It's time for some free fiction. Hooray! And since I forgot to post on the last release day, we're essentially celebrating two new stories today! Double hooray!

In the first, "Oh Pretty Bird," Jonathan and Frances Healy are finally going after the woman responsible for the death of their firstborn son. This is best read after "Stingers and Strangers," published in the anthology Dead Man's Hand, although that is not absolutely required.

In the second, "Bury Me In Satin," we spend some time with Mary Dunlavy, Alice's favorite babysitter, as her world changes forever, and we discover just how entwined Rose Marshall's world is with the world of the Healy family.

You can download both stories now from the InCryptid short fiction page. The PDF link for "Bury Me In Satin" will be fixed later tonight.

This also serves as your discussion post.

Let us begin with the deep past, as I try vainly to reclaim my link file before I leave for Europe (I did mention I was leaving for Europe, right?). The Quiet Voice has reviewed Feed, and says, "Feed fractured my heart, and then broke it—so, of course, it deserves to be my first five-star book of 2012. It is definitely not your typical zombie story with sleazy action sequences and creepy cliches, but a wonderful mix of zombies, blogging, and politics." See how behind I am? I am so behind.

Geek Girls Rule has posted a review of Discount Armageddon, and says, "There’s lots to love in this book. Like her October Daye Books, she includes lots of background information on the critters inhabiting her world, without it ever feeling forced. She includes wit and humor amongst even the darkest scenes. Her characters are always well-rounded and believable, even the most unbelievable or unreal. When a character changes their mind, it feels like a natural decision or outgrowth of what’s gone on, not at all out of character or forced." Hooray!

Apocalyptic Movies has posted a review of Feed, and says, "Which brings me to media-spread panic and the reason why Feed isn't only a great read, but an important eye-opener for the folks out there who don't spend a lot of time questioning the things they are told. Feed is, in the end, a book about the power of information—and disinformation—and its message is as relevant to us, today, as it could ever be in a world full of zombies." I love it when people get what I was going for.

Seduced By a Book has posted a review of Feed, and says, "I found Feed engaging, thought provoking, dramatic, and emotionally moving. Make sure to have a box of tissues handy and find yourself a cozy little spot to read this one. Once you get into the story you're not going to want to put it down." Rockin'.

Finally for this look at the ancient days, Owlcat Mountain has posted a review of Discount Armageddon, and says, "So what does all of this add up to? Fun. Lots and lots of fun. Great characters, great plot, great backstory. I can't wait for the next one. I wonder if the author can be bribed with chocolate to write faster." Alas, I can write faster, but I can't speed up the publishing industry!

That's all for today. I know this is one of the random administrative things I do here, and I appreciate your patience as we move into a brave new world of this damn thing fitting entirely on one page.

Excelsior!

So say I was going to go back and write some more Johnny and Fran stories. And say those stories were going to fill in the gaps between the stories that already exist (or are forthcoming, which I know, is a little harder to predict).

What stories do you feel were "skipped"?
What would you like to see them deal with or encounter?
What's missing?

Suggest whatever you like: I'm just trying to get a feel for the shape of things. Speak me wisdom!

Look! The new Slasher Chicks shirts are here!

These lovely, colorful tanks allow you to embrace your inner roller girl, while also looking awesome in the hot summer weather. With art by the fabulous Sfe Monster, this was our first experiment with printing on bright colors for fun times. All tanks are fitted (no straight cuts this time, I'm afraid).

Here's the thing: they're all in a big box, and I'm not 100% sure what I have. So I'm going to post shirts a few at a time, and update this post when I add more shirts for sale. First up, we have...

Banana Yellow, 2XL
Banana Yellow, XL
Banana Yellow, S
Purple, XL
Purple, XL
Red, XL
Red, S
Bright Pink, M

All shirts are $20 + $5 shipping US/$10 shipping International. If you're wondering about a color/color family and size, please comment, and I'll happily look it up. If you want a shirt, comment here, and I'll provide payment info and all that fun stuff.

