Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: chipper
  • Music: Indigo Girls, "Cedar Tree."

Love is a vicious, pointy, many-splendored thing.

We have successfully weathered both the release of The Winter Long and the start of a new year, complete with my birthday, which means that you deserve a treat. And here it is:

A brand-new story about Tybalt, Toby, and their first real date. "No Sooner Met," has been posted on the Toby Daye short fiction page. It is available in ePub, MOBI, and PDF formats, and is free for download. Please download rather than trying to read locally; my server will thank you.

This story is best read after Ashes of Honor if possible, since it is set very shortly after that book, and contains unavoidable spoilers for the series up to that point. It is a story about falling in love, and cats, and how to get a really good steak in San Francisco. It is narrated by Tybalt, because he's the romantic in this relationship.

Cover graphics are by Tara O'Shea. All short story electronic conversion thus far has been done by scifantasy. As both of them are awesome, we applaud them now.

Go forth, read, and please feel free to use this as a discussion post, which means there may be spoilers in the comments. Tread carefully.

Enjoy.
Tags: short fiction, toby daye
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badgermirlacca

January 7 2015, 20:55:27 UTC 2 years ago

This might be only my problem, in which case I apologize for airing it here, but when I try to download this story in mobi, instead of a download I get a page full of unintelligible stuff. This is the second time this has happened, which confuses me because I've never had this problem before in downloading stories from your page.

Is it just me?

kriatyrr

January 7 2015, 21:08:54 UTC 2 years ago

Did you try right-clicking and choosing to download? Sounds like your browser thinks it can open mobi files and tries to do it that way. I did not experience this problem, so it's probably just you.

seanan_mcguire

2 years ago

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badgermirlacca

2 years ago

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vixyish

2 years ago

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wenhaver

January 7 2015, 20:55:30 UTC 2 years ago

The download links still say "Forbid the Sea" (although they point to the right story).

Thank you for this! Just what I needed on a nasty, high of -4 degree day!

seanan_mcguire

January 7 2015, 21:13:39 UTC 2 years ago

Fixed.

argonel

2 years ago

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grenacia

January 7 2015, 21:12:22 UTC 2 years ago

Yay! A romantic story of Toby and Tybalt is about the best unexpected treat you could give me today. I don't know if it will cure my "Wednesday blues" but it will at least give me something to look forward to later, and certainly should make me happy for the time I spend reading the story.

seanan_mcguire

January 8 2015, 16:15:12 UTC 2 years ago

Yay!

reedrover

January 7 2015, 21:15:44 UTC 2 years ago Edited:  January 7 2015, 21:17:30 UTC

Thank you! I enjoyed!

I love the bit about sending proclamations as wrist corsages. Funny!

P.S. - Thank you for giving us a story for your birthday. Happy belated!

seanan_mcguire

January 8 2015, 16:15:27 UTC 2 years ago

Thank you!

jessikast

January 7 2015, 21:19:03 UTC 2 years ago

Awesome, thanks so much! :-DDD

seanan_mcguire

January 8 2015, 16:29:53 UTC 2 years ago

Very welcome.

wildpear

January 7 2015, 21:26:45 UTC 2 years ago

“I don’t care that much about your intentions. I care about your results.”

Quentin, I love you. <3

This was gorgeous, I loved the interplay between the things Tybalt thinks and the things he says. Thank you for an awesome story! Also for this:

“The meal was delightful. Your sommelier should be congratulated for the wine
selections. The dessert was poisoned. Would you care to comment?”

Because what's an assassination attempt without a snarky rejoinder?

seanan_mcguire

January 8 2015, 16:36:42 UTC 2 years ago

Mind you, if someone (Toby) had actually been hurt, snark would have been quickly replaced with violence...

wildpear

2 years ago

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handspinner

January 7 2015, 21:28:23 UTC 2 years ago

Thank you.

seanan_mcguire

January 8 2015, 16:36:50 UTC 2 years ago

Very welcome.

cgbookcat1

January 7 2015, 23:22:39 UTC 2 years ago

Thank you! I enjoy Tybalt's narrative voice, and this story makes me feel warm and fuzzy on a day where the temperature outside is very low.

seanan_mcguire

January 8 2015, 16:37:02 UTC 2 years ago

Yay!

sagaciouslu

January 7 2015, 23:36:54 UTC 2 years ago

Writers have birthdays? DAMN YOU! Damn you all. You're supposed to be timeless and eternal and never die so I can keep being entertained and amused by your wit and imagination.

AND I'm still pissed about Zelazny and Banks and Gemmell, et al., departing altogether too early without giving us more.

Start bathing in the blood of virgins, will ya...?

Thank you...

seanan_mcguire

January 8 2015, 17:02:00 UTC 2 years ago

I have a long, long run left in me, promise.

acelightning

January 7 2015, 23:38:36 UTC 2 years ago

What a delightful story! Tybalt's Renaissance romantic courtliness would definitely make me weak in the knees, even though he wasn't wearing leather pants ;-)

seanan_mcguire

January 8 2015, 17:02:11 UTC 2 years ago

He tries so hard.

acelightning

2 years ago

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calico_reaction

January 8 2015, 01:14:16 UTC 2 years ago

Yay and thank you!

seanan_mcguire

January 8 2015, 17:02:19 UTC 2 years ago

Very welcome!

anne_d

January 8 2015, 01:21:37 UTC 2 years ago

Oh, lovely. It's so nice to see Toby just being herself with someone she loves and trusts. Of course they had to kick butt on their date, of course they did. And Tybalt is, as always, adorable.

