Unless I end up cutting more than five hundred words from this in the copy-edits -- which, I will grant, is possible -- A Star Shall Fall has now squeaked out In Ashes Lie for the title of Longest Novel I've Ever Written.

By about five hundred words.

It's been kind of amusing, watching the count inch upward as I add in bits here and there. I had a bet on with myself as to whether it would break that boundary, only I kept changing my wager. :-) Anyway, I may or may not be truly done with revisions; I'll be looking back over it when I come home from India, before I send it off to my editor, to see if anything else has occurred to me in the interim. But for now, I declare it Done.

Time to go reward myself with a candy bar and some fun reading.

Brain Harvest has now announced their first-place winner, as chosen by me, in their latest contest. I judged the contest with the writers’ names taken off, from the top 15 entries as picked by BH’s excellent editors…which just goes to show I must really like Brian Francis Slattery’s fiction whether I know it’s by him [...]

My Mum has had a stroke and is hospital. I probably won't be around posting for a while

Dave

Tansy says:

'Sea-Hearts', Margo Lanagan, X⁶—a dark and twisty take on the legend of the selkie wife. In this novella Lanagan builds up a fogged, muddy and claustrophobic world of seal-women, their husbands and their sons, all part of a tightly closed island community. Through her usual tangled prose and deeply hidden emotion, Lanagan presents a simply glorious fantasy that transcends rather than merely replicating the story's mythic roots. Those who loved Tender Morsels will be drawn to this story, which is less difficult to stomach but contains many similar themes.

Fogged, muddy and claustrophobic—yes! *punches the air*

Ted and I got into Dublin fairly early Friday evening. Got to the hotel and Michael Carroll swept down on us and said, “So far it’s just us, the committee, and Mike Carey, the guest of honor! We win!” So we dropped our things off in the room and were subsequently introduced to Mike, who is, as advertised by Juliet McKenna, an absolutely lovely man. A few other people joined us, and after a bit we all went out to dinner at a kebab place across the street (which was really good!), where Mike got all caught up on the Saga Of Take A Chance, a tale which he hadn’t even known he was missing. :) Dinner accomplished, we retreated back to the hotel bar, where more and more people arrived throughout the evening, and where we sat around having a good long chat about (mostly) Marvel and the current X-storylines (Mike’s writing the X-Men), and my ambitions to someday write the X-Men. It was only sometime yesterday that it struck me that cheerily announcing these ambitions to the current writer, when all the comics experience I have under my belt is one five-issue independent miniseries, was perhaps on the bold side. He was, however, extremely encouraging toward the idea of me submitting a portfolio to Marvel, so that was heartening. :)

Mindful of being onstage all weekend, I retired early, and was awake bright and early, ready to go. The reg desk was up and running by the time we got there, with the slight oddity of everyone getting to add their own strings to their badges (though hole punches, embroidery thread and safety pins were all provided, so it was hardly a difficulty), and actually as far as I could see, registration went very smoothly all weekend. There was always somebody at the desk, they all seemed to know what they were doing and what was going on, and any time I dropped by with a question, somebody answered it satisfactorily (the only real thing I stopped to ask was if panel lists could be posted on the doors so people would know which panel was being held where as a back-up to their own schedules, and lo, on Sunday that pretty minor detail had been rectified).

The only real scheduling snafu was that Harry Harrison was unable to attend, which is hardly something anybody can be blamed for. Friday night the con-runners asked people to fill in for new panels replacing Harry’s, so it was all sorted out before the con even began, for which my hat is off to the committee: they handled it very well. As it happened, I ended up in both slots that would’ve been his, so apparently I was playing the part of Harry Harrison for the weekend. I’ve always thought the resemblance was uncanny… :)

Some of the panels could have used more clarification for what their topics were meant to be, but I only heard one described (by a panelist, no idea what the audience thought) as a train wreck, which I thought was pretty good; most cons have at least one train wreck of a panel. I thought the ones I was on largely went well, and our Bechdel Test panel on Sunday morning was a roaring success. We could’ve gone on for another hour, though really it was decided pretty early on that most films failed by dint of having only one female character at all, which made it hard to have two women discuss anything, much less something that wasn’t a man. However, Maura McHugh opened the panel with a film that succeeded–Pitch Black, which indeed has three good female characters, all of whom are a lot more concerned with whether they’re going to survive than whether Vin Diesel is hot anything else. There was a high point mid-panel when Alien V Predator came up, and we wrapped up by remembering Farscape, which is possibly the most successful Bechdel-Test-passing television show, SF or otherwise, that we could collectively remember seeing.

