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    Daddy's World
    Daddy's World
    Daddy's World
    Ebook43 pages39 minutes

    Daddy's World

    By Walter Jon Williams

    3.5/5

    ()

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    About this ebook

    A classic work from Walter Jon Williams, “Daddy’s World” earned the Nebula Award in 2001.

    Little Jamie lives with his family in an eerily perfect environment, entertained by characters from literature, sung to sleep at night by the Woman in the Moon. But cracks begin to appear in Jamie’s world that reveal rifts within his family, and he begins to see the terrifying reality behind the walls of his life, and to understand that perfection has its price . . .

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWalter Jon Williams
    Release dateJan 16, 2013
    ISBN9780988901704
    Daddy's World
    Author

    Walter Jon Williams

     Walter Jon Williams is a New York Times bestselling author who has been nominated repeatedly for every major sci-fi award, including Hugo and Nebula Awards nominations for his novel City on Fire. He is the author of Hardwired, Aristoi, Implied Spaces, and Quillifer. Williams lives near Albuquerque, New Mexico, with his wife, Kathleen Hedges.

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    Reviews for Daddy's World

    3.5/5

    18 ratings1 review

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    • 4/5
      Jamie is a little boy growing up in a safe, perfect world. Fun things happen here, like new parts of the world appearing, with entertaining creatures like the Whirlikins, or when he's a little older, the Roman Forum and Coliseum--complete with Cicero, and chariot races. Jamie does have dim memories of being in a hospital, but that was a long time ago, when he was very little. Magical things happen in this world.

      But Jamie starts to notice some strange and disturbing things. His little sister, Becky, is now older than he is. There are other anomalies.

      There's a quiet horror building here, and we feel deeply for Jamie, and for Becky.

      Maybe not quite so much for Daddy, even though he has the best of intentions.

      Science fiction with a well-done thread of horror. Recommended.

      I received a free ebook of this story from the author.

    Book preview

    Daddy's World - Walter Jon Williams

    Daddy’s World

    Walter Jon Williams

    Copyright (c) 1999, 2013 by Walter Jon Williams

    Smashwords edition published by Walter Jon Williams

    All rights reserved.

    Daddy’s World

    One day Jamie went with his family to a new place, a place that had not existed before. The people who lived there were called Whirlikins, who were tall thin people with pointed heads. They had long arms and made frantic gestures when they talked, and when they grew excited threw their arms out wide to either side and spun like tops until they got all blurry. They would whirr madly over the green grass beneath the pumpkin-orange sky of the Whirlikin country, and sometimes they would bump into each other with an alarming clashing noise, but they were never hurt, only bounced off and spun away in another direction.

    Sometimes one of them would spin so hard that he would dig himself right into the ground, and come to a sudden stop, buried to the shoulders, with an expression of alarmed dismay.

    Jamie had never seen anything so funny. He laughed and laughed.

    His little sister Becky laughed, too. Once she laughed so hard that she fell over onto her stomach, and Daddy picked her up and whirled her through the air, as if he were a Whirlikin himself, and they were both laughing all the while.

    Afterwards, they heard the dinner bell, and Daddy said it was time to go home. After they waved goodbye to the Whirlikins, Becky and Jamie walked hand-in-hand with Momma as they walked over the grassy hills toward home, and the pumpkin-orange sky slowly turned to blue.

    The way home ran past El Castillo. El Castillo looked like a fabulous place, a castle with towers and domes and minarets, all gleaming in the sun. Music floated down from El Castillo, the swift, intricate music of many guitars, and Jamie could hear the fast click of heels and the shouts and laughter of happy people.

    But Jamie did not try to enter El Castillo. He had tried before, and discovered that El Castillo was guarded by La Duchesa, an angular forbidding woman all in black, with a tall comb in her hair. When Jamie asked to come inside, La Duchesa had looked down at him and said, I do not admit anyone who does not know Spanish irregular verbs! It was all she ever said.

    Jamie had asked Daddy what a Spanish irregular verb was— he had difficulty pronouncing the words— and Daddy had said, Some day you’ll learn, and La Duchesa will let you into her castle. But right now you’re too young to learn Spanish.

    That was all right with Jamie. There were plenty of things to do without going into El Castillo. And new places, like the country where the Whirlikins lived, appeared sometimes out of nowhere, and were quite enough to explore.

    The color of the sky faded from orange to blue. Fluffy white clouds coasted in the air above

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