Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: sleepy
  • Music: Wicked Girls, "Carnival Glass."

SPARROW HILL ROAD open thread!

To celebrate the release of Sparrow Hill Road, here. Have an open thread to discuss the book. Judging by the comments I'm seeing, some of you've have had time, while others received review copies.

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. (I will not reply to every comment; I call partial comment amnesty. But I may well join some of the discussion, or answer questions or whatnot.) I will be DELETING all comments containing spoilers which have been left on other posts. No one gets to spoil people here without a label.

You can also start a 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, since I always wind up getting involved in these things.

Have fun, and try not to bleed on the carpet.
Tags: open thread, sparrow hill road
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  • 61 comments

acelightning

May 10 2014, 17:13:29 UTC 3 years ago Edited:  May 11 2014, 03:31:36 UTC

I just got the book last night, and I've only skimmed it - but as the daughter of a truck driver, I've got to know more about this mythos you've created!

Two things I want to mention right now:

1. I thought what you did with the old, sappy song Tell Laura I Love Her was hilariously funny. I can't wait to find out if you gave similar twists to Teen Angel and Last Kiss. (Of course, Rose Marshall herself is second cousin to the title character in The Story of Laurie.)

2. I live quite close to part of the Atlantic Highway that was... and I'm a witch...

3. Binary scent signatures... gee, where have we seen that before? :-)

4. And now I'm certain that you've read the same mythology sources as Tom Siddell.

seanan_mcguire

May 11 2014, 20:54:30 UTC 3 years ago

Rose is mostly "Bringing Mary Home," if you're looking for a song to connect her to.

As to binary scent signatures, well. There's BPAL, and Conjure Oils, and every winemaker ever, and...Rose needed a sense that wasn't dulled by death, and historically, for the dead, it's smell. That's why we burn things for the dead.

I don't know Tom Siddell.

acelightning

May 12 2014, 03:36:11 UTC 3 years ago

"The Story Of Laurie" is many people's first experience of the Phantom Hitchhiker story. Teenage boy meets a girl at a dance; at midnight, she says it's now her birthday. He offers to take her home; as they're getting in the car, she says she's cold and asks to borrow his sweater. He drives her home, she gets out, and he drives away. In the morning, he remembers that she still has his sweater. He goes back to get it, and the sad couple who come to the door say, "Is this some kind of cruel joke? Laurie died on her birthday, a year ago today." They take him to the graveyard to show him her grave... and his sweater is neatly folded and draped over the tombstone. The story was already old, though, when it was made into a "teen tragedy" song in the early 1960s.

I meant specifically binary aroma signatures... like ashes and lilies, or cut grass and copper. I'm not complaining; it's a very clever conceit, and it throws just a little bit of "What?" into the connections among your fictional worlds.

Tom Siddell draws Gunnerkrigg Court. (And there's just been a story arc there about a popular ghost named Mort... same name as Rose's brother, the one whose car she wrecked.)

It's all so fascinating!