Something went wrong with the A/V in one of the rooms, so Dave Lally’s media/GoH presentation didn’t start til late, which meant the Golden Blasters panel didn’t start til late. Instead of panicking and trying to shove things into narrowed time-slots, the 4pm panels were simply cancelled–although at least one of them apparently went on without all (any?) of the panelists attending. So that’s actually pretty great, I think. :)

And the Blasters were pretty cool. It was the first year of what’s going to become an annual short SF film festival event. This year John Vaughn brought seven short films from the past few years, and we spent about an hour watching and voting on those. Next year will be its first year as an international competition: anyone will be allowed to enter their short SF film, and twelve finalists will be selected and aired over two days at the convention, at the end of which the award-winning film(s) will be selected by audience and panel-judge decision. They’re also going to be running a short film screenplay competition, so I’ll probably be mentioning this all again in the future.

I must admit to having been quite dubious going into the Blasters, because I’m not much of a short film fan, but Ted and I really enjoyed ourselves, and were surprised at how much time and thought we ended up giving to which film we thought should be the winner (and we didn’t agree!). Nor do I know who actually *won*, because we had to leave before the closing ceremonies in order to catch our train. :) But I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed the whole thing, and I’m genuinely looking forward to the Blasters becoming an aspect of Octocon.

The hotel was a terrific venue; the rooms were large enough, we were a few steps from the bar, so we were able to go in and out with great ease and yet keep all the convention-attendees in essentially one place, there were, it turned out, enough eatery places within a quick walk (the kebab place, an Indian restaurant we went to Saturday that was *lovely*, and a very very good French bakery for breakfast or lunch) to not feel like we were on wash-rinse-repeat with food (and the hotel’s bar lunch was fine too), and yet we were far enough away from the city centre that there was really nothing outside the convention itself to draw us away for more than the space of a meal. Really successful location, I think. And it appears they’re happy to have Octocon back next year, which is great.

So, yes, honestly, a good time seemed to be had by all. I have *no idea* how many people may end up interested in attending next year’s event, with GRRM as the GoH. I feel very strongly that the committee members should put some real advertising effort, both locally and internationally, into next year’s con. It seems possible there may be as many as several hundred potential attendees next year, in which case the con and the committee is going to really need to step up its game–but this year’s convention leaves me feeling as if they have the capability to do so. Ted and I will be back next year, and we’re really looking forward to it!

(x-posted from the essential kit)

"Negotiator Tomas!"

Tomas turned away from the clothing he was placing into his carry bag, the weary resignation on his face schooling itself into something more appropriate to greet the eldest daughter of his host, however unexpected the meeting might be.

"Lady Thaïs."

"You had hoped for more, from my father." She saw no purpose to pleasantries, but instead cut directly to her purpose. If you needed information, go to the source.

"I had no hopes at all," he said smoothly. "My only purpose was to bring my master’s words to this court, to inform them of incursions and alarms my master felt they should be aware of. Prince Erebuh’s office was uncommon gracious."

© Laura Anne Gilman 2009

Find your copy now!
Amazon.com//BN.com//Amazon UK//Indiebound//Powells.com//Amazon Canada//Mysterious Galaxy -- signed copies will be available!)

And the Spot in the Wild contest is still on-going: The next six [four down already!] to send me a phto of Flesh and Fire in the wild will get a Limited Edition Vineart War traveling corkscrew, perfect for tailgates, conventions, and using as a makeshift tool to get cat hair out of the keyboard (not recommended by manufacturer of either corkscrew or keyboard).

A separate contest for digital readers will begin at 12:01 am tomorrow morning, when the e-versions are released. First five e-reader sightings will also get a corkscrew!

I am languishing. I have several projects in various stages of completion right now.  The third and final book in my Blood of the Southlands trilogy, The Dark-Eyes War, will be out in February, and while I’m in the process of updating my webpage to include chapters from the book and other information on it, I [...]

Save me, Internets! You're my only hope!

Quick! Haunted/possessed/demonic/evil/magical carousel horses! Fiction or alleged nonfiction, genre and medium unimportant. I know there are a ton of these out there, and the Oak Bluffs ponies (which are clearly bound demons--compare horses at other antique carousels in San Diego CA and Hartford, CT*) have me thinking about whether there's an interesting way to reinvent them.

---

*Here is my most beloved horse at the Bushnell Park carousel. Isn't he gorgeous? 

I love my Jacob's Ladder icons so very much. It's almost worth working on the book to use them.

To give you an idea of what going over galleys or page proofs is like, here's the list of corrections I am sending my editor and her noble editorial assistant for the first five chapters of Chill:

p 3 line 34  "Holde" should be "holde", please
p 8 line 30 and 31: Please change "The Chief Engineer has already been released. So has Prince Benedict." to "Prince Benedict has already been released. So has the Chief Engineer."
p 12 line 21: please change "to observe how" to "to observe that" please
p 19 line 02: please removed the words "At least" and capitalize the word "failed"
p. 28 line 11: please change "panel" to "controls"
p. 46 line 15: please delete the word "indeed"

---

...yeah, sounds thrilling, doesn't it? Three hundred more pages to go. After I shower.

