Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: amused
  • Music: AC/DC, 'Let There Be Rock.'

The wheel o' Jim Hines (or, my friends amuse me).

Matt, Michelle and I have a long-standing tradition of passing books around the three of us like red rubber balls during a game of four-square. It started when we were in high school, where we knew what we all liked and didn't have much money to throw around. It's continued into our adult lives, where we still know what we all like, and still don't have much money to throw around. We see each other about once a month, when I take the train up to Sacramento for hanging out and role-playing games. (Yes, I still play with my high school gaming group. No, I don't see a problem with that.)

When I went up to visit in November, I brought Jim Hines's Goblin trilogy* to loan to Matt, and my ARC of The Stepsister Scheme** to loan to Michelle. When I went up this past weekend, Michelle returned The Stepsister Scheme -- she's going to be buying her own copy once it hits the store shelves -- and Matt returned the Goblin books. I began putting things into my bag to take home. Michelle promptly inquired, of the Goblin books, "Are you going to leave those here?"

Hee.

So I left the Goblin books in Sacramento and returned to the Bay Area, where my mother picked me up from the train station and drove me home. Once there, she hung around to chat a bit, and -- as I was unpacking my bags -- caught sight of The Stepsister Scheme. Bet you can guess what happens next, can't you? Good guess. My house is totally devoid of the works of Jim Hines, and I am amused. (My house is also practically devoid of the works of Kelley Armstrong, as Michelle is borrowing everything from Industrial Magic to Living With the Dead, but those had a less entertaining chain of custody.)

(*Goblin Quest, Goblin Hero, and Goblin War, all published by DAW Books, all available now from a retailer near you. Support your local bookstore. Buy more books.)
(**Coming from DAW Books on January 6th, 2009. The day after my birthday!)
Tags: jim hines, my mom is nuts, reading things, social life
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  • 14 comments

scholarinexile

December 10 2008, 14:19:16 UTC 8 years ago

I'm currently facing the problem of not being entirely clear who has some of my books, given that the chain of custody of, for example, some of my Pratchett collection has becomes so involved, and anyone who's read them has gone off and gotten their own copies afterwards anyway.

And I too still game with my high-school group, although this often involves chat programs, webcams, and a Java-based map system, since we now live in three different time zones and are only reliably all back in town at Christmas. My local gaming groups (I run four campaigns; yes, I'm that crazy) include two of my middle-school-gaming buddies, one of whom has been in my games literally since the day I started GMing.

seanan_mcguire

December 16 2008, 15:22:26 UTC 8 years ago

Owwwwwwwww. Yeah, I have the same problem with books and several CDs (at least one of which I think I just need to bite the damn bullet and re-buy, as it's been missing for years now).