So remember when I said that I would answer ten questions about the InCryptid universe? I'm still taking questions, but here's your eighth answer!

vixyish asks...

"What is bogeyman society like? So far on paper we've only met them singly. Are there bogeyman communities, do they live in family groups, that kind of thing, or do they prefer to live alone, each with their own territory? And how do they find mates?"

Bogeymen! Now, remember, that "bogeyman" and "bogeymen" is considered gender-neutral as a species term, much like "human." So while all bogeymen are people, there is no such thing as a "bogeywoman," and you will in fact be gutted stem to stern if you try to use the term. "Bogeyboy" and "bogeygirl" are likewise incorrect, unless you're talking to a bunch of teenage bogeymen who want to piss off their parents. It's a phase. They generally grow out of it. "Bogeydude" is never correct. "Bogeybabe," sometimes correct during courtship, because it's just wrong and naughty enough to be attractive. I do not recommend you try it unless you're dating a bogeyman who has already shown herself to enjoy dirty language. Now, onward to the actual question:

Bogeymen live in a culture of commerce. Everything is based on purchase value and exchange rate, even though much of their commerce is done via barter. Maybe especially because most of their commerce is done via barter. When getting a cookie requires an hour's labor, or two dead rats for the dinner menu, you know the value of a cookie a lot more than you would if it only cost you a dollar. Bogeyman parents begin teaching their children about commerce by the age of two, to prepare them for exiting the family unit and entering society. Note that there is no "hard and fast" line for leaving said family unit: a bogeyman who proves to have no nose for commerce may be kept permanently at home, considered a functional child but protected from the realities of the world, or else sold as a servant to a larger family unit (assuming said bogeyman is a skilled enough laborer to do the work, and is just lacking the skill set necessary to be a free-living, independent member of society).

Family units will generally consist of a "head of household," IE, "whoever put down the most collateral toward purchasing and furnishing the living space," his or her spouse or spouses, and any unmarried siblings with no interest in having children or households of their own. All adults are expected to work for their keep, but this work can include maintaining the house and caring for the children. Anyone who chooses those jobs will be paid by the rest of the household, fairly for their labor, and is thus considered to be contributing fully. Despite being a primarly barter-based economy, bogeymen do covet money, which they will put aside to sustain them in case of illness. Should an adult member of the household fall ill, they will pay their family to care for them. This may seem cruel, from a human perspective, but the bogeymen have spent a long time being hunted, hated, and hurt: they want to know that they are never a burden, and that any time lost caring for someone who should have been able to care for themselves will be repaid. It's a matter of pride. Note that, should someone run out of money, they will go into debt; they will not be turned away. Bogeyman funerals often involve the symbolic laying of debt upon the coffin, releasing any descendants from the burden, and it is considered the height of ill manners to try to enforce minor debts incurred by the dead, unless those debts were incurred in bad faith.

Bogeyman communities can be quite large, and almost entirely subterranean, due to the nocturnal nature of bogeymen as a species and the "kill it with fire" reactions that many humans tend to have. The bogeyman community in Manhattan is numbered in the thousands, as are the communities in Seattle and Chicago. Smaller cities will usually have smaller bogeyman communities, and they will sometimes resort to buying apartment buildings, turning them into "special communities for graveyard shift employees," and then colonizing the individual units. This can result in someone being the only human in a building full of bogeymen, which rarely ends well.

When a bogeyman comes of age to marry, they will sit down with their parents and fairly and logically assess themselves. Skills, appearance, medical history, it all goes into setting their price. Everyone has a price. It's not men buying women; it's couples buying each other. Sometimes parents will make a wedding gift to the couple by making up the difference if one of them can't afford the other. ("But Mom! Daniel costs twice what I do and I really love him!" "Okay, okay, instead of a cake, we'll buy you a husband.") If there's no one local that somebody wants to buy, they may take their assessed value and go traveling, working their way through the local communities while they search for a spouse. Offers of purchase can be refused; some couples are committed but apart for years while they earn the necessary money to start their lives together. It's customary for the parents on both sides to gift the young couple with part or all of their mutual purchase price at the wedding, allowing them to buy a home and begin establishing themselves. In this case, the head of household will almost always be the one with the higher initial cost.

Bogeymen love their children, and will do virtually anything for them. They're very human, in that regard. This does mean that same-sex couples will buy and sell their favors to each other—essentially, "if you get me pregnant, and forswear the child, you can also get my wife pregnant, and keep the child." Bogeymen who don't want children are not treated poorly, as they can add value to other households by providing additional adults to help keep things running smoothly. The population is high enough at this point that some loss of genetic diversity can be endured.

I like bogeymen. They're dishonest with outsiders and very honest with each other, and they take care of their own.

So remember when I said that I would answer ten questions about the InCryptid universe? I'm still taking questions, and actively need questions that follow the "big, about the world" model as described in the original post, but here's your seventh answer!

acelightning asks...

"The Price family's history suggests that there might be some sort of "paranormal" ability that helps a person detect cryptids, and that this ability is at least partially genetic. On the other pseudopod, it could all be nothing more than empirical knowledge, handed down from one generation to the next with a bit more intensity than Great-Grandmother's kugelhupf recipe."

I'm sort of cheating with this one, because it's not really a question. At the same time, a lot of the questions I've received have been very narrow ("What's Istas's favorite kind of pie?"), and hence qualify as both a) spoilers and b) not very interesting to take apart in detail. So please, submit more questions, and I'll take a moment to ramble about the Price family. For funsies.

There is no paranormal ability that allows people to detect cryptids. Well, that's maybe not entirely true: Sarah, who is a telepath, can probably find other cryptids by reading their minds, and Artie, who is an empath, can point out people who are unduly nervous or unhappy, and Istas can smell the difference between many species (but does not consider having a bloodhound-level sense of smell to be a "paranormal ability," as she was born that way). But for the most part, it's observation, education, and knowing what to look for. The Prices are raised on a steady diet of "And how do we spot a bogeyman?" They take field trips to the local gorgon and harpy communities. They learn early how to spot the "probably not a human" signs, and also how to trick people into identifying their species, even if they can't quite tell what it is. It's science. Behavioral science, field biology, and deduction.

There's also an element of luck, which is where the rumors come in, at least in certain circles. "Healy luck: sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, but it's always interesting" used to be a fairly common saying within the family. No one knows for sure what kind of stock Fran came from, and it's possible that she has jink or leprechaun in her family tree, somewhere. Ditto for the Davies family, which joined the Covenant in the 1700s, a period when many "close enough to pass" cryptids made a bid at hiding in plain sight by signing up with their dearest enemy. So it's entirely possible that luck-manipulator genes have entered the family tree at one or more points. (Whether this has actually happened is something that I'm not saying.) But this is only luck: even if it's a factor, all it's going to do is put people who have it in the path of more cryptids, giving them more opportunities to exercise the deductive skills listed above.

Field biology is a matter of knowing what to look for, knowing where to look, and not giving up. The Prices have these qualities in spades.

So remember when I said that I would answer ten questions about the InCryptid universe? I'm still taking questions, and actively need questions that follow the "big, about the world" model as described in the original post, but here's your sixth answer!

rianax asks...

"If they can't interbreed with humanity, how to these different species met up and have children in the modern world? Is there a cryptid Cupid.com?"

Yay, cryptid breeding! We're going to restrict ourselves to a very anthrocentric approach, for the sake of answering the question as posed: we're only looking at cryptids that can, for one reason or another, live in human settlements. The ones who can "pass," in other words. They're both the ones who are most likely to have issues with humans seeming attractive, and the ones who will have the most "I need to know your species before we can hook up" problems.

Some of these cryptids get around the "accidentally dating humans" issue by not being mammals. For the most part, humans smell "wrong" to them, and are hence not attractive. You do get occasional perverts who like mammal boys or insect girls instead of sticking with good, honest reptile people like their siblings, but for the most part, people are attracted to things they have half a chance of being biologically compatible with. (Science supports me on this.)

A few species of cryptid are cross-fertile with humans. A very few species, and most of them will still choose not to crossbreed, because there's a very good chance their offspring will be infertile, which doesn't help keep the family line going. Lilu, which includes both incubi and succubi, are cross-fertile, and their offspring have a fifty percent chance of being infertile. Fertile crossbreeds will usually have children that are indistinguishable from the species of their mate. So if Elsie, who is half-succubus, were to visit a sperm bank and get some human sperm, she would have a baby who was effectively a very sexy human, rather than a succubus crossbreed. Jinks and leprechauns are similar, and many family links have a little jink or leprechaun blood.