TBRE talked me into staying home from climbing today, as I am still coughing and sound like Marlene Dietrich, only not in the good way. Also, my Crippling Pedagogical Injury could probably use some more time to heal before I jam my foot into a climbing shoe*.

So I will be holed up on the sofa with the dog and my page proofs today.

---

The current Honeydew*:

# Write Grail
# Revise The White City and its attendant chapbook, which might be called "The Forty Times Forty."
Or might not.
# Write A Reckoning of Men (with truepenny)
# Write "The Unicorn Evils" (with coffeeem)
#Write "Spell 81a" (with stillsostrange)
#Write "Uniform" (ensemble!)
# Write "Ligature"
# Maybe write The Steles of the Sky if it sells, or do some more work on it to send back out if it doesn't.
# Maybe write Karen Memory if it sells, or do some more work on it to send back out if it doesn't.
# Continue working on Smile
# Schizophrenic levitation time travel vignette secret project thingy
# Space opera thingy
# Vampirism thingy
# Singularity Rent novel
# Noir thingy
# Carousel thingy (which might also be the noir thingy)


*Not counting small obligations like page proofs and all the things I have to mail to people. The good news is, other than various Go Be A Famus Riter daytrips in October and November and one small camping trip, I have no travel planned until Readercon and Fourth Street next year. Which is a Very Good Thing, because I need the time to work.

Cons, man. Much as I love you all, they kill my momentum and productivity something fierce.

Overnight low 32 F / 0 C, but little frost.  Sunny now, highs forecast for low 50s.  Mixed rain and snow tonight and tomorrow . . .

I discourage following the advice of today's XKCD -- we want you to come in person and leave your dollars here.

xkcd.com/648/

To our Canadian friends and relatives (not totally congruent nor yet mutually exclusive sets)!

(Last Drink Bird Head World Fantasy Con party poster, design by John Coulthart; larger version here) John Anealio has written a very cool Last Drink Bird Head song, which I’ve attached as an mp3. You can still preorder the Last Drink antho here. (The sheet music for the Last Drink song; larger image here.)

GRETA! Woohoo!! Congrats! Email me with your address and I’ll ship your six pack to you! (email: diana [at] dianarowland [dot] com) And, if you didn’t win, don’t fret! There are more awesome giveaways coming up soon! Huge thanks to everyone who entered. I had a lot of fun reading everyone’s “six things”.

The Young, Fanged, & Undead panel -- David MacInnis Gill, Daniel Waters, Melissa de la Cruz, and me. We had a TON of fun. I love making new friends (barring David, whom I've known like forever). There are a few more pics here.


BFFs: The Soul-Seller, the Necromancer, the Vampiress, and the Princess

As I was away for more than a week and mostly answered only critical business e-mail, I’ll be going through mail today and tomorrow to catch up. If you sent me mail in the last week and I wanted a response and didn’t get one, if I haven’t gotten back to you by Wednesday morning [...]

Viable Paradise XIII is now but a memory, but it’s a good memory: The students were smart and engaged and pretty much all of them will be capable of professional-level work in short order, if in fact they’re not there already. I won’t go too much into detail about the week, since what happens on [...]

She must be. EE emailed me this little gem...

A website dedicated to cats who look like Hitler.

They even have a name for them! Kitlers!

This is my personal favourite... in so far as one can have a favourite kitler...

This site makes me think that there are way too many people out there in cyberspace with waaaaaay too much time on thier hands.

Having said that... now I'm beginning to wonder... maybe there's a site out there for Cats Who are Reincarnated Psycho Serial Killers.

I have a very nice picture of Deccie I could upload.

**So about that Crippling Pedagogical Injury--

Well, basically, while I was doing the Wednesday Night Indoctrination (which may be moved to Thursday Night next year) I--no, that's too in media res. So, anyway. Monday, I managed to give myself a blister between my baby toe and my second toe, due to trapped sand while walking on the beach. Now, this is not an unusual event for me--my baby and second toes are on sidways (I have slightly weird-shaped feet: my middle two toes are also longer than my big toe, which makes buying climbing shoes a pain in the butt)--and Uncle Jim Macdonald kindly taped up my toe for me so I could walk on it without pain.

Well, the tape came off, and before I got around to replacing it, I was, as one does, performing my ceremonial functions (barefoot and in pajamas: must get slippers for next year) when I absentmindedly pivoted on my left foot.

And the blister tore.

Well, at the time, I was not yet aware that the blister had torn, so I thought I had stubbed the toe. And my autonomous nervous system sensibly attempted to remove my left foot from the surface that was causing it so much pain, which is to say the carpet in the Nantucket room. Of course, at this point, since I was pivoting on my left foot, all my weight was on it.

Cue hopping, sideways-flailing dance of attempting not to fall over, fall on anybody, or hit them on the head with the Book that was in my hand at the time.

I regained my balance, started to turn the page, and realized that my foot still really hurt. So I looked at it and saw the blood.

