Walter Jon Williams is an award-winning author who has been listed on the best-seller lists of the New York Times and the Times of London. He is the author of over forty volumes of fiction.
His first novel to attract serious public attention was Hardwired (1986), described by Roger Zelazny as "a tough, sleek juggernaut of a story, punctuated by strobe-light movements, coursing to the wail of jets and the twang of steel guitars." In 2001 he won a Nebula Award for his novelette, "Daddy's World," and won again in 2005 for "The Green Leopard Plague."
His fantasy novel Metropolitan was nominated for a Nebula Award for novel. Its sequel, City on Fire, was nominated for both a Nebula and a Hugo.
NOMINATED FOR A NEBULA AWARD. Walter Jon Williams' classic science fantasy Metropolitan is once again available for a new generation of readers. Aiah has fought her way from poverty and discovered a limitless source of plasm, the mysterious substance that powers the world-city. Her discovery soon involves her with Constantine, the charismatic, dangerous, seductive revolutionary who plans to overthrow, not simply the government, but the cosmic order . . .
"A spectacular blend of fantastic science, high politics, and low intrigue . . . Williams's world and characters are richly imagined yet utterly real."
– Melissa Scott"Entertaining . . . Williams understands that science fiction can breathe life into language . . . [His] writing is always lean, lively and engaging."
– New York Times Book Review"Blends SF aspects with noir stylings to create a potent atmosphere or urban dystopia . . . Ever the expert storyteller, Williams provides more than enough suspense."
– Publishers WeeklyA burning woman stalks along the streets. Ten stories tall, naked body a whirling holocaust of fire. Terrified people on Bursary Street crumple into carbon at her passing, leaving behind only black char curled into fetal shapes. The heat she radiates is so powerful that structures burst into flame as she passes. A storm of paper, sucked out of buildings by uncontrolled drafts, spiral toward her and is consumed. Uncontrolled rivers of flame pour from her fingertips. Windows blast inward at her keening, at the eerie, nerve-scraping wail that pours from her insubstantial, fiery throat. In a city that girdles the world, all-devouring fire is the worst thing imaginable.
Aiah hears the sound first, a scream that raises the fine hairs on the back of her neck. She gazes in shock out of the office lounge and sees the woman turn the corner onto the Avenue of the Exchange; and for a moment she sees the woman tripled, multiplied by the mirror glass of the Bursary Building and the Old Intendancy, and for a horrified second gazes into three burning faces, three hollow sets of flaming eyes, three expressions of agonized torment in which she can read the woman's last remnant of blasted humanity begging for help, for an end to pain ...
Aiah turns to run and the window blows inward with a breath of wind that sears Aiah's neck and flings her to the floor, and at the same moment she hears the first shriek from Telia's baby and the foolish, urgent ring of the phone—
The burning woman's scream rises to Aiah's throat.
GRADE A PLASM LEAK IN FINANCIAL DISTRICT.
143 DEAD. 2000 INJURED.
PLASM AUTHORITY INVESTIGATION ANNOUNCED.
DETAILS ON THE WIRE.
As the escalator lifts Aiah from the blue passageways of the pneuma station the liquid-silver words track across the sky, telling her things she regrets she already knows. Between the worn metal treads of the escalator steps lie drifts of ash, a percentage of which may be human. On the surface, a cold wind blows black cinders between the sluicegates of buildings.
IS YOUR FAMILY SAFE? DO YOU CARRY ENOUGH INSURANCE?
More words, addressed in this instance to a more local audience, crawl in mirrored image up the gold glass wall of the Bursary Building. Insurance underwriters hawk their wares from hastily assembled booths on the sidewalk.
"You safe, lady?" one asks. "You probably got a bunch of kids, right?"
Right. Barkazil women are supposed to spend their lives pregnant. Aiah hunches deeper into her jacket and walks over to the new lottery seller at a new, improvised kiosk.
Both the old lottery seller and his kiosk had been turned to charcoal. Aiah had bought a ticket from him every working day for the last three years and never known his name.
A police motorcycle glides by with an efficient turbine whine. Glass crunches underfoot as Aiah walks across Exchange to the Plasm Authority Building with its jagged crown of bronze horns and its gaping windows. There are white paint circles on the pavement, each with a bit of soot in the center that marks a casualty, a human being turned into a carbonized husk. The pigeons have already scattered droppings on them.
She knows what waits in her office. Telia's crying baby, the smell of dirty diapers, stale coffee in the stale-smelling lounge with its broken window now covered by plastic. The inevitable message cylinder on her desk, because three months ago, trying to score a few points with higher authority, she'd volunteered for Emergency Response.
And then, after the message is answered, long hours in shivering cold, far underground, searching for plasm that will never be hers.
More words track across the sky. Snap! The World Drink, followed by the green-and-white Snap logo. The resources necessary to track all that across the sky during shift change are staggering, more than she'll make in her life.
A silent aerocar crosses the sky between Aiah and the logo, rising from the roof of the Exchange. It inverts so the driver can view the city below, enjoying a view Aiah knows she'll never see.
In a city that girdles the world, what is the worst thing imaginable?
Not having anyplace to go.