Tanuki are the only known species of therianthrope to be cross-fertile outside of other therianthropes, and they manage this partially by having lots and lots of tanuki babies. As with certain types of frog (no, seriously, science again), they have evolved extremely dominant DNA. If Ryan were to mate with Istas, you wouldn't get half-waheela babies, you'd get unusually colored tanuki. Even when there were more of them, they would often seek out-species mates to get hybrid vigor back into the community. Sorry about what that does for your family line, dearest.

There are dating services for some species of cryptid, ranging from the very communal "let me introduce you, he's a nice boy" social dances of the bogeymen to the more formal courting rituals of the gorgons. There are very few true solitaries, and almost everyone knows where everyone else is. And yes, some of this happens on the internet, although it has to be very carefully masked and monitored; the Covenant can log on, too.

So remember when I said that I would answer ten questions about the InCryptid universe? Well, I'm still taking questions, but here's your fifth answer!

ladymurmur asks...

"I'm not asking for calendar of holidays, but instead have a logistical ponderment - For how many generations to the Aeslin keep their holidays? when the colonies branch off, and begin creating their own new holidays, do the new holidays begin overwriting or supplanting the old holidays so that there is only one or just a few on any given day? Or do they stack, becoming almost an "on this day in history" sort of situation? If there are multiple celebrations on one day, are the celebrated concurrently? consecutively? Do colonies ever rejoin each other, or cross-pollinate in some fashion (an Aeslin exchange program?) and thus share holidays? or are the new colonies more like religious schisms, and ne'er the twain shall meet?"

I decided that I would answer one question about the Aeslin mice this round, because while I love them, they're sort of like bacon: a little bit can go a very long way, and we're way too early in the series to be risking mouse burn-out. This one offered the most opportunities to stick knives into people, so...you're welcome, I guess.

First off, there's a major underlying assumption buried in this question: the assumption that colonies branch off. They used to, but that doesn't happen anymore, because branching really happens only when the population gets too large for the space and resources available. The colony of Aeslin mice currently living with the Price family is the last known Aeslin colony in the world. The elders control birth rates and expansion very carefully, and pray for the younger generation of Prices and Price-Harringtons to marry and settle in homes of their own, because they're trying to avoid an actual schism; they know very well that any groups that leave the family home are extremely unlikely to survive. At the same time, if a schism becomes unavoidable before a new attic or basement or guest bedroom becomes available to them, the schisming mice will no longer exist from the perspective of the colony. Reject the colony, you reject the colony's gods. Reject the colony's gods, reject the colony's way of life. Reject the colony's way of life, you are no longer my child.

Aeslin mice are pathologically religious. They can't fight the urge to worship. It's tied to their survival instincts; while a colony that worships a cat is likely to be eaten, a colony that worships a tree will have a stronger tendency to stay together and stay safe, because they need to be healthy to properly tend to the needs of their god. They're capable of teamwork and very complicated thought, but they're still mice. Talking mice. The Covenant wiped them out easily as sports of nature and demonic imps. People who found them in their homes captured them and sold them to circuses or traveling shows. Cats, dogs, foxes, snakes...it's a big, scary world for an Aeslin mouse, and it's entirely possible that the colony found by Caroline Davies, mother of Enid Davies (later Enid Healy), was the last one there was. She saved them. She gave them something to believe in.

She gave them her family.

Now, on to the more time-based questions. "For how many generations do the Aeslin keep their holidays?" For as many as they keep their faith. If they worship a tree, then hundreds of generations could pass before their god withers and dies. If they worship a mayfly, they'll need a new god by the end of the summer. The Price family Aeslin still celebrate the Sacred Ritual of I Don't Care What You Say, They're Harmless Little Things and They Need a Home, They're Not Monsters, They're Mice, better known to the family as "the day Great-Great-Great-Grandma Caroline found the mice in the barnyard." Nothing is ever forgotten. Nothing is ever forgotten. To forget anything would be to shame the gods, and to be less than Aeslin.

The Aeslin calendar does not exactly match the human calendar; it has more months, for one thing, and the number seems to increase periodically, although no one human understands how or why that happens. While the feast days and celebrations will always match up to their original places on the human calendar, how often they are observed is determined by a number of factors, including their place on the Aeslin calendar, how resource-intensive the observation is, and how much they like the festival. (The Festival of Giving a Mouse a Cookie, way more popular than The Remembrance of the Violent Priestess, Who Never Learned to Be Careful.) They can, and will, perform any liturgical rite on request, but when they come around naturally doesn't follow a human logic pattern.

The mice who travel with Verity, Alex, and the others aren't considered new colonies; they're still part of the central colony, and will remain so for as long as they share gods. The mice very much enjoy coming back together to consolidate their observances of the family, share rituals, and remind themselves that they are still united.

As long as there are Prices, there will be Aeslin.

The same is not quite as certain in reverse.

So remember when I said that I would answer ten questions about the InCryptid universe? Well, I'm still taking questions, but here's your fourth answer!

geekhyena asks...

"A clarification of my earlier comment (since I realized I didn't word it as clearly as I had intended): Why do some cryptids from very reclusive/rural-oriented and/or endangered species (such Waheela/Gorgons/etc) choose to live in cities, as opposed to others of their species? Herd immunity (so to speak)? Cultural reasons? Genuinely curious here. (As to how Istas got involved with the Goth and/or Lolita subculture(s) )"

Well, first off, I'm not going to tell you how Istas got involved with the Goth and/or Lolita subcultures. If you look at the original post (which I'd like you all to do, since I need to do six more of these Q&A posts before the book comes out), you'll see the bit where I said "no spoilers." That applies to "how did character X wind up in situation Y" questions, since hey, I may want to write that someday. You'll like it better if I'm allowed to think about it longer, I promise.

Which brings me to the core question of "why do some cryptids who aren't considered specifically urban, like bogeymen (who hate living in the country), sometimes choose to live in cities?" Well!

First off, we have to remember that sapient cryptids, while not human, are still people, and every person is different. Istas is a serious social butterfly, for a waheela. Ryan is considered a little stand-offish, for a tanuki. Sarah is remarkably pleasant and non-destructive, for a cuckoo. And so on, and so on. You can make blanket statements about a species, like "waheela are generally territorial" and "tanuki generally live in family groups," but those will never be universal, any more than "humans are often suspicious and aggressive" applies to every single member of the human race. For someone like Istas, who actually likes things like fashion, cooked food, shoes, and having conversations with people she's not about to eat, living in the frozen Canadian tundra is just this side of hell. For a normal waheela, living in Manhattan would be just as bad.

Secondly, we have to remember that cities offer some opportunities that country living just doesn't, especially now that the world doesn't really believe in barter economies. If you belong to a species that can "pass" for human during part or all of your life, spending a few years in Orlando working at Disney World and sending money home to the rest of the family is just the sensible, responsible thing to do. Think of it as the cryptid equivalent of the popular interpretation of the Amish rumspringa: go to the city, live and work among the humans, figure out how dangerous and frightening they are, come home where no one's going to skin you and wear you as a fashionable coat.

It's surprisingly easy to be reclusive in the big city. In a small town where everybody knows your name and notices if you don't show up to check your PO Box on Wednesday afternoon, you're going to have a lot of trouble explaining where you went for those two months when you were hibernating. In San Francisco or Chicago, as long as your bills are paid, you can probably get away with it. Also, just like some humans don't like people but do like tigers/alligators/gorillas/whatever, some cryptids don't like their own species, but do like humans, regarding us as adorable and bizarre at the same time, and hence enjoy spending time with us, while still considering themselves "isolated" and "alone."

Finally...where else are they supposed to go? It's increasingly hard to live in a little house in the middle of a deep, dark forest without worrying that you're going to have a Wreck-It Ralph eminent domain situation on your hands. Much like most humans can't imagine going back to living with outhouses and no electricity and shoes only on special occasions, most sapient cryptids aren't overly excited by the "go live in a cave already" concept. There are rural cryptids, and cryptids who survive quite happily in places that humans still regard as uninhabitable, but for all the ones who evolved and adapted to climates similar to the humans around them, it's cities or suckage. So they choose cities. It's not their favorite option; thanks to us, it's the one that they have.

So remember when I said that I would answer ten questions about the InCryptid universe? Well, I'm still taking questions, but here's your third answer!

professor asks...

"Given that the Covenant is a centuries-old organization that worships tradition and conformity, how do gender and racial identity politics within the Covenant work?"

I find it interesting that when we hear the phrase "hide-bound" or "traditional" in reference to an organization like the Covenant, whose stated mission is killing monsters, we immediately assume that they must be an organization completely dominated by white cisdudes. And I'm including myself in that "we": when I first started working on the organizational structure of what would become the Covenant of St. George, it was extremely old white cisdude-centric.