Ooops.

Cue Uncle Jim to the rescue again. (He is an EMT in his Secrit Other Life, and an exceptionally good one.) Anyway, he checked the wound, removed the skin flap, and dressed it for me, and the indoctrination proceeded with my foot propped on a chair and the Book being carried around by helpers.

It's all good. Or, you know, in hindsight? Pretty funny....

A very Happy Thanksgiving Day to all my friends in Canada! Here's to family, t(of)urkey, and that weird kind of football that you play up there.

Scheduled for release in October 2007, the film was mysteriously pulled from theaters by distributor Warner Bros.

I’ve been sitting on this bit of news for a while now, but now is a good as any to announce it: Tor Books will be releasing a trade paperback edition of my Hugo-winning essay collection Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded: A Decade of Whatever, 1998-2008, this upcoming January. This is good news because [...]

[Author's note: After being seriously ill for a while, I've only just gotten strength back enough to exercise again, if mildly. I'm still far behind on my deadlines, but did want to offer some treat for my long absence. The following story first appeared in "Dark Recesses Press" Issue #7, quite a while back. I reproduce it here for your reading please.]

"The End of Her World"

(A soldier stationed in Germany didn't want to tell me about his time downrange. So, he told me about all the deep thoughts he had while he was stationed here. He heard I was a writer, and he wanted me to hear his story, to write it down, and to tell the world about him and his life on this earth before he went back downrange to die. He was drunk. He was hitting on me. Of course he was drunk, and hitting on me. He was a soldier stationed in Germany talking to a young, American writer about the end of the world.

He smoked, too. And he was ugly.

And, I loved him too much to tell you his name.)

I don't think the world will end with the weapons I'm guarding. I don't think this empty stretch of damp concrete adumbrates the future of the cities when the war machines level the buildings and all the towers fall into a rubble of concertina wire and dying men in isolation suits and nuclear winter.

I'm in front of the dangerous weapons, watching storm clouds tumble all over each other like lovers wrapped in gray pillows frantically rolling into the moment of the rain.

I think that the end of the world will come when the people choose to leave the cities for the wild places.

Someday people will forget why soldiers and healthcare and schools matter. We'll just walk away into the green hills like African Bushmen. It happens everyday somewhere, when men and women decide to walk away from homes and civilization and become bums or survivalists. It happens en masse in Africa, Canada, China, South America, and the Pacific Islands. People just collectively stand up, and walk into the wilderness with nothing but a knife and a vague sense of primitive purpose.

And some folks will try to hold on to civilization. We'll be guarding these places like soldiers until no one knows why – not even us. And cults will form around these sacred spots. And radiation poisoning will claim any who defile the temple. And civilization will start over around these forbidden places.

I tell my fellow guard about how Bacchus made the pirates into dolphins, and they swam away, joyfully into the sea, with a freedom the children of Athena – like us – will never know.

He tells me I should read the Bible and give up all these false mythologies for the love of Jesus Christ. He tells me that he'd love to pray with me.

After duty, I got on a bus downtown, and thought about how the buses of Germany have signs prohibiting the wearing of roller skates, and the eating of ice cream. I got off, and I was thinking about death, and I was thinking about death, and I was thinking about all death.



***



Then, I see the dark woman.



I can tell she came from Russia, originally, because of the way she stands in darkness and the way she looks at the world in darkness and the wonderful Russian syrup in her accent. Now she smokes cigarettes in the Mainz marketplace beside a man with a llama's bridle in one hand and a coin can in the other. She smokes with one hand and gracefully runs her other hand's fingertips, with her long, red nails, across the llama's long neck.



When she sees me looking at her, she puts the cigarette in her mouth. She grabs the lapels of my jacket. She says something wonderful in German. I have no idea what she says. Then she says something in Russian. I still don't understand.



I drop a single Euro into the llama man's can. I take her arm. She leads me into an alley between a clothing store and a travel agency. We take an elevator up to the top floor. She leads me to a single room apartment with one window. I lean out the window, and the bustling city moves with the anonymous kind of love that happens in any neighborhood – that general sense of well-being while people who recognize each other say hello.



She has an electric pot – no stove in sight – sitting on a table covered with bunched up clothes and receipts and a cereal bowl that had become an ash tray and bits of fruit loops and dried up milk slept beneath this loamy ash from foreign cigarettes and broken, lipstick-stained, cigarette butts curled erotically around cigarette butts with no lipstick stains at all.



I sit down on the bed. It's the only place to sit. I could reach out and touch her long, black hair. You stand near the table, waiting for the tea to boil, and you light up a new cigarette.



The room stinks of cigarettes and something else I can't place, but familiar.



The pot screams when it boils. Hot steam runs up the wall, and I notice how the white paint next to the teapot has curdled and bubbled like a second-degree sunburn.