Shirts!

ETA: When I say "use my contact form," I mean my website, not LJ messaging. Please do not use LJ messaging.
ETA2: I really mean it when I say "please do not use LJ messaging." Yes, it's easier, but it means that the odds of my missing your message and your shirt not getting shipped increase by literally 500%. I cannot miss you in my email inbox. I am really good at missing things in my LJ inbox. Please, please, don't do this.

And we are CLOSED. A new post will open when this one is cleared.

Because we're still working our way through the latest tip jar, it's time for some free fiction. Hooray!

Arthur Harrington is having a hell of a time. He's always been among the most sheltered of the current generation, thanks to inheriting more than a few incubus tricks from his father, but not getting the control to keep them from backfiring at random. He used to be okay with that.

Then Sarah got hurt, and he couldn't go to help her.

Now he's climbing the walls in Oregon, looking for a way to make things better, and slamming endlessly into the walls of linear space and missing information. How do you repair a cuckoo's mind when no one understands how it works in the first place?

You can download "IM" now from the InCryptid short fiction page. This story chronologically takes place after Half-Off Ragnarok, and is better read after you've read the book. (Obviously I can't control this, but hey, I can give recommendations.) This is more of a vignette than a full narrative; it's a necessary scene to move things into place, but please don't go in looking for something huge and plot-ty. It won't be there. I'm still really excited about what is there.

This also serves as your discussion post.

Chris came over yesterday, and we spent basically the entire day watching terrible movies on SyFy/recorded off SyFy and preserved on the DVR. We watched The Uninvited, starring Emily Browning's impossibly Disney Princess facial proportions. We watched Drive Angry, starring Nicholas Cage's impossibly plastic face. And then we watched Lockout, starring Guy Pearce as a completely fucks-free zone. Seriously, his character in this film has so few fucks that he is in actual fucks debt to the Fucks Mafia, and it is glorious.

(I keep feeling like we watched another movie in there, but I'm pretty sure that's my hind-brain going "you watched ten minutes of Vikingdom, that's enough suffering to count as a whole film, no really. And in about an hour, I'm going to take a big bowl of ice cream and go watch Blood Lake on Animal Planet. I am a predictable creature, is what I'm saying here.)

Anyway, here are a few updates on things.

Posters.

All emails asking about Wicked Girls posters have been answered. If you received one of these emails, you may notice that it said "please PayPal address A, and then reply to this email (sent from address B) with your mailing address." What this means is "please PayPal address A, and then reply to this email (sent from address B) with your mailing address." I can't harvest mailing information from PayPal with the mail client that I use for address A. Meaning your poster will not be mailed, even if it is paid for, until you follow the instructions in that original email, and tell me where to send it. Fiddly? Yes! But clearly stated, so I don't feel too bad about it.

(If you were wanting a poster, the post with instructions is here: http://seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com/570576.html, and as I just ordered a new box of poster tubes, I am fully capable of shipping more. I will run out of tubes before I run out of posters, so this is a great time to order.)

Considering a book sale.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, at least according to my origins in the fanfic mines. Elizabeth Bear, whom I love dearly, periodically does an "author's copies sale" to try to reclaim her house. I think I may need to do something similar, as I am losing access to my guest room. I will probably set this up shortly after Phoenix Comic Con. In the meanwhile, if you're looking for something specific, please feel free to email me through my website contact form. It never hurts to check.

(I do not have copies of Ravens in the Library, or indeed, most of the anthologies I've been in. Sorry.)

Updates to the Field Guide.

There have been some updates to the InCryptid Field Guide. You can find it here:

http://seananmcguire.com/fieldguide.php

There are more updates to come, as I'm trying to get all the existing entries posted before I go back to Kory for more. Hooray, the field guide!

Pokemon.

