl.net!news.gsl.net!rain.fr!jussieu.fr!math.ohio-state.edu!howland.erols.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!news.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.idt.net!enews.sgi.com!news.sgi.com!uhog.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!news!wex From: agapow@latcs1.cs.latrobe.edu.au (p-m agapow) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: "Facets" by Walter Jon Williams Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 22 Nov 1996 00:00:02 GMT Organization: Calvin Coolidge Home for Dead Biologists Lines: 53 Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: tinbergen.media.mit.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:1120 "Facets" by Walter Jon Williams A Postview, copyright 1996 p-m agapow A short story collection, including: "Surfacing," where a researcher struggling to communicate with cryptic marine animals is unexpectedly distracted by romance and a god-like alien; "Witness," where a superhero is grilled by a McCarthy-ist committee; "No Spot of Ground," where -- in an alternate American Civil War -- Edgar Allan Poe fights bitterly for the survival of the Confederate cause. Reading Walter Jon Williams can be a mixed experience. Despite the presence of tough, excellent work such as "Voice of the Whirlwind" there's other work that is less likeable. Although not bad, they may not be to everyone's taste - the cartoony cowboys-and-indians of "Hardwired," the aloof "Aristoi," the self-confessed divertimenti "Crown Jewels." A Williams collection, though he's not known for his short work, is then a good thing, working on the principle that a story that doesn't fly is less of a waste of time than a novel that bombs. One of the slighter stories is "Side Effects," a tale of drug company politics very much in the "Hardwired" vein. Better, but not to everyone's taste is "No Spot of Ground," in which the melancholic Edgar Allan Poe serves as a Confederate brigadier. Transcending what could just have been a simple "look how clever I am" joke as is common in alternate histories, it succeeds through its intense depiction of Poe and careful description. In many ways it's very reminiscent of Karen Joy Fowler's "Sarah Canary." "Surfacing," although within the universe of his novel "Knight Moves," is a stronger entry than the book and perhaps one of the more potent pieces written on alien-human communication. "Witness" is a story from the "Wild Cards" superhero shared universe. As well as being well-told and a chilling reflection of the McCarthy years, it also includes some wise thoughts on the nature of collaboration and how seemingly decent people could be led to betray their friends. Williams' distress shows through in a brief foreword where he recounts how many readers think he made the whole witch-hunt episode up. There's a good variety here although the collection is -- to my eye-- somewhat short. But it's good, entertaining, very skilled and one hopes another collection will be due from Williams some time. [***/interesting] and Japanese food on the Sid and Nancy scale. %A Walter Jon Williams %B Facets %I Tor %C New York %D 1990 %G ISBN 0-312-85019-0 %P 321pp %O hardback, Aus$29.95 paul-michael agapow (agapow@latcs1.oz.au), La Trobe Uni, Infocalypse [archived at http://www.cs.latrobe.edu.au/~agapow/Postviews/] Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsswitch.lcs.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!dreaderd!not-for-mail Sender: wex@deepspace.media.mit.edu From: tillman@aztec.asu.edu (P.D. TILLMAN) Subject: Review: Frankensteins and Foreign Devils by Walter Jon Williams Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Organization: none Date: 06 Mar 2000 13:35:55 -0500 Message-ID: X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.3 Lines: 74 NNTP-Posting-Host: deepspace.media.mit.edu X-Trace: dreaderd 952367757 2952 18.85.23.65 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:2635 Frankensteins and Foreign Devils by Walter Jon Williams Review copyright 2000 by Peter D. Tillman This nice collection features "Prayers on the Wind", WJW's best story to date (see full review nearby), and lots more Good Stuff. Recommended. Contents: Introduction by Gardner Dozois. Excellent. Solip:System (direct sequel to Hardwired). Kinda grim. My rating: B+; yours may be higher, if you like gritty. Broadway Johnny: a "deeply unserious" story of magic and mayhem in an alternate 1930s China. "A-" Woundhealer: sword-and-sorcery in Saberhagen's "Swords" universe ('sasissu') -- not for me. The Bad Twin (never before published). A