("That reminded me of when I rubbed lotion into your back in St. Louis in our puny motel room after we had spent all day walking around and you had forgotten that this one spot on your shoulders was exposed to the sun in this normal, t-shirt when that spot wasn't exposed in your usual uniform. You had this little line, like a collar of bubbles on your shoulders. I had to be so careful when I put the lotion on you, and it was disgusting to feel all those fluids moving just under your skin.")



She gets my attention with a snap of her fingers. She hands me a cup of peppery tea.



She, apparently, speaks a little bit of English. She says "Drink" with the throaty femme fatale way that has warmed a thousand cinema screens. She points at body parts and lists escalating amounts of money.



I give her everything in my pockets, and it's almost enough for everything I want from her.



When we pretend to move with love, the tea on the table cools while we warm to each other's touch. When we pretend to strip naked we keep the pleasure masks of our commerce between us, so we do not open up our faces, really, in intimacy. When we pretend to scrape at each other's skins ravenously, she speaks one small word that could have been German for 'there', or Russian for 'yes'.



Da… Da… Da… Da… Da…



And maybe it's English, too, and I push that out of my head because I don't want to think about what her father would think about this thing we're doing.



I just want one thing from her, and I get it, and she has those soulful, pained eyes and she will never have what she truly desires in life so she will always be beautiful. Besides her beauty, all she'll ever have is money.



Afterwards, she lets me rest in her bed while she smokes another cigarette and watches a reality television show dubbed from Dutch to Deutsch about a whole neighborhood block that has become a walled city and all the people inside lose contact with the outside world, lose all their privacy, and do not know exactly what will keep them in the city or get them voted out.



The show simulates the outbreak of a dangerous plague, and not enough medicine exists to keep the population alive.



It's the end of the world.



Each week fans watch the show and cruise the many dedicated websites with all these life stories that didn't fit into the one hour time slot. Fans vote to give their favorite people the weekly medicine or to let them be carted off.



Each week these people in the show watch the men in yellow isolation suits appear, take half of them by the arm, and lead them away to who knows where off-screen. The rest get a bottle of pills for the week – placebos, I assume.



***



With the language barrier and the horrible quality of the picture in the hidden cameras, I couldn't tell if these people knew this was only a television show. I couldn't tell if it wasn't real, either.



One night a city block had gone to bed. The next morning concertina wire separated them from the civilized world. Men in terrifying isolation suits handed out placebos and cut off all communication with the outside world, blaming the plague. Each week, half their number got no medicine and they were led away to their imminent doom in a hospital bed.



Men in their spacesuits handed out placebos every week to the ones that had gotten enough votes to survive. They could do whatever they wanted with the pills, and if they didn't take them they were led away as if they had been voted off. They could give them away if they wanted.



A certain Russian prostitute never seemed to die, though everyone seemed to hate her. She kept finding someone to give her a placebo in exchange for one, long night that European television showed in sensual blips that – the advertisements assured us – had extended into various adult websites available for subscription.



The girl in the bed with me pointed at the girl on the screen. "Schwester," she said, "Sister, ja?"



I nodded, sadly. I saw the resemblance in a flash. I rubbed her shoulders.



She pushed me away. She looked at me like she was disgusted that I had touched her.



I put my clothes back on.



On the show, the prostitute earned her life in a horrible apocalypse among people that wanted to feel joy even if it meant death.



Just like as if it were a real epidemic, the very old and very young died fast. By the time I had my foot out the door, there were only beautiful young women, and men with quick tongues and chiseled abs. They fell in and out of love recklessly, tears streaming down their faces as their friends and families died.



In the real world, I left her there, while she rooted for her sister and let the door open and close without saying good-bye to me at all. I left behind a pack of cigarettes, like a placebo from her sister's TV show, but mine were deadly.



Halfway down the hall, I heard her scream in agony. I knew it wasn't on account of me. Her sister had been led away by the men in isolation suits and left television and returned to the marketplace and smoked cigarettes and lived the kind of life where people don't look twice and when the icy fingers of death really did spread across her face she would only be a smell of perfume and smoke – like burning gardens – and when the men like me smelled her, we would – alas – remember nothing.



(I finished my highball glass of absinthe. I carried the soldier's words over continents, over oceans, and over electrons. Now, I've given them to you.



I've done all I can.)



THE END

Major progress on restructuring the novel-in-progress over the weekend. In a blast of insight, I finally figured out how to make Scrivener work for me the way it's supposed to. Wow! The potential of this tool is dangling nearly within reach. This pleases me muchly.

Chapter 16

In which Marla goes swimming, takes flight, and investigates a murder.

Plus the usual notes and such.

MV7 - FADE OUT quote of the day ...

So, I'm in a whimsical kind of mood today. How about a little Myrnin for you?

-------------------

Claire was struggling through last summer’s diary volume when Myrnin popped in through the portal, wearing a big floppy black hat and a kind of crazy/stylish pimp coat that covered him from neck to ankles, black leather gloves, and a black and silver walking stick with a dragon’s head on it. And, on his lapel was a button that said, If you can read this, thank a teacher.