Efforts to breed a Shiny Eevee continue unabated. I am destroying the local ecology by releasing so many newborn Eevees back into the wild. Even if most of them are eaten by the resident Gyrados and Svipers, there should still be enough to cause a major ecological crisis. Whee!

And that is all.

You know the drill: the link file is a dark pit into which no light falls, and from which few men emerge with their lives. The only way to fight it is to chip away at its power with review roundups, and with fire. As I am currently out of matches, have a review roundup.

First up, Tangent Online has posted a lovely review of Dead Man's Hand, and says, "McGuire's tale accelerates into an exciting high-stakes barn burner featuring gunshot wounds, giant bug attacks, memory loss, arson, mind control, and true love." Also, "The quick banter and roughneck personality of Brown acts as counterpoint to Healy's educated, formal, and proper demeanor. The chemistry between them sizzles and would have us turning pages even had McGuire not graced us with a well-structured plot rife with tension and mystery." Everybody loves Johnny and Fran.

Moving on, Bookworm Blues has reviewed Sparrow Hill Road, and says, "It's refreshing to read a book about a character who is that in control of herself, that self-assured and certain in the face of so much uncertainty." It's a great review, it just made pull quotes difficult.

Bookswarm went on a speed date with Sparrow Hill Road (what a neat format!) and had a lovely time.

The Book Smugglers have posted a review of Sparrow Hill Road, and say, "The collection reads as an engaging and surprisingly moving blend of Americana, thriller, and love story and as I read it, it struck me how the collection has a very distinctive feel from the rest of McGuire's oeuvre. It's not exactly the voice that gives that impression even though I thought Rose's voice was strong and relatable. It's more about the construct of the background story, the slow revelations about the ghostroads and the movers and shakers of this world, all of it stemming from what I understand to be a very American tradition of ghost-related storytelling." Wow.

Finally for right now, My Bookish Ways has posted a review of Sparrow Hill Road, and says, "This unusual, sometimes dark, but rather lovely and even poignant, book is a road trip that I was glad I took, and if things aren't wrapped up in a neat bow at the end, that's ok, it just means there will be more to look forward to from Rose and her very unique friends." I sure do hope so.

More to come, as always, as I battle against the links that never die.

Jonathan Healy and Frances Brown are two of my favorite characters in the InCryptid universe. They're the great-grandparents of the current generation, they're the parents of Alice Healy (later Alice Price-Healy), and they are a joy to write about. I didn't expect to spend as much time with them as I have, but the first story focusing on their part of the timeline appeared in February 2012, and it's not over yet.

Careful readers of the free stories posted on the InCryptid short fiction page may have noticed an odd jump between "No Place Like Home" and "Married In Green," like some grand adventure was missing. Well, that's because it was.

It's not missing anymore.

"Stingers and Strangers" is available now, in the anthology Dead Man's Hand. Find out what happened in that missing stretch, and why it changed the future of the Healy family forever, in more ways than one. Also enjoy a lot more exciting weird West adventure, from some pretty awesome authors.

Dead Man's Hand is available now in the US, and May 30th in the UK. It's a really good book. I'm really thrilled to be a part of it...and more, I'm thrilled to have that missing story finally see the light of day.

We're almost to the end of the trail.

So it turns out that there are some admin tasks that I was really good at when I had a day job, but am not so good at when "wander away from the computer and watch an episode of Law & Order" is on the table. The review roundup is one of these tasks. I will strive to do better, if only because my notes file is becoming impossible to navigate. This is the first step toward doing better.

Brewing Tea & Books has posted a review of Velveteen vs. The Junior Super Patriots, and says, "This book is in one word: Fun." The review goes on to say "But if I have to write a bit more, since one word reviews aren’t very interesting now are they. The book is not only very entertaining and funny, it is also very intelligent and thought-provoking." (Velveteen vs. The Junior Super Patriots is available now from ISFic Press, or via Borderlands Books in San Francisco; they should be getting a shipment soon, and books ordered from them can be signed or personalized.)

