For our second full day in Australia, Jeanne and I had signed up for a Walkabout Tour, along with David Levine and Kate Yule (two of the many, many people I met at World Fantasy in 2009). The tour was run by Echidna Walkabout, and started obscenely early in the morning, with a friendly woman named Janine coming to pick us up from the hotel. Janine wore the media-standard Australian leather bush hat. Hers was the only one I saw on an actual head during our trip.

"Are you Seanan?" she asked, after Jeanne and I got into her van. I affirmed that I was. "I thought you'd be a bloke!"

"I get that a lot," I said.

We drove around Melbourne picking up the rest of our party (hi, Kate and David!), including a bunch of cheery, chattery ladies from Tennessee, and then we were off for the You Yangs, where we would see, presumably, wild koalas doing wild koala things. On the way, we were treated to an enormous cornucopia of Australian birds, including my new personal favorite, the Australian magpie. This is a magpie that is not fucking around. It doesn't just have patches of white, oh, no, it is a white-out FACTORY, and it is COMING FOR YOUR EYES. (Also of note, the magpie lark, which is a third the size, very similar in coloring, sings duets, and will peck the holy crap out of you if you get too close.)

After we'd been driving for a while, Janine pulled into a field so we could look at HOLY CRAP PARROTS. Just THERE. Being WILD PARROTS. Dude, what the FUCK, Australia? There were also a few magpies around, so I wandered off to take pictures of them. "Seanan ignores the ostensibly interesting wildlife to photograph magpies" was a big theme of the day.

Once everyone had finished flipping out over the parrots, we got back in the van and finished driving to the You Yangs. On the way in, one of the chattery ladies spotted a swamp wallaby. The van was stopped. I spotted a second swamp wallaby. Janine was delighted. The ladies were delighted. Everyone was delighted! I found a guide to the native spiders of the area. Everyone was less delighted, probably because of my well-voiced desire to become the Spider Queen and lead my arachnid minions to victory.

We were met in the eucalyptus grove by Mary, the koala guide, who had been koala scouting to make sure we'd actually see some. Since koalas don't move much, she wasn't that concerned that the koalas would have gone anywhere, and we went hiking off into the brush. Koalas are boring. They sit, very high, and do nothing. It's like staring at shelf fungus that will pee on you if you get too close. I quickly lost interest in koalas, and started picking things up off the forest floor. "Things" included feathers (two of which went in Janine's hat), eggshells, interesting rocks, and pieces of bone. I am a dangerous individual when bored.

We drove on to an inordinately large rock called, reasonably enough, Big Rock. We climbed Big Rock. This was fun for me. Not so much, maybe, for the Tennessee ladies. Sorry, Tennessee ladies. Janine fed us all gum, like, from a gum tree. Janine is the devil.

Next up: lunch, served in a lovely little picnic hut in Serendip Sanctuary. It included sandwiches, fruit, biscuits (tim tams!), and outback tea, made with fresh gum leaves. I did not drink the tea. Everyone else drank the tea. Everyone else is CLEARLY INSANE, and I say this as the woman who went to AUSTRALIA to look for SPIDERS.

Now fortified, we went to finish the tour, and look at kangaroos. It turns out kangaroos don't much like being looked at. You have to sneak up on them (totally easy when you're a large group of people, most of whom don't spend much time outdoors), stay quiet, and look at them through binoculars. And then, when they inevitably notice you, you get to watch them boing boing boing away. Super-fun. The kangaroos were boring. The many varieties of giant flesh-ripping ant were not. Neither were the echidna scrapes, the big orange bugs, the entire denuded emu skeleton, or—best thing ever—the dead kangaroo. Oh, the dead kangaroo. Its flesh had been picked away by meat ants, and I was able to truly study its structure. Plus, there was a spider inside its skull. Thank you, Australia. I love you, too.

(Upon discovering the dead kangaroo, I hankered down to study it and take pictures. Our guide gamely tried to make this educational, and not get upset about the fact that the crazy Californian was way more interested in the dead kangaroo than in the live ones. Thank you, Janine. You were awesomely tolerant.)

With rain imminent and everyone exhausted, we made one last stop, at a billabong completely filled with birds. Black swans! So cool! Then it was back to Melbourne proper, passing kangaroos, swamp wallabys, and dozens of magpies on the way. Janine asked us about pie (apparently, cherry pie is viewed as a cruel joke in Australia, where cherries cost eighteen dollars a kilo during the off-season). We answered as best we could, until at last, we were back at our hotel, and could collapse for a little while before heading back to the alley for dinner.

I had lamb. Holy crap, lamb in Australia is like a religious experience. Welcome to the First Church of Mary's Little Lamb, please pass the sweet potato mash.