COMING UP LATER THIS WEEK: Ooooh, the FADE OUT RELEASE CONTEST!!!

Just in case you have an itch to write something short and silly and some free time to do it in: A reminder to y’all that I’m running a writing contest over on my AMC column, in which you can choose from ten “assignments,” based on SF movies, to write up in the comment thread. The [...]

11am St Pancras/Sheffield. The man sleeping across the aisle from me has taken off his black leather shoes & put his feet on the seat opposite. The Telegraph has fallen off the table at his side. Bedford station wakes him up & he opens his briefcase and begins to eat from a packet of crisps [...]

The director of 2012 knows you're skeptical about his proposed adaptation.

Whip It is such a fun movie, and with a heart as big as Drew Barrymore's seems to be. What's not to like? I am sad that our local team's season just ended. But, hey, let's come up with derby girl names anyway. I'm liking Candy Carnage and Erin Breakovitch at the moment.

Chapter XVII: The Lonely Gaol

The current of Fairyland circles the Lonely Gaol. It sluices in through holes in the base of the great towers and emerges on the other side, to begin once more its long journey around the horn of Fairyland. This unstoppable circulation kicks up storms the way you kick up dust when you run very fast down a dirt road. It cannot be helped. Somewhere deep down there in the roots of the Lonely Gaol lives a hoary old beast, something like a dragon, something like a fish, something like a mountain rill. She is older than the Gaol and the sluicing of the water—older, perhaps, than Fairyland. When she breathes in, she sucks up crystal from the stones of the earth. When she breathes out, she blows bubbles in the crystal, so that it swells up in great lumps and heaps. The sea splashes and cools the glass, and it grows and grows. Perhaps she is sleeping. Perhaps she is too big and too old to do much but breathe. But this is how the Lonely Gaol, which was not always a Gaol at all, was made in the first place. If you squint just so, you can see the red flares of her breath between the roaring waves.


We're actually getting near the end--I expect it'll wrap up around Thanksgiving. Anyone up for a wrap party on the island or Boston?

1. It’s official. Comparing my web stats to my royalty statements, it looks like more people have read my list of 20 Neil Gaiman Facts than have read my actual books. (Thanks in no small part to a link from StumbleUpon last week.) This is why Red Hood’s Revenge shall include the following cover text: “From the author of Goblin Quest 20 Neil Gaiman Facts!”

2. I’m going to be chatting over at Bitten By Books today. This is not a fixed time event. Stop by any time during the day or evening and leave your questions and chat. Click on over to check it out, say hi, and get in on the prize drawing (anthologies aplenty and a set of goblin minis): http://bittenbybooks.com/?p=11707

3. Finally, check out mcmorran’s LEGO Dr. Who Flickr set. He built a LEGO Tardis and Dr. Who, and added them to various exhibits at a LEGO con. Click the link or the pic to see the full set.

Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.

I was just updating my CV, in case I need it all shined up to submit to Marvel. This is what the first page looks like:

PUBLICATIONS:
Forthcoming:
   ”Cairn Dancer” (short story for THE PHANTOM QUEEN AWAKES, December 2009, Morrigan Books)
   ”Blended” (short story for RUNNING WITH THE PACK, May 2010, Prime Books)
   ”Perchance to Dream” (short story for DRAGON’S LURE, Spring 2010, Dark Quest Books)
   DEMON HUNTS (novel, June 2010, Luna Books)
   TRUTHSEEKER (novel, Fall 2010, Del Rey Publishing)
   WAYFINDER (novel, Fall 2010, Del Rey Publishing)
   RATTLESNAKE DANCES (novel, Spring 2011, Luna Books)

2009:
   WALKING DEAD (novel)
   ”Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight” (novella)
   ”Take A Chance” (5-issue comic book miniseries)
   THE PRETENDER’S CROWN (novel)
   HANDS OF FLAME (novel)
   ”From Russia, With Love” (short story)

2008:
   THE QUEEN’S BASTARD (novel)
   HOUSE OF CARDS (novel)
   “Rabbit Tricks” (short story, web-based publication)
   “New York Hold ‘Em (short story, web-based publication)
   “Glasslands” (short story, web-based publication)
   “Previously, on Take A Chance” (comic script, web-based publication)
   “The Day the Pirate Attacked” (short story, web-based publication)
   ”Them Shoes” (short story)

2007:
   HEART OF STONE (novel)
   COYOTE DREAMS (novel)

2006:
   THE PHOENIX LAW (novel, writing as Cate Dermody)
   THE FIREBIRD DECEPTION (novel, writing as Cate Dermody)
   THUNDERBIRD FALLS (novel)

2005:
   THE CARDINAL RULE (novel, writing as Cate Dermody)
   WINTER MOON (an anthology inclusive of the novella “Banshee Cries”)
   ”Ill Met By Moonlight” (short story)
   URBAN SHAMAN (novel)

The half-dozen or so italicized items aren’t on the actual publications list, because they were short stories I wrote specifically for cemurphy.net, but I’m including them here sort of for my own elucidation. I think it’s only just very, very recently–like in the past few *days*–that it’s really begun to catch up with me just how much work I’ve done over the past several years.