You gave me a big happy on a sad day. Thank you, Seanan, thank you.

anne_d

January 8 2015, 03:55:00 UTC 2 years ago

Also, the cover is perfect. Please convey my compliments to the artist.

seanan_mcguire

2 years ago

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_dante_sparda_

January 8 2015, 01:40:58 UTC 2 years ago

This was an utter delight to read. I really liked getting to look through Tybalt's eyes and knowing his thoughts, and it was equally nice to see the two of them getting to relax a little bit without benefit of blood loss and fainting. Thank you, Seanan.

seanan_mcguire

January 8 2015, 17:02:52 UTC 2 years ago

Very welcome.

marooux13

January 8 2015, 01:50:11 UTC 2 years ago

IT WAS LOVELY!!!! I always love Tybalt and his old-world way of speaking or thinking in this case.

seanan_mcguire

January 8 2015, 17:03:02 UTC 2 years ago

Yay!

tsgeisel

January 8 2015, 02:25:05 UTC 2 years ago

Of course it's narrated by Tybalt. Toby wouldn't know a romantic situation if it painted itself purple and danced naked on top of a harpsichord, singing "Romantic situations are here again!"

(To paraphrase Sir Edmund Blackadder.)

jenfullmoon

January 8 2015, 14:15:09 UTC 2 years ago

And then she's so delighted that someone tried to poison them!

seanan_mcguire

2 years ago

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seanan_mcguire

January 8 2015, 17:03:27 UTC 2 years ago

Glee.

omgomgomg

sami.dreamwidth.org

January 8 2015, 03:15:49 UTC 2 years ago

SO I have not read the story you're linking too here but this is... a thing where I can say this so anyway

because of REASONS I had fallen behind in your books you see (the truly unfair thing: after I read Discount Armageddon and my first couple of Toby Daye books, I lent them to a friend's father; he liked them, and then he bought his own, and now he keeps buying them so he's been AHEAD OF ME it was awful), but yesterday my copies of Chimes at Midnight, The Winter Long, Midnight Blue-Light Special and Half-Off Ragnarok arrived, and I just finished reading Chimes at Midnight and The Winter Long and HOLY SHIT, basically.

I *totally* called it on Quentin, but asldkfjakldfja;akgsngaekwnav I had not even noticed the part about ... the missing person... and seriously I just read The Winter Long in one hit this morning and I have ADHD and I don't DO that kind of thing and basically, THAT WAS AWESOME and WHY AREN'T YOU MAGIC so you can have written all of the books already? or else WHY DID I HAVE TO FIND OUT THEY EXISTED A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO I have a *distinct fondness* for becoming fond of a book series after it's *already finished* anyway THESE BOOKS MADE ME INCOHERENT AND ALLCAPSY THIS IS ALL YOUR OWN FAULT SO SUFFER OKAY

Anyway, I really liked them, and while I regret the delay in getting to catch up in some ways it was kind of awesome being able to go straight from Chimes at Midnight to The Winter Long.

RE: omgomgomg

seanan_mcguire

January 8 2015, 17:03:49 UTC 2 years ago

Hee hee hee yay I am very glad you enjoyed.

idancewithlife

January 8 2015, 04:15:14 UTC 2 years ago

What an awesome story! Thanks for making it available to us. I think it will be one I re-read frequently.

seanan_mcguire

January 8 2015, 17:04:01 UTC 2 years ago

Very welcome.

Squee!

carradee

January 8 2015, 05:28:58 UTC 2 years ago

A TYBALT SHORT!

*squeals while downloading, giggles and hops and reads entire paragraphs to roommate, and is ever so grateful for the freebie*

THANK YOU!

RE: Squee!

seanan_mcguire

January 8 2015, 17:04:15 UTC 2 years ago

You're welcome!

naurwen

January 8 2015, 09:00:32 UTC 2 years ago

Thank you so much - and a happy belated birthday!
Thank you for treating *us* :)
It was a delightful read (of course I had to read straight away) and the cover is beautiful and perfect!

seanan_mcguire

January 8 2015, 17:04:27 UTC 2 years ago

I am glad you liked it.

notalwaysweak

January 8 2015, 10:40:28 UTC 2 years ago

This was delightful, and the perfect balance between romance and treachery.

seanan_mcguire

January 8 2015, 17:04:41 UTC 2 years ago

Yay!

taldragon

January 8 2015, 11:56:54 UTC 2 years ago

this was a fantastic story, thank you so much (and hippy belated bathday).

I love that Quentin is more worried about Tybalt in Toby's care than vice versa, and that of course Tybalt would eat garlic for Toby :)

seanan_mcguire

January 8 2015, 17:05:05 UTC 2 years ago

Let's be honest: Tybalt would eat garlic for no reason at all.

taldragon

2 years ago

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melchar

January 8 2015, 13:51:18 UTC 2 years ago

Squee with a side of SQUEE and a heaping portion of *SQUEE!*

You are wonderful and adorable and make lovely eat-them-in-a-large-bite stories [and then more lovely, longer books]. Thank you for your delightful 'the first taste is free and then it is magical addiction' fiction. I love it and you a huge heaping amount!

seanan_mcguire

January 8 2015, 17:05:20 UTC 2 years ago

You are very welcome.

kyttiekait

January 8 2015, 16:02:53 UTC 2 years ago

Yay for more Toby stories! This was adorable, and perfect, and thank you for all the lovely short stories you give us between all the wonderful full length things you write!

seanan_mcguire

January 10 2015, 17:58:22 UTC 2 years ago

You are very welcome.

mac_arthur_park

January 8 2015, 17:28:33 UTC 2 years ago

Yay! I'm almost finished with Ashes of Honor, so the timing is perfect for me. Thanks!

seanan_mcguire

January 10 2015, 17:58:44 UTC 2 years ago

Oh, excellent!
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