At one time, that was probably an accurate view of the organizational makeup. While they are no longer particularly religious in nature, or sanctioned by any major church, they did start out with strong church ties, and the church in the Middle Ages was pretty firm on its whole "gotta be a dude with a penis to come to the party." Add in the fact that large portions of the Covenant's leadership settled in Italy, France, and the United Kingdom, and you'd get a very white cisdude party. But here's the thing: the Covenant was good at their job. They still are, as much as they can be; remember that today's cryptids are the descendents of the ones who learned to hide from the raids and the cleansings. One by one, the big flashy monsters were killed off or driven into the shadows, and it got harder to be picky.

There was a time when any village in Europe would have been proud to have a son chosen to work with the Covenant of St. George. By the late 1500s, most of those same villages considered the Covenant a fairy tale, and would never have dreamed of giving away their sons. The Covenant began doing their recruiting from people who had actually encountered cryptids, who could actually see the value in fighting against them. This meant dropping virtually all restrictions against girls serving active roles, because sometimes, it was the girls who survived.

Most of the Covenant's early female recruits provided backup and support for the field teams, having not been trained to fight before they came to the Covenant. At the time, it was not standard within the Covenant for all recruits to receive field training. This changed in the mid-1600s, following the last successful attack on a Covenant stronghold. Half the support staff were killed, as were most of the children currently being housed in that location. After that, it became a prerequisite that all recruits learn to fight, even if they were not constitutionally equipped for field positions.

Resistance to women in the field continued for quite some time, although it had less to do with "women can't handle it," and more to do with "we're not really a powerful political or religious force anymore, and we don't want our male operatives arrested for traveling with women they're neither related to nor married to." Field team marriages became very common, because it was a way for women to get "out of the office" and out doing what they did best. Killing stuff. By the mid-1800s, women had a completely equal voice in Covenant activities.

If this seems like it took a really long time, please compare it to real-world history. The Covenant was surprisingly enlightened, largely out of necessity.

But that only addresses female equality, not race or gender identity. Race was actually addressed somewhat earlier, when the Covenant followed the various explorations, Crusades, and invasions of the rest of the world, either forming or making contact with similar groups around the world. Most local groups were sadly largely absorbed into the Covenant, because the Covenant had the resources and the manpower to make joining forces seem appealing. Those who weren't absorbed are still considered part of the Covenant today, and are not spoken of much outside the regions where their methods dominate. And here's the thing: since the Covenant, and its sister organizations, focused so strongly on "humans first," they didn't bother as much with racial divides. There would be time for those later, when the monsters were all gone. To be fair, if the Covenant had successfully wiped out the monsters in the 1600s, they would probably have turned around and started ethnic cleansing. But they didn't, and they didn't, and they wound up a fully integrated organization by the mid-1800s. They understand racism, and will use it to their advantage when possible, but the Covenant as an institution does not tolerate racial discrimination. Humans gotta stick together.

Sexuality and gender identity are harder, in part because the Covenant relies on "legacy children" for so much of its membership. You're really expected to have kids if you possibly can. While this isn't a law or anything, you'll get a lot of the "Have you tried not being a ________?" routine, especially if you were already slated for inclusion in the breeding program. But at the end of the day, again, they need trained members more than they need to be prejudiced, and have been QUILTBAG inclusive since the early 1900s.

Seriously, there was a time—a long time—where if you were a strong-willed woman who wanted to make your own choices, a gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transsexual teen, or of any race that didn't match the locally dominant racial type, the Covenant was your best route out of that life. If you heard about them, if you heard that they could save you, you took that chance. And the people who took that chance tended to become very loyal, because they were given lives that they could otherwise have only dreamt of.

The modern Covenant is very enlightened, except for the part where anything that isn't human is a monster. There's no room for discussion on that front. And really, that's the problem.

Having been sick even unto death on January 15th, this is the first current projects post of the new year. Whoops. I'd say I was sorry, but again, sick even unto death; the coughing and throwing up and passing out sort of obviate my natural desire to apologize for everything under the sun.

Anyway, this is the post in which I tell you what I'm working on, and you finally understand why I don't have time for tea. To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."

Please note that all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (Midnight Blue-Light Special, Parasite). The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.

Not everything on this list has been sold. I will not discuss the sale status of anything which has not been publicly announced. If you can't remember whether I've announced something, check the relevant tag. Please don't ask why project X is no longer on the list.

( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )

So remember when I said that I would answer ten questions about the InCryptid universe? Well, I'm still taking questions, but here's your second answer!

ashnistrike says...

"I'm going to deviate from all the Aeslin obsession above and admit to a cuckoo obsession (much less healthy). When I see something like this—a species that has almost all gone mad around their basic biological set-up—my assumption is that at one point they were more sane and adaptive, and something changed in their environment so that once-adaptive characteristics led to problems. And yes, I realize that they are still adaptive in the purely biological sense in spite of being sociopaths. But it still seems likely that they haven't always been that way. So, question—what's the original environment in which their parasitic telepathy evolved? What changed? Were they ever less completely destructive to their hosts? Symbiotic? Have they ended up, as parasites often do, in biological/telepathic arms races with other cryptid species?"

YAY I GET TO TALK ABOUT JOHRLAR YOU'RE ALL GOING TO BE SORRY!!!!

...ahem.

So the cuckoos are more properly called "Johrlac" (species name Johrlac psychidolos), and they are not from around here. I would call this a spoiler, since it hasn't come out in the series proper yet, but it's something that I talk about on panels, and it's something that anyone who's performed any sort of physiological examination of a cuckoo has probably guessed. Still, your personal perspective on spoilers may make this sensitive information, so I'm going to cut-tag.

( Here be dragons. Worse yet, here be cuckoos. Proceed at your own risk.Collapse )

There are twenty-five days remaining before the release of Midnight Blue-Light Special, the second book in the InCryptid series. I am...I'm still not quite sure that I believe it, honestly. This is such a difficult series to explain to people, because it's so silly and so serious at the same time, and I'm still a little bit in awe of the fact that I'm allowed to write it.

Thank you, thank you, to everyone who's taken a chance on this series. Thank you for looking at my pink, pink cover and my silly, silly cover blurb, and going "Sure, this is worth my time and/or dollars." Thank you for reading and reviewing and spreading the word. I honestly couldn't be here without you.

Thank you also to my agent, and to everyone at DAW Books, because let's face it, I can be a little odd sometimes, and when an author who's doing pretty well with a dark urban fantasy series says "I wanna write something with talking mice," you'd be forgiven for being a little, well, hesitant. But they didn't hesitate. They said "Seanan has done good things with strange concepts before, and they let me have my weird little world full of cryptids and blood feuds and secrets.

There are not enough thanks in the world for what I'm feeling right now.

Thank you all.

So remember when I said that I would answer ten questions about the InCryptid universe? Well, I'm still taking questions, but here's your first answer!

ebartley asks...

"Why hasn't the Covenant squashed the Prices? They aren't that well-hidden."

Normally, this is the type of question that would get a raised eyebrow and a somewhat disappointed cry of "Spoilers!" But in this case, the answer ties so closely into the family history that I've been unpacking for you, one short story at a time, that it seems like a reasonable place to start.

Understanding the Covenant of St. George requires taking an almost denialist viewpoint on the universe. Absolute truth: Humans are the best thing. Like, no matter what else there is in the universe, no matter what wonders we may eventually come to discover, humans are the best thing. Conclusion: anything humans think is cool is pretty much guaranteed to be totally cool, because humans—remember, the best thing—thought that it was cool. Anyone or anything trying to tell you that this line of reasoning is flawed and contains several internal logical fallacies is lying, and a stupid-head, and probably an enemy of the human race. You do not need to feel bad about hating them. And if you don't need to feel bad about hating them, you don't need to feel bad about anything your hatred eventually leads you to do.

Second absolute truth: anything that harms humans is bad. It doesn't matter what the thing is, or why it's harming humans. It doesn't matter if the humans who are being harmed brought it upon their own heads. If something is harming humans, it is bad. It is evil. The world is black and white, and you are on the side of white, because humans are the best thing, and all you're doing is stopping things that would hurt humans.

Third absolute truth: you are always right. Because if you were wrong, if it were possible for you to be wrong...well, then, maybe all those "monsters" that you chased down and slaughtered in cold blood were actually people who just didn't look the way that you had arbitrarily decided that people were supposed to look. Maybe you've done bad things. Maybe you're a murderer. And if you're a murderer, well. That sort of calls your whole "humans are the best thing" philosophy into question.

That's the starting point for the Covenant: they are a bunch of arrogant absolutists who have, over the course of centuries, locked themselves into a pattern of thought that allows for absolutely no deviation. To deviate, even in the slightest degree, is to no longer be truly Covenant. Once you start questioning things, there's every chance that the entire house of cards will come crumbling down.