Jennifer Brozek has reviewed Half-Off Ragnarok, and says, "Half-Off Ragnarok is my favorite book in the InCryptid series thus far. I thought Verity was interesting but I’m half in love with Alex. The whole Price family is a hoot and Shelby is an interesting wild card in the mix. If urban fantasy, intriguing animals, and fast-paced adventure is your thing, you’re going to love Half-Off Ragnarok. Highly recommended." Woo!

Vampire Book Club has reviewed Ashes of Honor, and says, "Let’s cut to the chase. Ashes of Honor is THE book." I'm...just going to leave that there and wander off. Because dude.

Amazing Stories has reviewed Chimes at Midnight, and says, "Urban fantasy novels are big right now and it’s hard not to love Toby Daye, the unlikely knight and changeling protagonist of Seanan McGuire's popular series set in magic-rich San Francisco. Chimes at Midnight is book seven in the on-going series and, now we’ve met the characters and had hints dropped about the history of the Kingdom in the Mists, the story is getting fascinating." Woo!

Finally for today, Whatchamacallit Reviews has reviewed Games Creatures Play, and had this to say about my story: "Seanan McGuire takes readers into her Incryptid world. Fans of the series will enjoy reading a fun roller derby story from the youngest sibling (and only sibling not to get a book yet) Antinomy’s POV. Readers who have not read the series should read the series, not because they need to in order to understand this short story, just because it this is a fun and entertaining series."

That's all for now: more to come, including a focused roundup about Sparrow Hill Road, shortly.

There's some new short fiction in the world! Hooray!

First up, "Jammed," a new Antimony Price story, appears in the anthology Games Creatures Play, edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni Kelner. I adore both Charlaine and Toni as people, but right now what's important is that they're fantastic editors. They bring out the best in their authors, and this whole book is full of delicious urban fantasy sporting goodness.

To quote my own short fiction page:

"Antimony has finally gotten her groove back. She has friends on her roller derby team; she has her cousins to keep her company; and she has, for the most part, managed to keep her off-the-track activities from bleeding over into her social life. So what if she's a professional cryptozoologist and occasional monster hunter? There's no reason for that to change anything.

Until there is. Until one of the jammers on the Concussion Stand is found dead during a match; until her cousin Elsie is shouting at her to make things right, because Elsie's girlfriend Carlotta is the Captain of the dead woman's team; until it becomes crystal clear that whatever killed the skater, it wasn't human.

Antimony must decide which matters more: getting justice for the dead, or maintaining her cover as "just another skater." And she'll have to decide quickly, because the killer is still at large, and whatever it is, it doesn't seem likely to stop with just one skater..."

Games Creatures Play is available now at a bookstore near you. It's a hardcover, and can be used to build little castles, or to fend off home invasion.

If hardcover's a little rich for your blood, Robot Uprisings, edited by John Joseph Adams and Daniel H. Wilson, is a lovely paperback, suitable for carrying in your purse or bookbag, resting on your nightstand, and inspiring nightmares about the inevitable robot apocalypse. My story, "We Are All Misfit Toys in the Aftermath of the Velveteen War," is about toys, and how they play with us. (It's not a Velveteen story, despite the title: if it were, it would be "Velveteen vs. Who the Fuck Thought This Was a Good Idea." Naming conventions matter!"

John has helpfully provided a whole page of purchase links, here:

http://www.johnjosephadams.com/robot-uprisings/buy-the-book/

New stories!

Everything is awesome.

This seems to be an "every six months or so" thing, which is nice: I don't feel too demanding, but I'm able to keep prioritizing the free shorts in my lists. And so, as promised, I am now taking "tip jar" donations to fund the next InCryptid story or stories. To tip, please PayPal to...

delirium@xocolatl.com

Since I opened this tip jar on a Wednesday, I will leave it open until next Tuesday, when I will close it and post a total for what was collected.

