April 27, 2012

So I have another reading assignment for you guys! Walter Jon Williams is an author I've been reading, and loving, since I was a teen. His books are as fabulous as they are varied -- while most writers limit themselves to one or two genres, Williams has written one of the foundation books of cyberpunk (Hardwired); the tongue-in-cheek science fiction adventures of Drake Maijstral, Allowed Burglar (starting with The Crown Jewels); high-tech urban fantasy, years before the New Weird became fashionable (Metropolitan); my favorite space opera of all time (the Dread Empire's Fall trilogy); and, most recently, near-future sf (beginning with This Is Not A Game)... not to mention the stuff that is, frankly, a genre all to itself (what can you really call Aristoi? 'Multiple-personality technocratic utopia gone wrong'? Basically, it's awesome.)

Because the marketplace is a whimsical (read: 'stupid') place, many of these fantastic books were out of print and impossible to get -- but no more. As the rights for his out of print works have reverted, Williams has been uploading them as inexpensive ebooks, a labor of love I don't envy him. And as another bonus for ebook people, the first volume of that space opera trilogy I mentioned? You know, the one that is basically impossible to get in North America? The publisher has put the ebook version of the first book, The Praxis, on sale. Go. Read some of this stuff. I promise you won't regret it.