(This isn't to say that all members of the Covenant are idiots: they're not. They're just trained and drilled and schooled very firmly on one specific method of thought, and it's one that happens to come with a clear and easy "us vs. them" that can be demonstrated using flash cards. There are a lot of very smart people in the Covenant. That's what makes them dangerous.)

Now we must travel back three generations in the family history, to a time when there were only three Prices standing: Thomas Price, who had defected from the Covenant when his personal house of cards got knocked over, rather decisively, by his own experiences, as well as through extended contact with the Healys; Alice Price-Healy, who may well be the single most bloody-minded scion of the Healy line, which is saying something if you've met anyone with Healy blood in them; and Kevin Price, who was too young to be a factor in the actual fight, but whose presence spurred his parents to win by any means necessary.

The Covenant numbered in the thousands. The Prices numbered in the threes. There was no way for them to win a fair fight.

"Fuck a fair fight." —Alice Price-Healy

Without going into excessive detail (because I really do intend to write this one day, and a girl has to keep some secrets), the Prices basically pulled a con on the Covenant, and left them firmly convinced that yes, they had killed three people on that day, and yes, there was no possible chance that anyone could have survived. Now, remember our third absolute truth: the Covenant is always right. The Covenant rode into righteous battle, the Covenant killed three people, the Covenant won, and the Covenant is always right.

The current Price family is still recovering from that specific instance of the Covenant always being right. Alice and Thomas would have one more child before Thomas himself disappeared; both Kevin and Jane were largely raised by friends of the family, because Alice, the only remaining recognizable member of the Price-Healy clan, was off trying to find her husband. Two small children being shuttled around the country didn't attract much attention, and it was only the intervention of more friends of the family that Kevin and Jane didn't wind up growing up completely unaware of the complicated network of blood feuds and favors their ancestors had constructed to protect them.

The Covenant, which is always right, did not go looking for these children. Those children could not possibly exist.

Kevin and Jane grew up, got married, and had children, always holding to their new guiding law: Do Not Get Found. Because now, their existence would be an insult to the Covenant, as great a deviation from the laws of nature as any cryptid that had ever existed. Yes, they stayed in the family business, but they did it in ways that the Covenant wasn't looking for. The Covenant, by nature, is overt. The Price family, in their current incarnation, is covert, and they use whatever means necessary to keep themselves that way.

Why hasn't the Covenant squashed the Prices?

Because the Prices don't exist. It doesn't matter how well-hidden a thing is or isn't; when you refuse to let yourself admit that it could possibly be real, you're not going to find it.

Heaven help us all if the Covenant ever stops lying to itself.

With Midnight Blue-Light Special approaching fast (and Half-Off Ragnarok just put to bed), I am naturally spending a lot of time thinking about InCryptid, and blogging about InCryptid, since I want everyone to be as excited as I am. So here is your invitation:

Ask me a question. Ask me a big question. Like when I posted about the rules governing fae marriage. The ones that require serious thought, and a genuine desire to know.

What can cuckoos really do? What was the straw that broke the camel's back for Alexander and Enid? How do cryptid communities conceal themselves in human cities? Questions too big, and too complicated, to answer in the FAQ. Now, because I apparently wasn't clear enough the first time, I WILL NOT GIVE SPOILERS. Please don't ask me where someone is, or whether someone else is coming back, or whether I'll post a full calendar of Aeslin holidays (because I never, ever will). Ask me about laws and rules and universe, about etiquette and speciation and trends in fashion.

The ten best questions will get full blog posts about them, explaining whatever facet or facets of the InCryptid world they touch on. I get to determine "best," although you're all welcome to weigh in or ask secondary questions.

I have comment amnesty for any questions I do not choose to answer during this particular publication lead-in, because I want my brain to not dribble out of my ears.

Game on!

And the winners are...

bookwyrm86
professor

Please provide your mailing information via my website contact form within the next twenty-four hours, so that I can get your books into the mail.

As a footnote, I am not always able to draw winners at exactly when the drawing is officially closed, but anyone submitting their name after that time is ineligible to win. If you're on the wire, feel free to put your name in—I try to be generous with my interpretation of the deadline—but if it's six hours after the fact, all you do is confuse the RNG. You can't win if you didn't follow the rules as written, and that includes time of submission.

Thanks for playing, and we'll have another giveaway soon.

It's time for another giveaway of Midnight Blue-Light Special, because I really and truly miss having a bedroom floor that I could sometimes see, rather than walking atop a tide of books and papers and heavily-armed dolls.

So it's time for a return of everybody's favorite, the random number drawing, because I am sleepy and still a little sick, which means all my creativity is being channeled into actually getting work done (a dangerous pastime, I know). So...

1. To enter, comment on this post.
2. If you are international, indicate this, and your willingness to pay postage.
3. That's it.

I will choose two winners at 12noon PST on Monday, January 28th, so that we can see this month out with a bang (and yet another trip to the post office).

Game on!

Let me tell you about Rose Marshall,
The sweetest girl that you’d ever see.
They always say that the good die young,
Well, she died back in fifty-three,
Kept her prom night date with the cemetery...

They call her the spirit of Sparrow Hill Road. She's the girl at the diner, the phantom prom date, and the girl in the green silk gown. She's long gone, ashes and bones, and she'll never find the ride that brings her home.

Her name is Rose.

She's got a few stories she's been dying to tell.

I am delighted and a little bit blown away to be able to announce that Sparrow Hill Road, the book, will be coming from DAW Books in 2014. This full-length work will include heavily revised versions of eleven of the original "Sparrow Hill Road" stories, along with two all new stories, and a Price Family Field Guide to the Dead of the North American Ghostroads. (The story that was cut, "Bad Moon Rising," didn't add to the main plot of the book, and may appear in revised format elsewhere somewhere down the line.)

I seriously couldn't be happier about this, you guys. I'm just...Rose Marshall, the girl who thought she'd never get out of Buckley, is coming soon to a bookstore near you.

It's so cool.

...and, you know, a whole lot of other characters. I am pleased to announce the Kickstarter for Glitter and Madness, an anthology about the "secret nightlife of the 20th century." Raves and roller derby, drugs and debauchery, nightclubs and naughtiness, it's all there, including a brand-new InCryptid novella, "Bad Dream Girl," about Antimony Price and her time with the Slasher Chicks roller derby team. (The other three teams in her league are the Concussion Stand, the Block Busters, and the Stunt Troubles. They're movie-themed. Can you tell I enjoyed myself?)

The Kickstarter is here, packed with lots of lovely goodies:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/johnklima/glitter-and-madness-the-speculative-nightclub-anth

But wait! There's more! One of the pledge levels gets you a copy of "Bad Dream Girl" as soon as the anthology funds, which means bam, in your inbox, more Price girl goodness. It's a $50 pledge, which isn't for everyone (obviously), but if this story would be enough to motivate you to pick up the anthology, or if the theme and list of AWESOME AUTHORS would be enough, take a look at the tiers, pick your poison, and help us turn the lights on at the club.

Because seriously, any anthology that gives me an excuse to introduce you properly to Antimony, who is quite possibly my favorite of the Price siblings, is a-okay by me.

Roller derby!

As of today, we are fifty days from the release of Midnight Blue-Light Special, the second book in the InCryptid series. I am...honestly, I am sort of in shock over here, still. This is one of those series that I desperately wanted to write, and never thought I'd be allowed to. Multi-generational family epic with talking mice and telepathic mathematicians? Seriously? But DAW believed in me, or maybe wanted to see if I'd actually produce the book I was talking about, and somehow that turned into a five book contract and a lot of time spent with the Price family.

I am so blessed, I can't even begin to express it. The fact that I can tell these stories at all is an honor. The part where I get paid for it is like...what? Are you sure? Really? But I do, and it's amazing.

I'm still not sure what I'm going to do as a pre-release countdown this time. I did the alphabet for Discount Armageddon, but that really only works once. Suggestions are totally welcome! And of course, we'll have another new short story going up on the website around the time the book comes out, featuring another Johnny and Fran adventure. Lots of things brewing here in Chez McGuire.

Thank you all, so much. Thank you for allowing me to tell these stories. Thank you for being here. And thank you for buying my books. This was a series that had a very narrow market when it started, and you bought enough copies to make DAW see that it had an audience, and that I should get to continue. Soon, we'll break through the candy shell and expose the true darkness of what people keep assuming is my fluffiest universe. Soon.

I can't wait.

The random number generator has spoken, and has selected resolute as our winner! resolute, please send me your contact information via my website contact form within the next twenty-four hours, and I will get your book into the mail. If I do not hear from you within the next twenty-four hours, a new winner will be chosen from out the current pool.

Thank you so much to everyone who participated, and watch for a new giveaway opening later today.