If I get $200, I will prioritize finishing and posting "IM," aka, "let's check in on Artie."
If I get $300 or more, I will prioritize finishing and posting "Bury Me In Satin," aka "there's something about Mary."

"Oh Pretty Bird" will be posted this year even if no one tips me a penny; I'm not holding anything finished hostage, just trying to justify my perpetually shuffling things around. Thanks so much to everyone who's ever donated in the past; you've done a lot to make my current situation possible.

Thank you!

I am absolutely delighted to be able to announce that DAW has acquired the sixth and seventh books in the InCryptid series. These volumes will be narrated by the youngest member of the current Price clan, Antimony Timpany Price, and will see publication in 2017 and 2018, respectively. (2015 is Pocket Apocalypse, narrated by Alex, and 2016 is Chaos Choreography, narrated by Verity.) These books are titled, drumroll please...

Magic for Nothing
and
Tricks for Free

Again, it's going to be a little while before we get to Annie and her rampantly gleeful destruction of everything around her, but...the series will continue! Books six and seven!

Everything is awesome!

...it turns out Alex Price is just as popular as his sister!

I am delighted to announce that Half-Off Ragnarok debuted on the New York Times Bestseller List in position #18, a new high for this series. With every book, we inch a little closer to the top ten, and I couldn't be more delighted.

I was very nervous about this book. I announced from the start that InCryptid was going to be a family affair, but it's still hard to switch protagonists, especially when people seem to enjoy the one you already have. I did see some early rumbles from people who were sure that the books wouldn't be any good at all without Verity there to anchor them, and I have been incredibly relieved and delighted to see my readers embrace Alex with open arms.

I love all the members of the Price family, and more, I love the way I can use them to show different things about one another. Verity doesn't see how much her dance career hurts Antimony, who has never been allowed to pursue anything she really loved in the same way, and Antimony doesn't see how much Verity works and sacrifices for the things that seem to come to her so easily. Having both of them onscreen lets me explore both sides of the story. It's wonderful.

Alex has one more book to go, next year's Pocket Apocalypse, and I hope you'll like it just as much as you did this one. Thank you all so, so much.

It's been a lot of fun so far.

To celebrate the release of Half-Off Ragnarok, it's time for some free fiction. Hooray!

When last we left Verity Price and her boyfriend, Dominic De Luca, they were setting out on an epic road trip in a rented U-Haul with a colony of talking mice. It's...hard to get much more surreal than that, but with Verity involved, you know we're going to try. She needs to get Dominic used to the idea of her family, and that means it's time to start introducing him to people.

People like Auntie Rose, who is smart, sassy, and takes no bullshit, and just happens to have died almost fifty years before Verity was even born.

Nobody's perfect.

You can download "The Ghosts of Bourbon Street" now from the InCryptid short fiction page. This story chronologically overlaps with Half-Off Ragnarok, and is better read after you've read the book. (Obviously I can't control this, but hey, I can give recommendations.)

This also serves as your discussion post.

Tor.com has posted a lovely review of Half-Off Ragnarok, and says, " One thing that always amazes me about Seanan McGuire is how she can take a theme, and run with it. In this case, it's finding multiple kinds of cryptid who all fit into the overlapping 'snakes' and 'things which petrify you' categories, and making them all seem completely reasonable, if a little irrational. (It roughly compares to that time Jim Butcher worked five different flavors of werewolf into a single book.) Watching her characters deal with such hazardous and bizarre things as basilisks and gorgons, lindworms and more, is kind of like taking a tour through a very deadly theme park made up of alternating parts awesome and terrifying. Come to think of it, that sums up this series quite nicely."

Also...

"Don't go into this book looking for great literature or deep thoughts. Go into it because it's slightly over-the-top fun, a genuinely entertaining good time, an urban fantasy that, despite the title, isn't about the imminent end of the world. The best way to describe this is to say that McGuire writes for a wide audience, and this is an accessible series that doesn't require a lot of commitment. Better still, this book effectively acts as a jumping-on point to those just coming in."

