Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: stressed
  • Music: Simple Minds, "Don't You (Forget About Me)."

And then Seanan made a request.

This is not an anti-piracy post. I want to get that out there right up front. I am anti-piracy, but I don't really want to argue the situation right now, and I understand that it's complicated and all that. So this is not an anti-piracy post.

So here's the thing.

As is always the case when a new book is released, the illegal downloads for Sparrow Hill Road are popping up like mushrooms after the rain. They seem to be quite healthy, too. Swell; hopefully that means sales will be good. It definitely means that people are reporting them to me, because that's part of the circle of piracy. Which also means that some...other...links are getting reported to me.

Including the downloads for the original Edge of Propinquity stories.

I am aware that some people, on seeing me type that, will go "oh yay I can read them." And I am begging you: please don't. Please do not download these stories. Please do not save these stories. If you have them as historical artifacts, well, I can't stop you from doing that, but I would be much happier if you deleted them.

"Silly author, not understanding that the internet is forever!" No, I understand completely that the internet is forever. There's nothing in those stories that I'm ashamed of. The bulk of them have been preserved in the new volume, cleaned up and edited and improved by additional material. I'm not trying to hide anything. But those stories are out of canon, and I've been fielding emails and comments for the last two weeks about "but this contradicts..." or "but this story that isn't collected here says...". They've picked up in volume in the last two days.

So this isn't an anti-piracy post: it's a "please stop downloading what is essentially an early draft, and is out of canon, and is making me tear my hair out" post. You're not missing anything good by leaving it alone. You're just missing a lot of confusion about what year Rose actually died. And you're missing out on Mary and Amy entirely.

Really.
Tags: shameless plea, sparrow hill road
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  • 54 comments

juglore

May 8 2014, 02:40:04 UTC 3 years ago

I read the ebook on ibooks on my iPad because English didn't have enough words starting with vowels. Then I see mention of the earlier version and I am all 'ooh must go see.' But Seanan said not to. I will try to be good. It is all I can promise.

seanan_mcguire

May 8 2014, 02:45:34 UTC 3 years ago

I would really, really, really appreciate it if you didn't. I knew that this was a human impulse that would be triggered by this post, but as I've already had three people tell me they didn't know I didn't want the old stories floating around out there, I thought it was worth it.

Please. You are literally missing nothing.