I have been tagged by the ever-lovely NK Jemisin to do the "next big thing" meme that has been floating around, and as I am an amenable soul (when I want to be), I thought I'd give it a go. So...

1. What is the working title of your next book?

Midnight Blue-Light Special. Which is probably the final title at this point, since the ARCs have been printed and I don't enjoy having things thrown at me by my publisher. They're generally amiable over at DAW. I try not to push it.

2. Where did the idea come from for the book?

At the end of Discount Armageddon, Verity was in a pretty good place as re: basically everything. She defeated the bad guy, solved the mystery, kissed a pretty boy, and pretty much won at life. So I started from the position of "how can I ruin her day?", and it all went downhill from there.

3. What genre does your book fall under?

Urban fantasy, with just a hint of paranormal romance. The CW, rather than HBO.

4. What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

Can I have a TV show instead? If I could have absolutely anyone, no barriers, I'd cast Alona Tal (Jo from Supernatural, Meg from Veronica Mars) as Verity, and Ryan Cartwright (Mr. Nigel-Murray from Bones, Gary from Alphas) as Dominic. And I think Amber Benson would make an amazing Sarah.

5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

When cryptozoologist Verity Price finds herself dealing with a Covenant purge of Manhattan, she quickly has to redefine her idea of "bad situation."

6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I am represented by Diana Fox, of Fox Literary. Midnight Blue-Light Special will be published by DAW Books.

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

About six months, give or take a trip to Disney World.

8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

It has a similar structure to Kelley Armstrong's Women of the Otherworld, and a similar snappy feel to Tanya Huff's Keeper Chronicles or Gale Girl books.

9. Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Honestly, Verity did. The character has a lot of momentum behind her. At this point, I just point her at things and watch what happens.

10. What else about the book might pique the reader's interest?

Talking pantheistic cryptid mice worship the main character as a living conduit to the gods. And also to the baked goods section at Safeway.

Because I'd like to have my bedroom back someday, I'm going to kick off a second ARC giveaway for Midnight Blue-Light Special. This one will be open until Monday, and is one of the ones that requires actual effort (sorry about that). This time, we're going visual! Make icons, do a photo manip, draw a picture, grab some friends and pose, whatever makes you happy. The rules:

1. The image must relate directly in some way to one of my available works. Meaning that both Velveteen and the Rose Marshall stories are eligible. Stage a hitchhiking ghost! Draw a bunny superhero! Or stick with InCryptid, or Toby, and have a blast!

2. LOLcats are also eligible.

3. Once your submission is prepared, link or post it on this entry. Feel free to explain what's going on.

4. That's all.

The winner will be chosen Monday, December 17th, via random number generator.

And the winners of our first Midnight Blue-Light Special drawing are...

theironchocho

...and...

Glam Kitty!

Please email me via my website contact form within the next twenty-four hours to have your prize sent to you. If I don't get an email within that time, a new winner or winners will be chosen.

More giveaways coming soon! Thanks to everyone who participated, and congratulations to the winners!

It's here it's here it's here guys it's here! I finally finally finally have the ARCs of Midnight Blue-Light Special, and it's gorgeous and wonderful and amazing and oh my gosh it's here!

This means it's time for a GIVEAWAY! We're going to start with everybody's favorite, the random number drawing, because I am sleepy and lazy due to the obscene amounts of rain being dumped on me by the cranky sky gods. I am the Rain King and all, but come on. So...

1. To enter, comment on this post.
2. If you are international, indicate this, and your willingness to pay postage.
3. That's it.

I will choose two winners at 12noon PST on Friday, December 7th, to give the books a chance in hell of getting to their destination before the holidays hit. And that, as they say, is that.

Game on!

We're halfway through November, and I have to say, it's weird reaching this point in the year and not being in the process of getting ready to head for Disney World. Like, every morning I wake up going "is it Disney o'clock yet?", and then every morning I have to realize that Disney o'clock isn't coming back until May. Boo.

Anyway, this is the post in which I tell you what I'm working on, and you finally understand why I don't have time for tea. To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."

Please note that all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (Midnight Blue-Light Special, Parasite). The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.

Not everything on this list has been sold. I will not discuss the sale status of anything which has not been publicly announced. If you can't remember whether I've announced something, check the relevant tag. Please don't ask why project X is no longer on the list.

( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )

I'm working on an InCryptid-universe novella called "Bad Dream Girl," about Antimony and roller derby. And I need derby names!

So here's your chance. Suggest your best, wildest roller derby names, following these simple rules. The best derby names will appear in the story, giving you bragging rights. The rules:

1. Avoid profanity.
2. Sexual and violent innuendo is cool, "kill them all" is not.
3. Do not intentionally use the name of an existing derby girl.

I'm looking for terrible puns and bad jokes in name form. There is a database of roller derby names; I'm not using it both because it's extensive enough to have become extremely tortured, and because I'd like some believable variety. So come on. Help a girl out, and take to the track with Antimony and her team.

Game on!

Welcome to October, season of mists, mellow fruitfulness, and occasional accounting. I'm prepping for the winter, and that means paperwork. So here, then, is the October 2012 current projects post. The snows are coming, and we're almost ready to put a freeze on the year.

Anyway, this is the post in which I tell you what I'm working on, and you finally understand why I don't have time for tea. To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."

Please note that all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (Midnight Blue-Light Special, Parasite). The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.

Not everything on this list has been sold. I will not discuss the sale status of anything which has not been publicly announced. Please don't ask.

( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )

Psst. C'mere.

So it's no secret that I love the covers DAW gives me, and that showing them off is one of my true pure joys in life. And this one is really pretty, guys. I mean it's really, really pretty. I could not be happier if I tried.

Go ahead. Take a peek.

( Cut-tagged for the protection of your friends' list, which really doesn't need something this huge suddenly showing up without warning. But trust me, you should totally click.Collapse )

Many of you are familiar with the Price Family Field Guide to the Cryptids of North America. (Those of you who are not familiar are like, super-lucky, because now you can experience the whole guide for the first time. Hop over and enjoy the madness of the monsters.) What you may or may not realize (but probably do, I just like to cover my bases) is that all illustrations are provided by the lovely and debonair Kory Bing, who has a real flair for drawing monsters. I first discovered her work through the comic, Skin Deep, which is sort of what you'd get if you crossed Finder, the Toby books, InCryptid, and Blue Monday, then set the blender on "frappe" and blew up the kitchen.

You can, and should, read Skin Deep online by clicking here. It is awesome. I love it so.

Right now, Kory is running a Kickstarter to print the latest Skin Deep storyline in beautiful physical form, with lots of spiffy extras. I cannot recommend this project strongly enough. For details, check her link, here:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/963152868/skin-deep-exchanges-the-secret-lives-of-monster-pe

It's a great project by a great person who has become such an integral part of InCryptid for me that I can't even imagine trying to continue the Field Guide without her. Take a look, and if you like her work, consider tossing in a few pennies!

Yay, monsters!

You know the drill by now. This is me, trying in vain to clean up the file a little bit before the Ashes of Honor reviews start to appear in earnest. I will fail, but still, I will strive.

Carrie S. has posted a guest review of Discount Armageddon at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and says, "There's nothing particularly new here. Thanks to my beloved Joss Whedon, the idea that a petite girl in cute clothes can take down monsters is pretty standard stuff. However, what the story lacks in originality it makes up for with wit, great descriptions, engaging characters, fast pace, and a whole lot of energy." Joss comparisons also aren't new, where this series is concerned. Great review, and I love the amount of "wait and see" that it allows me.

Dark Faerie Tales has also posted a review of Discount Armageddon, and says, "Overall, Discount Armageddon is a fascinating take on a whole new Urban Fantasy series. If you don’t like books with quite a bit of info dumping and long expositions then you may not care for this book but if you like sarcastic women, sexy men and interesting creatures then I would say give this book a try. I can’t wait to see what is next for Verity Price and Dominic De Luca." Fortunately, I love books with quite a bit of info dumping.

Let's mix it up a little: The Midnight Garden has posted a review of Blackout, and says, "Blackout seamlessly combines medical thriller, political intrigue, and pulse-pounding action sequences with unforgettable human drama." Happiness, joy, and fluffy kittens for all! (Well. Not for Grignar, devourer of all flesh. He knows what he did.)

...and we're back to Discount Armageddon with The Book Bundle's lovely review of the book, which says, "Discount Armageddon is a really fun read. I was very quickly pulled into Verity's world, and I loved each new cryptid she met. I can't wait to see more of the world in the following books." I like it when people are excited about sequels.