It was a very good day. Even without spiders.

Yes, again. Australia let my links get all out of control, and I'm just now starting to beat them back down to a manageable level. It's like wordy kudzu!

The Fantasy Cafe has posted a review of Feed, and says, "Even though I usually would treat a zombie book like zombies themselves and run the other way, I'm glad I read this one." Works for me.

Oh, hey! I did an interview with the Word Zombie to go with their Feed review. Give it a look, it's fun. Plus? Actual photo representations of my dream casting. Swoon.

My darling catvalente posted a long, thoughtful review of Feed, complete with MAINE COON MADNESS, and says, "The plot? Bloggers are hired to follow the Republican candidate for president some 40 years after the zombie apocalypse. A full society is in swing that knows how to deal with zombies but is still plagued by them. It's fascinating stuff. There is a conspiracy. Things bite other things. There are, I shit you not, both zombie palominos and zombie moose. This is unassailably awesome." Hee.

Beth at Flying Off the Shelves posted a lovely review of Feed, and says, "When I first started reading this book I wasn't expecting it to be nearly as good as it is. I questioned it and asked myself, 'How could this book be any good after reading World War Z? I don't want to read another crappy zombie book,' but I took the chance and I found that this book is truly an amazing piece of writing. The characters are dynamic and complex. The story line will knock your socks off. I actually don't have anything bad to say about this book whatsoever. Even the science behind this story is interesting and spot on when it comes to basic virus information. If her next book is anything like this I may just die (and hopefully not zombify)." Yay!

Finally for today, my old friend Mike Jones reviewed Feed for SF Site, and says, "Combining zombies, politics, epidemiology, pop culture, blogging, humor and horror, this is one hell of a series opener. Grant (the open pseudonym for urban fantasist/artist/songwriter Seanan McGuire) knocks the ball out of the park with Feed." Works for me.

Rise up while you can.

My darling Mia at chimera_fancies is running a set of truly awesome sales right now. Six, all told, when you add up the auctions and the rest. It's an embarrassment of riches, one which awes and delights.

First up, the pendants she made from An Artificial Night are now available for sale. This is just the first batch; the second will be going live tonight. They're made from pieces of an ARC of the book, and all of them are signed by me. I honestly think this is Mia's best work yet. I'm honored and delighted to have been a part of it (and not just because it meant I got to see the pendants before anybody else did).

She also made three special pendants for auction sale. These are pressed under glass, with charms and extra glitter, and to make things extra-special, she had me write blurbs for all three.

"When one seeks advice on love, matters of the hearth, children, gardens, or the maintenance of apple orchards, ask the sun. When one seeks advice on wishes better left unwished, quests better left untaken, the mathematical definitions of the universe, or the maintenance of cherry orchards, ask the stars. When one seeks advice on kisses, on candles, on secrets, on fairy tales, on riddles, or on the maintenance of the peaches of immortality...ask the moon. If you word your question well enough, the moon may even answer." —Pendant #1: Ask the Moon.

"There are rules that bind transactions in the magical world, forms that must be followed, customs that must be obeyed. In time, one learns the tricks that allow these rules to be suspended, if only for a time. Make contracts with frog princes only when the moon is new; barter with small, nameless men only in perfectly round rooms with windows facing east. Do not trust cakes baked by women made of flowers, or wine pressed by men made of stone. There are ways to slip past every rule, if you are clever. Now come, bearing all these things in mind, and raise your hand, and dare the sea witch's door. —Pendant #2: Bargain With the Sea Witch.

"On the eve of her execution, the Princess Calendra—condemned by her own silence, and by the words of her father, who named her as a witch—stood before the pyre, squared her shoulders, and said, "In a Kingdom of men who fancy themselves as heroes, not a one has come to save me. In a world of stableboys and swineherds who dream of working wonders, not a one has come to my defense. In a time of so much pride, so much smug reliance on the words of storytellers, one man should have come...but instead I stand here, wicker maid and sacrifice to the harvest of your cowardice. Very well. If you will not save me, the time has come, I fear, to save myself." They say she vanished then, that she and her handmaids—who had been loyal, held in chains even as she was—rose on black white owl wings and flew away into the night. And where they went, none know...but the owls ask, always, who? Who will save you, little one, with your silence and your sorrows? Will you wait for a hero who may never come, or will you rise, and save yourself?" —Pendant #3: Then I'll Save Myself.

Now, if you, like me, already have a great many pretty things, you may be dreaming of jewelry boxes. This need, too, can be met. More than once, even, and for auction. I love it when the world meets our needs.

Beautiful things. Thank you, Mia!