Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: chipper
  • Music: Vixy and Tony, "Anna."

DEADLINE open thread. Have a party.

To celebrate the release of Deadline [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy], here. Have an open thread to discuss the book.

THERE WILL BE SPOILERS.

Seriously. If anyone comments here at all, THERE WILL BE SPOILERS. So please don't read and then yell at me because you encountered spoilers. You were warned.

You can also start a book discussion at my website forums, with less need to be concerned that I will see everything you say! In case you wanted, you know, discussion free of authorial influence. I will probably answer a great many comments. I may not answer all of them.

Have fun!
Tags: deadline, mira grant
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  • 842 comments
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seanan_mcguire

June 1 2011, 17:01:09 UTC 6 years ago

That's a complicated question, and part of why I sort of winced every time someone commented on how nice it was that Shaun and Georgia didn't need romantic interests. It's not that they didn't need them; it's that George was a very private person, and that wasn't the sort of thing she would share in a first-person narrative.

The short answer is "because they told me it was there." I actually tried to argue them out of it, and just kept getting contradicted by the fictional people. "It's icky." "We're not related." "It's inappropriate." "This isn't YA." "It's unnecessary." "No, it's not. Here are eight reasons why." "You were raised as brother and sister." "We were raised as props for photo opportunities."

So basically...it was there because it was there. I'm sorry it made you uncomfortable.

leighblack

June 1 2011, 17:12:26 UTC 6 years ago

Thank you for the lovely and honest answer. I'm not a writer myself, but I do understand some about writing process and characters taking their stories into their own hands.

And certainly, you don't need to apologize. You're not in the business of making everyone happy. Just because I was squicked out by it, doesn't mean that other people won't enjoy the relationship or that it shouldn't have been there. But I appreciate it all the same. ;)

And just as an FYI, that one part certainly hasn't stopped me from talking the books up to people. I already have my copy loaned out to one friend and another is reading Feed right now. I just know that there are certainly people that it would definitely be an actual trigger for and will refrain from passing it along to them. (I'm really going to have to make sure to get them back so I can have you sign them at CONvergence! ;))

seanan_mcguire

June 1 2011, 17:15:41 UTC 6 years ago

I know that I'm not in the business of making everyone happy; if I were, I'd be writing about rainbow bunnies frolicking in the candy meadow. (Which might make diabetics unhappy.) Still, I honestly regret it when I make people sad, or uncomfortable.

Part of why it was so absolutely necessary will become clear in Blackout.

leighblack

June 1 2011, 17:20:23 UTC 6 years ago

Oh sure. Like there's not enough of a teaser for Blackout as it is...

lysystratae

June 1 2011, 18:04:12 UTC 6 years ago

We all survived Flowers In The Attic, we can handle George & Shaun :)

kshandra

June 6 2011, 18:17:52 UTC 6 years ago

And now I'm left to wonder if I'm the only person of my generation who never read VC Andrews....

keristor

June 6 2011, 19:30:36 UTC 6 years ago

OK, I'm not only a Brit but also half a generation older, but -- who?

kshandra

June 6 2011, 19:38:44 UTC 6 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowers_in_the_attic

lysystratae

June 6 2011, 20:28:27 UTC 6 years ago

depends on your generation - I'm 46, so I was hitting the right age juuuuust as the VC explosion was starting

kshandra

June 7 2011, 00:23:45 UTC 6 years ago

I'll be 41 in a week - a little young for the first book when it was published, but old enough for them to have been ubiquitous on grocery store end-caps in my teens.

notalwaysweak

6 years ago

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kshandra

6 years ago

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seanan_mcguire

6 years ago

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seanan_mcguire

5 years ago

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branna

June 1 2011, 18:27:13 UTC 6 years ago

Having now read the book, I'm wondering if there's a mechanism-of-transference issue in play...

I would really like to know how the CDC has accomplished not only force-grown clones but neural recording and transfer, dammit.

anthimerian

June 1 2011, 18:47:24 UTC 6 years ago

I would really like to know how the CDC has accomplished not only force-grown clones but neural recording and transfer, dammit.