(x-posted from the essential kit)

People like me cannot resist sites like this:

One Hundred Pushups Training Program

With Bonus! Situps and Squats programs, too! With apps for your iPhone (which I do not have, but having just signed and sent back my contracts for the Cold Magic project, I am starting to think seriously about purchasing an iTouch, and I assume the apps work for the iTouch as well), and also a one page printout that folds into a tiny little pamphlet to carry with you on trips.

Life is good!

Constantine Fitzgibbon's When the Kissing Had To Stop, Who reads cosy catastrophes?, The Kraken Wakes, Kij Johnson's Fudoki.

All about ... writing and work. Good comments, too.

F.J. Lennon, author of the iPhone app game Soul Trapper, has sold S&S's Atria Books a trilogy based on the game...

I got home this afternoon from picking up my new, tailored suit--go to Syms, it's cheap and awesome!--to discover UPS had delivered a box o' goodness: 25 copies of Hunt at World's End! Holding the actual book in my hand, seeing their spines all in a row like that, it made me so happy.

It's been an amazing ride of firsts so far. My first published novel. My first appearance in mass market paperback. My first reviews in Publishers Weekly and Booklist. And soon, my first book to be available in regular brick-and-mortar bookstores all around the country. What a sweet, sweet feeling.

Yesterday evening I went up to Sam Weller's and signed and nubmered 500 copies of THE GATHERING STORM for their virtual release day signing. (My hand hurts. Now I'm really looking forward to signing 1,000 books within 24 hours next week.) Anyway, a grand total of seven of those books were not already spoken for through preorders. If you call Sam Weller's this instant you might be able to snag one of the remaining copies (assuming they haven't already been claimed since yesterday). Now, I will be signing there again on November 2nd as a regular stop on the book tour, so if you can't make any of the tour dates and want a signed book, calling Sam Weller's is still a good option—anything signed there after yesterday just won't have a number and won't get shipped out until a week after the book is released. Which is just seven days away, folks.

This weekend I'm going to be the Toastmaster at MileHiCon in Denver. Pre-registration is already closed, but you can register at the door. My convention schedule is below.

(Also, don't forget that I'll be appearing at the Koelbel Library on Thursday, before the convention starts. And I'll be back in Denver on November 1st during the tour.)

Friday October 23

4:00 p.m.–4:50 p.m.
Panel: Bringing Characters to Life
(with C. Felice, N. Kress, R. Owens, and J. Skillingstead)

5:00 p.m.–5:50 p.m.
An Hour with Brandon Sanderson
(includes a reading)

7:00 p.m.–7:45 p.m.
Opening Ceremonies

8:00 p.m.–9:00 p.m.
Signing in Autograph Alley

Saturday October 24

10:00 a.m.–10:50 a.m.
Gaming with Brandon Sanderson
(Playing Magic: The Gathering. Bring your cards. Small group, signup required.)

3:00 p.m.–3:50 p.m.
Panel: The Craft of Writing
(with B. Hambly, N. Kress, and J. Van Pelt)

7:30 p.m.–9:50 p.m.
Masquerade/Literary Auction

Sunday October 25

11:00 a.m.–12:50 p.m.
Guest of Honor Speeches/Awards
(with M. Gunn, B. Hambly, N. Kress, and J. Picacio)

2:00 p.m.–2:50 p.m.
Panel: Understanding Point of View
(with H. Bell, G. Gillette, A. Lickiss, and J. Stith)

3:00 p.m.–3:50 p.m.
Signing

5:00 p.m.–6:00 p.m.
Closing Ceremonies

Composer Vic Mizzy (1922-2009) composed and performed the theme to The Addams Family...

Well, all around, this has been an exceptionally good day.  800 words on the devil ponies so far (and continuing), a very good run with the dog, and a yummy lunch of leftover curry goat from Anthony's, down on West Middle Turnpike, which I recommend for cheap, quick, and tasty Jamaican foods in town of Manchester.

Best tyop today: guess of honor

But that's not the best news. Because not only did I get my contrib copy of StarShipSofa Stories, the print anthology--

(Which, I must add, is TOTALLY AWESOME with the faux-vintage pre-distressed acid-washed cover and ads inside for Charles Atlas and mail-away baby salmonella factories turtles, and also gets you stories by Ken Scholes, Ken MacLeod, Gene Wolf, Peter Watts--oh, screw it, we're all awesome.

Ahem. *g*)

--but I am here to tell you that I have spent the last 24 hours or so confabbing with arcaedia and casacorona, and Tor will be publishing The Steles of the Sky and two sequels in the trilogy that probably needs a name now.