Full disclosure: the reviewer has been a friend of mine since I was fourteen. But he's never let that force him to be nice to me when he didn't want to, so hey, we're all good (love ya, Mike).

Medusa's Library has also posted a review of Half-Off Ragnarok, and says, "This was a delightful book all the way through. Seanan is, herself, a trained herpetologist, and her love for the reptiles shines through. Also, there is an awesome animal called a Church Griffin (cross a Maine Coon cat with a raven) named Crow who I want to wrap up and bring home. The Aeslin mice that featured prominently in the first two books have their own part to play here too. Hail! Hail the subplot of the mice! Hail! (The anthropologist in me desperately wants to interview a colony of Aeslin mice as soon as possible!)"

Yay!

Everything is lovely, nothing hurts, and Half-Off Ragnarok can be yours this coming Tuesday.

Happy February! Have some free fiction.

You've had a glimpse of Antimony's time with the Slasher Chicks, but how did it start? Everyone has to strap on their skates for the first time sometime, because otherwise there'd be no one on the track at all. For Antimony Price, that first time came shortly after high school graduation, when she thought she had no other choices.

You know the result, since clearly she joins the team, but getting there is half the fun and more than half the battle. It's time to find out where it all started.

Let's jam.

You can download "Blocked" now from the InCryptid short fiction page. Since this story is chronologically the first starring Antimony, it should stand reasonably well on its own, providing you have any familiarity with the InCryptid setting. (If you don't, there's a lot of short fiction set earlier in the world continuity also posted on that page. Enjoy!)

This also serves as your discussion post.

The bad news: I leave for New York first thing tomorrow. I can leave books with my mother to be mailed while I'm away, but they will only be signed, not personalized, and I will need mailing addresses (via my contact form) by 10pm PST tonight. I'm so sorry. This was always going to be a tight turn, and time just got away from me.

The winner of the RNG/art giveaway is...AKinzelman.

The winner of the RNG/poetry giveaway is...thedragonweaver.

Please, visit my website ASAP and send me your addresses. If I get them soon enough, I may have time to personalize before I shove things into envelopes.

Thanks, all.

Even computers like to look pretty sometimes, right? Well, visit the InCryptid wallpapers and icons page on my website to download the latest crop of awesome offerings from the fabulous Tara O'Shea, who has once again risen to the challenge of making this world of wonders and terrors seem a little more real.

Please feel free to save and use any of the icons or wallpapers from this site, which also contains some great graphics from earlier books in the series. I'm so excited to be able to offer these to you all.

Yay, graphics!

And the winner of an ARC of Half-Off Ragnarok is...

readiness!

Please contact me via my website contact form by 11PM PST tonight. If I do not receive an address for your prize, it will not be awarded to you. Again, this is a tighter turn than normal, but that was in the original description of the drawing.

I will be opening two more giveaways next week: one will be art-based, and allow both photography and original drawings. The other will be our first poetry-based giveaway for the InCryptid universe. I'm really excited to see what you can all do!

Thanks for playing!

It's time to give away an ARC of Half-Off Ragnarok! This one is going to be both short and simple, because I'm going away for the weekend, so:

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

Please do not comment on other people's comments, as nested comments can confuse the random number generator. I will choose a winner at 12pm PST on Wednesday, January 22nd, and mail your prize first thing in the morning on Thursday, January 23rd. So more than ever, if you don't get me your address in a super-timely fashion, you won't receive your prize.

Game on!

So io9 has named Indexing one of their books you can't afford to miss in January. Not too bad for the little serial that could, huh? I love how much support this wacky experiment in being very, very serious about very, very ridiculous things has been able to garner, and while I haven't seen the print edition yet, I have other books from 47North which lead me to believe that it's going to be gorgeous.