Book Banter has posted a review of Blackout, and says, "Blackout is the perfect, satiating finish to the trilogy, making the three-book series feel like one long, epic story. No reader will be disappointed, with a worthwhile ending that will leave him or her sad that the wonderful journey is now over...but just like when the end of Harry Potter was reached, or the final page of Stephen King's Dark Tower series, how many of us turned back to the first book and started reading that first page once again. Having reread the first two books, this trilogy will be one I will continue to reread constantly throughout my lifetime." ...wow.

Finally for today, Reading After Midnight has posted a review of Blackout, and says, "You know what?...If you want to know how this all ends you’ll just have to read the story and find on your own. What you’re reading now is my heart bleeding all over my keyboard, because this is how it feels letting this story go." That may be the nicest thing anyone has ever said about my work. Thank you.

Thank you all.

Evil pie!

We open today with Paul Goat Allen's review of the entire Newflesh trilogy, which he calls "an instant classic." He also says, "The narrative supremacy of this trilogy is unquestionable: both Feed and Deadline were nominated for the Hugo Award (in 2011 and 2012, respectively)—and Blackout is arguably the strongest of the three!"

I do not have words for how happy this review makes me. It...if just one person feels this way, I did it right. And that's amazing.

Meanwhile, Calliope's Domain has posted a review of Discount Armageddon, and says, "The writing of this book definitely had a lighter, funner tone than Ms. McGuire's October Daye series that, in my opinion, really let stand out. Heck, if not for her name on the cover, I never would have guessed the same author wrote both series; a true accomplishment, I think, for any author writing multiple series." That is a huge compliment. Thank you so much.

MiB Reviews has reviewed Blackout, and says, "One of the great assets that the Newsflesh trilogy has is the way that every book is a different type of story. Atop the overused backdrop of the zombie apocalypse, we have a novel about a conspiracy to sabotage a political campaign by a fanatic from the point of view of a calm, seasoned journalist; an action-packed romp against impossible odds where the villains just can't help but to blow everything up; and now we have a story where simply surviving and living in peace requires helping genetic experiments escape from labs and uncovering the biggest government conspiracy in US history. There might be another author who's blended zombies and one of these genres together so seamlessly, but I doubt that anyone else has done so as well, or done so three times." This is what winning looks like!

Sigrid Ellis has posted a review of Wicked Girls that calls the album "Hugo-Award-worthy" and says "This is the engagement that makes our beloved fantasy and science fiction world bigger, braver, and stronger for the future. And it’s a good album, besides. Making comparisons to other artists is tricky, because not everyone likes the same things I like. But I found—and this is high compliment—that the lyrics reminded me of a sort of cross between the poetry of John M. Ford and the lyrics of Stephen Sondheim. Bleak and cynical and stupid-stubbornly hopeful, my favorite kind of thing." I...oh my sweet Great Pumpkin. I am so touched.

Tom Knapp rounds out today's roundup with a review of When Will You Rise?, about which he says, "Grant, in just over a hundred pages, creates a fully realized disaster, and readers will understand the science behind it. It's a short, punchy book that makes you want to read more." Everybody dies!

That's it for right now. Thank you to all readers, and all reviewers, whether I find and link your review or not. I am so honored.

Life is good.

So y'all may have noticed the epic awesomeness that is the Price Family Field Guide to the Cryptids of North America (slowly expanding into "Cryptids of the World" as more and more critters make their first appearance). If you haven't, go ahead and click on over. I can wait.

So you may have also noticed the amazing and awesome Kory Bing art that makes these cryptids come to fantastic and occasionally gruesome life! Well, it's time for the next batch of cryptids to join the party...and that's where you come in.

Who wants to sponsor a cryptid? There are literally hundreds in the InCryptid world, and I'd eventually like to see them all in glorious color up in the Guide. If you have $35 to spare and want to add a critter or two to the queue, drop me a line, and I'd be absolutely ecstatic to make it happen. Previously sponsored cryptids include the poison dart fricken, and the hitchhiking ghost (still to come to the guide itself).

Make history. Or at least, make pretty things. Either way, life is good!

I'm a couple of days late, due to that whole "I was in San Diego on the 15th, trying not to be engulfed by the crowd and cast into the sea," but this is the July 2012 current projects post, because we are using this year up like cheap single-ply toilet paper. It's distressing. Anyway, this is the post in which I tell you what I'm working on, and you finally understand why I don't have time for tea. To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."

Please note that all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (Ashes of Honor, Midnight Blue-Light Special, Parasite). The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.

Not everything on this list has been sold. I will not discuss the sale status of anything which has not been publicly announced. Please don't ask.

( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )

Words: 2,231.
Total words: 10,248.
Reason for stopping: I have a really tight schedule tonight, and it's time to switch books.
The cats: Alice and Thomas, on the hallway floor; Lilly, asleep on my suitcase.
Music: lots of Counting Crows.

I don't actually like stopping mid-chapter when it's not to go to bed or something equally pressing, but I'm flying to Hawaii for a memorial service tomorrow, and that means I have a really full docket tonight. I have made word count on this book, I have two edit files to process and another book to work on, it is time to switch worlds. I'll use the first edit file as a palate cleanser, then work on the other book, then hopefully be awake enough to chunk through the second set of edits before bed. If I can't, I'll work on the plane.

I am happy with where this book is going. It's slow so far, but I'm not very far in, and I figure editing and revisions will tighten that up into something awesome and acceptable. And Alex is having long conversations with the mice.

I am happy.

Words: 2,731.
Total words: 8,017.
Reason for stopping: chapter two is done, and it's time for dinner.
The cats: all cats are currently out of view, which is worrisome.
Music: still the soundtrack to Syfy's Monster Island. I am predictable.

Once again, I am proving the old adage that all it takes to get me writing again is a finished manuscript and the sucking terror that comes from having nothing immediately demanding my attention. (These are things I needed to be writing anyway, mind you. It's just that Parasite was such a huge chunk of text that it sort of blocked the pipeline for pretty much everything else.) So now here I am, once more hip-deep in InCryptid and loving every mucky, slime-covered step.

Half-Off Ragnarok is really interesting so far, because it's the first book from Alex's perspective. I can't help looking at the text and thinking "gosh, the Machete Squad is going to kill half of this," and at the same time, I can't tell you which half they're going to target, so I have to write it all. That's a good thing, honestly. It forces me to get used to Alex's voice, and the little quirks and oddities of his personality. He's my first (and so far, only) male narrator in this series, and so it's important to me that I get him right.

I am very excited about this expansion of my universe. You get to meet Grandma and Grandpa Baker properly, and see more of the actual ecology of the non-sapient cryptids and how they're able to remain under the radar of modern science. It's going to be a fun ride.

Whee!

It is now time for the June 2012 current projects post, which holy fuckweasels and little fishes, how is it already June 15th? How have we used up half this year? How?! I do not approve. But whether I approve or not, this is the post in which I tell you what I'm working on, and you finally understand why I don't have time for tea. To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."

Please note that all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (Ashes of Honor, Midnight Blue-Light Special). The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.

Not everything on this list has been sold. I will not discuss the sale status of anything which has not been publicly announced. Please don't ask.

( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )

And now, the May 2012 current projects post, which makes me a little sad, because I made the April post from Cat's place in Maine, and I am not in Maine now. Oh, well. This is the post in which I tell you what I'm working on, and you finally understand why I don't have time for tea. To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."

Please note that all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (Blackout, Ashes of Honor). The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.

Not everything on this list has been sold. I will not discuss the sale status of anything which has not been publicly announced. Please don't ask.

( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )

10. If you read yesterday's post about ebook distribution around the world, you may want to go back and read it again; I made some pretty hefty edits after having a contract discussion with The Agent, and I think it's more accurate now.

9. While I will not say that Joss Whedon is my master now—I remain too critical for that, and still haven't forgiven him for several things—he has made my two favorite theatrical releases of this year, Cabin in the Woods and The Avengers.

8. Although if we don't get another female hero in the sequel, I am going to be one cranky kitty. I knew that would be an issue for me going in; I was not wrong.

7. We're down to three girls on this season of America's Next Top Model, and I don't hate any of them. What? How can this be? I think the world has been intrinsically damaged by the inanity of this season's "US v. UK" concept.

6. You know what's awesome? Disneyland, that's what's awesome. You know what's better? I'm going there in two weeks, with Vixy. Are we now planning to hit every Disney park in the world? Yes. Yes, we are. Next up, Disneyland Paris.

5. Eleven days to Blackout! Who's excited? I'm excited!

4. If you somehow get an early copy, please don't tell me. There's nothing I can do about it, and it'll just raise my blood pressure. But feel free to post a review. Reviews are awesome.

3. You know what makes everything better? Poison dart frickens make everything better. Look at their tiny technicolor deadliness!

2. Jean Grey is still dead.

1. I'm seeing The Devil's Carnival tonight! Yay!

Hope you're all having a great Friday, and are looking forward to an even greater weekend.