This is the story set in the same world as "Love Among the Talus" and Bone & Jewel Creatures, except about thirty years after the first and some five hundred years before the second. I'm totally, totally geeked about this--the project just keeps whispering in my ear, and I'm trying to tell it that we have two other novels and some short fiction to write first, and then I can give it all the love it deserves.

It's an epic fantasy in three volumes, spanning the cultures and empires of something not entirely unlike our own Central Asian Silk Road, and it features so much shiny I can't even beging to talk about without devolving into capslock and bangs. Nongols! Weather-witching with gunpowder! Magic ponies! Passive-aggressive martial monks! Impossible bowshots! Feats of bravery and derringdo! Stubbornest Princesses!

Vast, empty spaces and sky-hung mountains!

And I get to write it now. (Or anyway, once I have written Grail and A Reckoning of Men.)

...yeah, this is gonna rock.

(Also, this seems like a good time to debut my shiny new Steles of the Sky icon, because I can. That dude on the pony there? The really tiny one? That's Temur.)

Eeek! A book!

So I've dropped a couple of hints that I'd have a short story in an anthology coming out next year. Its co-editor, the very wonderful Lou Anders, has now posted the table of contents so I feel free to reproduce it, because it is a doozy, and you are going to want a piece of this, oh yes you are:

"Introduction: Check Your Dark Lord at the Door" - Lou Anders & Jonathan Strahan
"Goats of Glory" - Steven Erikson
"Tides Elba: A Tale of the Black Company" - Glen Cook
"Bloodsport" - Gene Wolfe
"The Singing Spear" - James Enge
"A Wizard of Wiscezan" - C.J. Cherryh
"A Rich Full Week" - K. J. Parker
"A Suitable Present for a Sorcerous Puppet" - Garth Nix
"Red Pearls: An Elric Story" - Michael Moorcock
"The Deification of Dal Bamore" - Tim Lebbon
"Dark Times at the Midnight Market" - Robert Silverberg
"The Undefiled" - Greg Keyes
"Hew the Tint Master" - Michael Shea
"In the Stacks" - Scott Lynch
"Two Lions, A Witch, and the War-Robe" - Tanith Lee
"The Sea Troll's Daughter" - Caitlin R Kiernan
"Thieves of Daring" - Bill Willingham
"The Fool Jobs" - Joe Abercrombie

Ouch. I think you'd have to agree, that is pretty darned heavyweight. Lou and Jonathan wanted to produce an anthology that would combine some old masters of Sword and Sorcery with some of the newer writers in the form and get a definitive look at the field, and I'd say they've succeeded with some pretty flying colours. Particularly pleased to have a short story in an athology alongside Michael Moorcock, since I read and really enjoyed his stories as a kid. Shool-an-Jivan, Lord of all that is dead in the Sea, may well still be my favourite name in all of fantasy...

The book's due out from Harper Eos, June 22 2010, but you can pre-order now. There's also going to be a limited edition from Subterranean Press in due course, I believe.

A collection not to be missed by anyone who likes sorcery with their swords, or vice versa. My own story is relatively chunky (8-9,000 words, which puts it in the novelette bracket, I believe) and features some characters from the forthcoming The Heroes, but I know next to nothing about any of the others. I'm actually really keen to get a copy myself so I can find out more...

“Hoping to stigmatize, criminalize and otherwise terrorize women seeking abortions, the wise and compassionate legislators of Oklahoma have passed a law that mandates recording and publishing on a website the details of each abortion performed there. No names, but more than enough facts - date, county, age, marital status etc - to out any woman in a small community. Fighting the bill are two

The following came in from MoveOn.org. There are times when I find MoveOn and their constant demands for money kind of irritating, but this does need to be addressed, especially as I rather tend to drink Budweiser by default and because it’s always there….“Why would a company like Anheuser-Busch oppose solutions to global warming?Anheuser-Busch is a prominent member of the U.S.

Esmeralda Frozdick felt a constant need to confirm her allure.

The amazing Noudela has sent us a brand new Simon’s Cat cartoon. Click here.

I got home from Bouchercon late yesterday, and am only now beginning to process everything. For those of you who were wondering, I didn’t pick up any awards. Mitch Alderman’s “Family Values” from Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine won the Best Short Story Shamus, and Sean Chercover’s “A Sleep Not Unlike Death” from Hardcore Hardboiled won the [...]

The Mos Eisley scene the way it might have been if Quentin Tarantino had directed it.

We've got an exclusive look behind the scenes of Transformers 2 from the new DVD/Blu-ray.

The charitable Astronaut Scholarship Foundation will welcome three cast members from The Next Generation at its upcoming Astronaut Experience and Memorabilia Auction...

…in the spot where the apartment manager found the dead guy yesterday, one of my neighbors left flowers. I thought that was sweet. I observed a moment of silence for whoever he was.