rousing time-travel tale with "as many paradoxes as I could devise" -- "A". Red Elvis: like it says, from the "Alternate Rebels" anthology. "A-" or "B+" -- I didn't reread it. So sue me. Prayers on the Wind (Nebula Award nominee): A+ -- featuring the Big Library, Buddhism & Bad aliens -- not to be missed. See full review nearby. Bag Lady (never before published). The prototype Wild Cards story and Modular Man's ('New Prometheus, my ass') debut, later reworked into "Unto the Sixth Generation." Silly & fun, "A-". Erogenoscape: Babette's new body -- sex, surgery, prurience & paranoia. "A/A-" Foreign Devils (Sidewise Award winner). Wells' Martians invade China, encounter Righteous Harmony Fists. "A-"; or "A" for alt-hist buffs. Hmm, you couldn't really call this alternate-history -- maybe 'shared-world with a dead author'? Wall, Stone, Craft (Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy Award nominee). Mary Shelley meets Lord Byron; they *don't* go to bed together. "A-" for me; perhaps "A" for most readers. The author's afterwords are interesting and entertaining. Here's WJW on a panel, discussing virtual surgery in graphic detail: "I became aware that the audience was staring at me in horror. I looked to my left, and saw Vernor Vinge scribbling in his notebook. I looked to my right, and there was Bruce Sterling likewise taking notes. I better write this story [Erogenoscape] *fast*, I said to myself." As always, NESFA books are a pleasure to read & hold: smooth, creamy paper, solid, full-cloth bindings, and exceptional cover & interior art, here by Omar Rayyan. I imagine editor T. Szczesuil recoiled in horror when he realized, too late, that the TOC was scrambled.... %T Frankensteins and Foreign Devils %A Walter Jon Williams %D 1998 %I NESFA %O US$23 %P 379 pp. %G ISBN 1886778044 Links: Author Publisher Read more of my reviews: http://www.silcom.com/~manatee/reviewer.html#tillman (including WJW's Rock of Ages) Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!dreaderd!not-for-mail Sender: wex@deepspace.media.mit.edu From: tillman@aztec.asu.edu (P.D. TILLMAN) Subject: Review: "Prayers on the Wind" by Walter Jon Williams Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Organization: none Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 06 Mar 2000 12:15:21 -0500 Message-ID: X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.3 Lines: 50 NNTP-Posting-Host: deepspace.media.mit.edu X-Trace: dreaderd 952362923 2944 18.85.23.65 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:2632 Prayers on the Wind by Walter Jon Williams Review Copyright 2000 P. D. Tillamn Rating: A+. WJW's strongest work to date, and one of the 10 best SF short stories ever. IMO, of course, but folks, it don't get much better than this. This started out to be a review of WJW's newish collection [note 1], but then I read "Prayers," for the fourth or fifth time, and was blown away again. The Gyalpo Rinpoche, Forty-first Reincarnation of the Bodhisattva Bob Miller and Treasured King of human space, has finally agreed to meet the Sang Ambassador. The well-named Sang, a warlike race of centauroid slavers [note 2], are protesting an alleged human incursion into Sang space. "Prayers" combines a twisty story of interstellar power-politics with a wonderful nanotech - Big Library - Buddhist backstory that I dearly hope WJW returns to sometime, plus his signature grace-notes & lovely throwaways: 'A statue of the Thunderbolt Sow came to life, looked at the Regent. "A message from the Library Palace, Regent," it said.' "Prayers on the Wind" has beauty, blood, humor, sex and religion. Exotics human & alien, technology-as-magic, high treason and transcendence. The ending brings tears to my eyes, even after multiple rereads. What more can one ask of fiction? %T Prayers on the Wind %A Walter Jon Williams %B The Good New Stuff %E Gardner Dozois %D 1999 %O Novelette, debut 1991 in When the Music's Over, Lewis Shiner, ed. %O Nebula nominee, 1992. Reprints: 1992, Dozois Year's Best, Ninth Annual %O 1998, Frankensteins & Foreign Devils, collection by WJW, NESFA, $23 Note 1) Frankensteins & Foreign Devils (1998), which appears nearby. Note 2) The Sang are something of an ET Draka. This may not be coincidental: Colonel-Ambassador !urq remarks that she can envision no finer ending than "a glorious death in service to the state." Links: Author Publisher review copyright 2000 by Peter D. Tillman Read more of my reviews: http://www.silcom.com/~manatee/reviewer.html#tillman (including WJW's Rock of Ages, which is something Completely Different....)