It is with extreme pleasure and with no small degree of squeaky joy that I announce that the next three InCryptid books have been acquired by DAW Books. I KNOW RIGHT?! The next three books are:

Half-Off Ragnarok
Pocket Apocalypse
Professional Gore-eography

Cryptids and cuckoos and field guides, oh my! Words really can't express how insanely happy I am right now. I'm going to be working with the same team at DAW, which means I know I will have great editorial, fantastic in-house support, and a whole lot of sheer bonus fun. I'm so excited that this story gets to continue; you get to meet more of the family, and see where things go next. You get to hang out with Alex! And go to Australia! And and and...

And now, in the words of the Aeslin mice...

CHEESE! AND! CAKE!

It's time for the April 2012 current projects post, coming to you live from the wilds of Maine! This is the post in which I tell you what I'm working on, and you finally understand why I don't have time for tea. To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."

Please note that all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (Blackout, Ashes of Honor). The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.

Not everything on this list has been sold. I will not discuss the sale status of anything which has not been publicly announced. Please don't ask.

( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )

It's time to go back to Jonathan Healy and Frances Brown, as they make their way across America, heading for Buckley Township, Michigan. Only this time, it seems they've reached their destination, which begs the question...what comes next?

A new Jonathan and Fran story, "No Place Like Home," has been posted on the InCryptid short fiction page. It is once again available in ePub, MOBI, and PDF formats, and is free for download.

All cover graphics are by Tara O'Shea (be sure to admire the awesome cover she did for "Flower of Arizona," which is new to the page). All electronic conversion thus far has been done by scifantasy. As both of them are awesome, we applaud them now.

Enjoy the adventure!

So very tired cat is so very tired. Tired enough that the effort of packing a suitcase for a trip to New York seems to be unendurable. Consequentially, I am updating my blog, because I can generally manage that...but I am too tired to say anything useful. So here. Have a Discount Armageddon review roundup.

Book Devourer has posted a review of Discount Armageddon, and says, "Discount Armageddon was something kind of like an impulse buy, but I’m so pleased to have bought it. It was enjoyable and entertaining with interesting characters and fast pacing that just keeps you glued to the book for hours on end. I’ll definitely be looking forward to the next books in this series!" Awesome.

Dark Faerie Tales interviewed me about Discount Armageddon, and we had a lot of fun. Check it out.

janicu has posted a review of Discount Armageddon, and says, "A refreshing urban fantasy that does not take itself too seriously. Discount Armageddon is full of fun and humor, but is balanced with just the right amount of grit. I thoroughly enjoyed Verity's dynamo presence and her enthusiasm for being in the Now. She's a kick-ass UF heroine who isn't angry or angsty, doesn't have a painful past, and comes with a supportive family. I recommend this one for urban fantasy fans that are looking for something that approaches the genre from a different angle." What a great summation!

One Good Book Deserves Another has posted a review of Discount Armageddon, and says, "I loved this book. It's original, funny, creative, and while there's room for more complexity in the plot and more detail for the secondary characters, Verity herself was highly enjoyable and carried the book well. I'd love to meet her sister, though." Oh, don't worry. You will. Heh heh heh.

Impressions of a Reader has posted a review of Discount Armageddon, and says, "Discount Armageddon is fun and refreshing, full of wonderful characters, and I love this world. I can't wait to meet Alex and Antimony, or to find out what the heck is up with Dominic. And of course, Hail Verity!" I love how much everyone wants to meet her siblings.

Finally for right now, calico_reaction has posted a review of Discount Armageddon, and says, "This is just a wonderfully fun book to read, and rather utterly different that McGuire’s other work, namely her October Daye series and NewsFlesh series, with one exception: as always, the world-building is utterly full and vivid. But where the InCryptid series deviates so far is the humor, and this book had me giggling and entertained the entire time I read it. There’s a lot of crazy ingredients to the story, and some might mix well better than others, depending on the reader, but if you’re looking for a fun, creative story, look no further."

On that note, we wrap for now.

Goodnight, moon.

VERITY PRICE!!!!!!

Ahem. Discount Armageddon has debuted on the New York Times Bestseller list, in position #35. This is otherwise known as "the best position," because it is mine, and I love it. I am...I am overjoyed. I am SO EXCITED I COULD DIE. This is my second time on the list (my first was with Late Eclipses), and to make it with my very first book in a brand new series is like a dream come true.

This is my crazy little book about a ballroom dancing cryptozoologist cocktail waitress with talking mice in her closet and nothing in her fridge, and it's on the New York Times Bestseller list. I can't believe it.

Thank you, thank you, a thousand times thank you to everyone who bought this book during release week. I am so glad, and so grateful, and so excited. Above everything else, I am so excited.

Discount Armageddon made the list.

It is with great pleasure that I remind you all that the latest iteration of the Traveling Circus and Snake-Handling Show will be assembling this Saturday at San Francisco's own Borderlands Books. We'll be getting underway at 6pm, and rocking the roof until closing time comes and they kick us all out! Why are we partying?

To celebrate the release of Discount Armageddon, naturally.

There will be cake! There will be cheese! There will be music and a raffle and reading and some Q&A, and it will be a hootenanny of a good time, with a whole lotta hoot AND a whole lotta nanny! Bring your kids! Bring your siblings! Bring your slime monsters! We totally hope to see you there.

Oh, and: Caitlin Kittredge and Ben Macallan, both of whom are made of hammered awesome, will be at the bookstore before the Circus comes to town! Their event starts at three. Come early, and make a day of it!

Remember that Borderlands does take telephone and email orders, and would be happy to send you books signed by any of the lovely authors who will be haunting the store that day. Get a book already touched by pure awesome. Or, you know. Ink. The party starts Saturday at 6pm!

Cheese! And! Cake!

Not gonna lie, here: I'm exhausted and cranky from Daylight Savings Time, and I have 600+ comments waiting to be answered (I'm trying not to think about my inboxes), so I'm settling for the low-effort embrace of a review roundup. Which comes with the added bonus of reducing the size of my link file. Everybody wins! And so...

Living Vicariously (Through Books) has posted a review of Discount Armageddon, and says, "I honestly really think Seanan McGuire (/Mira Grant) is my current favorite author. I thought that before this book, but this book did not change that thought at all." Also, "This world has a lot going for it, I think. There’s a lot of potential investigation, multiple built in antagonists of various types, and Verity is good at what she does and comfortable with herself. I am definitely on board for the second book." Yay!

From My Wandering Mind has posted a review of Discount Armageddon, and says, "It is, in fact, awesome. Well, awesome if what you are looking for is urban fantasy about a professional ballroom dancer and cryptozoologist, who also has to work as a cocktail waitress to pay the bills. It is hilarious and fun and action-packed and McGuire has put a HUGE amount of effort into creating extremely detailed and, dare I say, realistic descriptions of all sorts of mythological creatures, now just trying to live amongst humans peacefully." Yes. That is my idea of awesome.

Urban Fantasy Investigations has posted a review of Discount Armageddon, and says, "There was a great amount of action throughout the book. The cast of characters was vast and imaginative. The plot was fun and I had a great time reading the book from start to finish." Five stars! HAIL THE REVIEW!

Book Yurt has posted a review of Discount Armageddon, and says, "With machetes, ballroom dancing, parkour, romance, and oodles and oodles of snark, Discount Armageddon is a smorgasbord of fun. It's six parts Buffy, one part Princess Bride, with a generous sprinkle of Strictly Ballroom on top—or that's the closest I can come to describing it, anyway. I chortled, snickered, and at times laughed out loud while reading Discount Armageddon—not to mention I'm a huge parkour and martial arts fangirl, so the action was exactly my cup of tea—and I finished this book with a huge, rather silly grin on my face. It's been a long, long time since I've enjoyed a new UF series this much." Best. Description. Ever.

Sigrid Ellis wrote a lovely, and very sweet summation of why she enjoyed Discount Armageddon. No good pull quotes, but very much worth reading.

Oh, and you know how sometimes people go "What's the big idea?" Well, thanks to John Scalzi, I was able to explain exactly what the big idea was. Take a look.

That's all for now. I will now resume staring dully at my inbox. Whee!

First off, if you're interested, the spoiler-filled book discussion post is continuing to rage on over here, and you're welcome to join in. Read, and come to the party!

I've been blogging for Penguin* all this week, that being something they like to have authors do when they have new books out. So head over to hear my thoughts on cryptids as the fairy stories of the modern era, Toby vs. Verity, round one, fight, and the serious science of cryptozoology. It's fun!

catsittingstill wrote a song about the Aeslin mice. I can now die happy. I won't, because I have things to do, but I can.