(Also, for those of you who have not yet read this particular universe, I note that right now, it's closed: volume one is complete, in and of itself. I left it open for a season two, but there's no commitment involved in buying the book. There is, however, the awesome potential to pay my power bill, which weighs heavy on my mind just now. Once upon a times! Ever afters of all sorts! Magic and bureaucracy! Which I still can't spell! What have you got to lose?)

Meanwhile, over at Ranting Dragon, the editor named Chimes at Midnight AND Midnight Blue-Light Special as two of the best books of 2013. This delights me down to the bottom of my bones. I love both my urban fantasy worlds, and sometimes I worry about favoring one over the other. This tells me that I'm doing it right, and that makes me so happy. So, so happy.

Glee.

...I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'd promise never to do it again, but let's face it, you're going to be hearing this joke a lot over the next several months, frequently from me. So, uh, look, a punny bunny! Anyway:

As of today, we are fifty days from the release of Half-Off Ragnarok, the third book in the InCryptid series, and the first book narrated by Verity's older brother, Alexander Price. It's a little weird for me, since—like Verity before him—Alex gets to narrate two books on his first outing, and I've already finished the second. For me, he's an established protagonist with two complete adventures under his belt, and for you, he's the new kid on the block, taking over from someone many of you have already learned to love. So that's weird. And I'm still a little stunned that I get to write these books in the first place. Like, I can't even articulate how amazing this has been for me.

So where are we right now? Well, I'm gearing up for some more giveaways, some of which will be totally effort-free (RNG 4 LYFE), some of which will require a little more work (fan artists, start your engines). I'm editing book four, and prepping for book five, which is the last on my current contract (subtext: please, please, if you can, if you enjoy this series, buy it, so I can keep going). I'm getting ready for book launch, and looking in awe at the upcoming UK release of book one, and yeah. It's all amazing.

I'm still not sure what I'm going to do as a pre-release countdown this time (or whether I'm going to do one at all). 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. We're coming to the end of their time as the focus of our historical narratives. I'm excited to be moving on Alice and Thomas, one of my all time OTPs, but I'm going to miss Johnny and Fran.

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.

It's time to start the new year off right: with some free fiction.

Ryan and Istas have been getting serious, which means it's time for the two of them to go through one of the most important rituals in a tanuki's life: meeting the parents. Sure, that means flying cross-country with an apex predator crammed into an airline seat, and sure, there's a reasonable chance that Istas will eat a flight attendant, but these are the risks you have to take for love.

Sadly, there are always risks no one anticipated. Like reputations, and prejudices, and the fact that everyone's definition of "monster" is different.

You can download "Black as Blood" now from the InCryptid short fiction page. While this story is best read after "Red as Snow," it should stand reasonably well on its own, providing you have any familiarity with the InCryptid setting. (If you don't, there's a lot of short fiction set earlier in the world continuity also posted on that page. Enjoy!)

This also serves as your discussion post.

Happy new year!

...a pair of books! Discount Armageddon and Midnight Blue-Light Special could be yours!

Welcome to the sixth of the Twelve Days of Hogswatch. I am starting a new giveaway every day between now and January 6th (the day after my birthday). Each giveaway has different rules, and a different deadline, although all prizes will be mailed on January 9th, because I am bad at going to the post office.

The sixth giveaway is for the US mass-market paperbacks of Discount Armageddon and Midnight Blue-Light Special. This is going to be a random number drawing. So...

1. To enter, comment on this post.
2. If you are in Canada, indicate a willingness to pay postage.
3. That's it.

This giveaway is for US and Canadian residents only. The cost of mailing two MMPs anywhere else is more than the cost of the books, which I just...I can't. I'm sorry, and I'm trying to keep these giveaways as open as possible, but I can't in good conscience do that, either to you (postage like whoa) or to me (you could have just bought the books for that price). Tomorrow's giveaway will be open to all.

Please remember that all giveaway rules are non-negotiable. Failure to follow the rules of a giveaway will mean that you cannot win, even if the RNG picks you.