THIS.

I trust the rest of the science in these books, it makes the kid in me who did disease detectives back in high school happy, but THAT. I have OPINIONS on clones that make me very Betan, to steal terminology from Bujold's Vorkosigan series, so despite how very awesome those last three pages were, I was also SO CONFUSED.

branna

June 1 2011, 18:53:21 UTC 6 years ago

I actually suspect the K-A virus may somehow be involved, given the weird zombie mob group-think thing. It might also explain Georgia-clone + "Georgia-in-Sean's head that does not have K-A eyes." I mean, that could all be simple coincidence, but um, in this series, I tend not to be real big on simple coincidence.


azurelunatic

6 years ago

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seanan_mcguire

June 1 2011, 20:46:28 UTC 6 years ago

I promise the science, while extremely fringe (like, crazily so) is actually solid, and that it uses real-world research.

tsgeisel

6 years ago

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seanan_mcguire

6 years ago

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keristor

6 years ago

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mtfierce

June 3 2011, 06:21:56 UTC 6 years ago

Don't forget the meta-media angle on this one - it's not like Georgia's entire life (and personal thoughts) wasn't recorded in some fashion or another. Combine it with the biological similarities of the clone's brain, and even without reading the next book, I'd give it a "plausible."

seanan_mcguire

June 1 2011, 20:44:09 UTC 6 years ago

Contagious immunity has been documented before, usually with the children or romantic partners of people with post-polio syndrome.

idancewithlife

June 3 2011, 05:25:51 UTC 6 years ago

Oh. My. God. **lightbulb!!** Wow. I love how your mind works.

azurelunatic

June 6 2011, 07:15:22 UTC 6 years ago

Until Shaun actually tested clean, I was convinced that he was going to die, and you'd given us the way he might have been able to survive due to having been long-term fluid-bonded with a person with retinal KA as a false hope, to make the dashing of it even more painful. So I actually did not cry, because I was going to cry after he died. And then he didn't.

jenfullmoon

6 years ago

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admnaismith

6 years ago

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hasufin

June 6 2011, 18:53:23 UTC 6 years ago

I've been wondering about that.

But... is it the case here? (No, I'm not asking. You're gonna tell us when you tell us.)

beable

June 1 2011, 21:07:12 UTC 6 years ago


Oh trust me, even rainbow bunnies frolicking in a the candy meadow couldn't make people happy. In fact, to me, they sound way more horrifying than zombies.

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beable

June 2 2011, 15:17:43 UTC 6 years ago


They're custom Cthulhus.

Actually they're custom Care Cthulhus (the icon doesn't show the stomach patches) that I decided about 6+ years ago that I absolutely needed, and so I gave the specs of what I wanted to a friend who knows how to sew and she made them for me.

One has an anatomy-style brain embroidered on it's tummy panel. That's smart Cthulhu.
One has an anatomy-style heart. That's heart Cthulhu.

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brightlotusmoon

June 2 2011, 17:06:31 UTC 6 years ago

You know, after I read that scene where he says George's name instead of Beck's (And now I have to know if she even stayed in the bed or immediately bolted in shock), I thought about it. While I was reading Feed I kept getting the nagging feeling that Georgia and Shaun were lovers, and I realized I was all right with it. It happens: Adopted kids fall in love with the biological children of the adoptive parents; step-siblings fall in love; seperately unrelated adopted kids fall in love.
It's the emotional taboo more than anything else, probably. "But she's your sister! Ew!"
And then I wondered what would happen if Shiloh Jolie-Pitt and Pax Thien Jolie Pitt fell in love, or Zahara Jolie-Pitt and Maddox Jolie-Pitt. It would be very weird, but not creepy to me.

Shaun and Georgia are each other's universe. They only have each other. They're not related genetically. They were raised together. They were told, over, and over, "You are brother and sister." But in cases like this, that doesn't matter. Hormones also get involved. Etc.

So, in conclusion, I'm cool with it. But I did feel awful for Becks! Poor Becks.

seanan_mcguire

June 15 2011, 18:52:41 UTC 6 years ago

Agreed.