I have a bunch of reviews to post, but those should probably go in their own roundup. So I will leave you with the reminder that my book release party, and the latest iteration of the Traveling Circus and Snake-Handling Show, will be on March 17th, at Borderlands Books. Hope to see you there!

(*DAW is my publisher, but DAW is distributed by Penguin, which makes it logical for me to blog at Penguin.)

To celebrate the release of Discount Armageddon, 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, since I always wind up getting involved in these things.

Have fun!

As I am making this post, I am realizing that it's one of the last times I'll have the awesome Discount Armageddon cover icon as my default. It always changes to reflect my upcoming book, and DA isn't the new baby anymore. It's a bittersweet feeling. I'm so excited to have this book out in the world, and yet.

And yet.

I've been doing lots to get ready for this book release. I've been giving interviews—one with Chuck Wendig, at Terrible Minds, wherein I say "fuck" a lot, and one at My Bookish Ways, wherein I say "fuck" substantially less. (The My Bookish Ways interview is in conjunction with a giveaway, open to international entries. Just saying.) I've been distributing ARCs and author copies. I've been hyperventilating.

Okay, I've actually been hyperventilating a lot. Because starting a new series is scary, and introducing the world to a whole new cast of characters is scary, and a whole lot of things involved with this book are scary, and I am generally just a frozen ball of fear.

But the book is out now. In both physical and electronic editions, and you can order it at will. I'm going to swing by Borderlands and sign pre-ordered copies after I get off work, and then I'm going to go to Kate's and eat Indian and maybe demand a trip to Toys R Us.

The book is out now.

HAIL!

Y is for YEARS AND YEARS.

This is not a job that has an ending. This is not a job where one day, you get a gold watch and a fare-thee-well from the company. This is a job that begins when you realize it needs to be done, and ends when you die. Of the members of the family who have taken up the task of protecting the world's cryptids—five generations on American soil—not one has died a peaceful death. Not one has been allowed to walk away.

There are five graves in Buckley alone, and more waiting to be filled.

This is not a job that has an ending. This is just a job that needs to be done. Remember that, and be sure you understand what you're getting into.

Z is for ZOOLOGY.

Given sufficient time, all cryptozoology becomes zoology. That doesn't mean the work is finished.

But it's a start.

X is for XENOPHOBIA.

The Price family is needed, and the Covenant exists, because of one thing: xenophobia. The fear of the alien, the unfamiliar, the unknown, the strange. The fear that the creature under your bed is here to eat you up, not just sneak into the living room while everyone is sleeping and watch American Idol on the DVR.

The fear of what might happen.

Even Prices get a little xenophobic, when confronted with the unfamiliar; their first response to discovering the cuckoos was "kill it with fire," not "hugs for everybody." Because some things are too alien. Some things can't be reasoned with, or worked with, or appreciated on their own merits.

As long as people are people, there will be xenophobia on all sides, and as long as there's xenophobia, we're going to need people like the Prices standing in the middle, asking everybody to just take a breath and settle the fuck down.

W is for WAHEELA.

There are no werewolves in upper Canada. The waheela ate them all. But when you're a cold-resistant therianthrope that can turn into a giant wolf-bear-hybrid-thing capable of throwing cars without expending any real effort, you can pretty much eat whatever the fuck you want. Including each other; waheela don't get along, and have a nasty tendency to turn cannibal when forced to co-exist for extended periods of time. Family groups are generally temporary, and exist only as long as they can fight the urge to eat each other. Female waheela will sometimes form close bonds with their children, and littermates occasionally feel affection toward one another, but that's about it as far as loving waheela families go.

Waheela are equally comfortable in both their forms, as they find both to have advantages. Wolf-bear-hybrid-things can take down moose, which helps to keep them fed, but human fingers are better at skinning and preparing meat. Many waheela, if not the majority, prefer their food cooked, and have even learned to tolerate each other for the sake of trading meals (I give you a haunch of moose, you give me some of that venison stew, everybody wins). There is no such thing as "the average waheela," because we've never been able to spend enough time with them to find out what the average waheela would look like. They are, for the most part, not aggressive toward humans, viewing them as somewhat sad, what with their inability to turn into giant walls of furry muscle. This attitude changes quickly once humans get out the guns.

Istas (last name unknown) is a waheela living in Manhattan, where she is an active, if somewhat nerve-wracking, part of the local Gothic Lolita community. She owns nineteen frilly parasols. Woe betide he who damages one of them.

Seriously.

V is for VERITY.

Born into a different family, Verity Alice Price would have been one of those little girls who lived for ballet and jazz dance, dedicating all her free time to learning how to make her knees bend just so, how to share her emotions through the sweep of an arm and the tilt of her head. She would have made a place for herself in the world of dance, maybe in ballroom, maybe on the Broadway stage, and while she might not have changed the rules, she would have been remembered for her grace, her poise, and her contributions to the rich traditions of the art form.

She would probably have been bored out of her mind by the time she was twenty-five.

Born into the Price family, Verity was one of those little girls who lived for ballet and jazz dance...and mixed martial arts, base jumping, free running, knife throwing, taxidermy, and trying to trick her baby sister into falling down a pit trap (in her defense, her baby sister probably dug that pit). She was still a gifted dancer, but she was far more gifted in the arenas of "throwing herself off rooftops," "negotiating cease-fires between groups of hostile cryptids," and "shooting idiots in the head." She may enjoy that last one a little bit more than she ought to, really.

All things considered, Verity was probably born where she needed to be...difficulty getting blood stains out of her competition tango costumes notwithstanding. One thing's for sure: she's never bored.

It's almost time for Discount Armageddon (which is why this blog, like my life, is currently the "all InCryptid, all the time" channel; while I am doing other things, they're just mostly intended to distract me, and thus involve port and Kingdom Hearts 2). And as is always the case during the final run-up to a new book, the reviews are starting to appear, like beautiful mushrooms on a pristine lawn! Are they delicious mushrooms, full of woodland goodness? Or are they the dreaded amanita, so lovely to behold, so deadly to touch? There's only one way to find out!

Travels Through Iest has posted a review of Discount Armageddon, and says, "It is early days, but Discount Armageddon is one of the most amusing urban fantasies I’ve ever read, packed with fresh ideas and plenty of scope to expand. Hopefully sales will be strong and we readers will get to see a lot more of Verity, the Price family and the cryptids. Cheese! And Cake!" Awesome!

Travels Through Iest also reviewed Westward Weird, an anthology which contains the chronologically earliest InCryptid story currently extant (it's the story of how Alice's parents met). This review says, "The standouts for me were Seanan's story (I'm sure that's a huge surprise), but I'm a sucker for anything that features the Aeslin Mice and 'The Flower of Arizona' does that." I shall build my future on the backs of talking mice. Hey, it was good enough for Disney...

Un:Bound has posted a review of Discount Armageddon, and says, "Discount Armageddon is top notch urban fantasy treated with a sense of humor and lightness that manages to enhance rather than undermine the sense of adventure and investigation." Also: "An unusual treatment of some well trodden tropes, lots of really original ideas and an explosive start to a new urban fantasy series I am really excited about." No poisonous mushrooms here!

Lurv ala Mode has posted a lovely review of Discount Armageddon, with some call-outs that had me giggling. How can you not love a review that cites the heroine's love of jumping off tall buildings as a selling point? She says: "People. People, listen. Look, this is a really good book. I'm just going to say that I just about loved it to pieces, like the kinds of pieces one gets when they hug something breakable with super human strength and, oh, oops, there I went and broke that awesome thing. Guess it's a good thing this wasn't on the Kindle, then. Paperbacks are actually pretty forgiving when it comes to ridiculously overzealous hugs." Hee hee hee. Also, and more seriously: "As much as I moan and groan sometimes about yet another series to keep up with, I feel no such qualms about the InCryptid books and will gladly add them to the few I even bother to pre-order. If you're a fan of urban fantasy looking for something different, I can't recommend this one enough." So much glee.

Scribbles From an Abstract Mind has posted a review of Discount Armageddon, and says, "This is an enjoyable beginning to what promises to be an enjoyable series, and is to be looked forward to by all fans." Works for me.

Fantasy and Sci-Fi Lovin' News and Reviews has posted a review of Discount Armageddon, and says, "If you're a fan of urban fantasy that is light on the angst and drama and strong on action and fun then I can easily recommend Discount Armageddon." Hooray!

Finally for right now, Alice at Tales of an Intrepid Pantser has posted a review of Discount Armageddon, and says, "I loved it. I have refrained in the past from declaring any authors my favorite, because it depends on my mood, or what they've recently published, or what I feel like reading. With this book, though, Seanan McGuire cements herself as my favorite author."

...let's just leave it at that, shall we? Mushroom stew for everybody, and not a drop of poison in sight!

Glee.