I will choose the winner at 1PM PST on Tuesday, January 7th.

Game on!

...an ARC of Half-Off Ragnarok!

Welcome to the first of the Twelve Days of Hogswatch. I will be starting a new giveaway every day between now and January 6th (the day after my birthday). Each giveaway will have different rules, and a different deadline, although all prizes will be mailed on January 9th, because I am bad at going to the post office.

The first giveaway is for a shiny new ARC of Half-Off Ragnarok, the third InCryptid adventure and the first starring Alex Price as our narrator. This is going to be a random number drawing, because I am sleepy. So...

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

I will choose the winner at 1PM PST on Monday, December 30th.

Game on!

I am delighted to announce that Hex in the City, an original anthology of urban fantasy from Fiction River, is available now from a retailer near you. (I had to do a search on Amazon for the title in quotes, but it came up with both Kindle and physical editions; I'm sure that other eBook retailers will have it as well.) This collection of all-new fiction includes a first for me: an Istas story.

"Red as Snow" is the story of what happens when Ryan gets introduced to Istas's family, whether he likes it or not. It's the first InCryptid story not to feature either the Price family or Rose Marshall, and I am very well-pleased with it.

You can see Tara's awesome cover for the story here. Enjoy!

This will also, as always, serve as your discussion post.

Thanks to the efforts of my covers-and-conversion squad (Tara and Will), I have a new InCryptid short available on my website.

So it turns out all that sex at White Otter Lake had some effect after all: Fran is eight months pregnant and Johnny is about to head for Gentling, Maine to help the locals with an undefined problem. Fran never met an undefined problem she didn't want to throw knives at, and Johnny finds himself crossing the continent with a pregnant wife, a colony of talking mice, and a massive ancestral guilt trip—because the residents of Gentling aren't human, and the Covenant of St. George was not kind to them. Mermaids and mysteries abound as this latest adventure gets underway.

You can download "We Both Go Down Together," and earlier free stories, here:

http://seananmcguire.com/icshorts.php

Please download and read locally, for the sake of my server.

This post will serve as the discussion post, if anyone wants to talk about the story once they're done. Thanks again to everyone for reading.

I am ecstatic to finally be able to announce that I—as in "me writing under my own name," not Mira, who has a different publishing setup than Seanan does—have acquired a UK publisher! Both the October Daye and the InCryptid books will be coming out from Constable & Robinson, under their Corsair imprint. I AM BEING PUBLISHED BY AN IMPRINT THAT IS ALSO AN X-MEN REFERENCE.

My life is complete.

My page on the Constable & Robinson site is right over here, and will eventually have neat things like book covers (no idea yet what the books are going to look like in the UK market IT'S AN EXCITING MYSTERY). There's also an awesome pre-order page for the UK edition of Discount Armageddon, which will be coming out in April of 2014.

The deal includes all the current books in both series, which means a) non-imported editions for my UK readers, and b) easily available ebooks. Such excitement! Such delight!

I am really over the moon about this, and I'm so happy to be joining the Constable & Robinson/Corsair family of authors. UK publisher!

Bliss.

Okay, so first off: the tip jar is closed. Any money that is randomly sent to me after this date does not go into the tip jar total. So please wait until the next time I do this, to make sure that you get the story to go with your silver, okay!

Second off, thank you to absolutely everyone who donated, thought about donating, or couldn't donate. You are all awesome.

Thirdly, the total:

$2,352

Uh, wow. I had sort of been hoping for $500, which felt greedy and illogical, but would have done a lot to help me with my story pacing. This is...wow. We beat last time's total by $40, and more than topped my wildest hopes. Thank you all so much, and now let's tell the people at home what they've won!

"We Both Go Down Together" (the followup to "Loch and Key") is finished, and Tara is designing the cover now. As soon as that's done, I'll send the files off for ebook conversion, and we'll be ready to post.

"Black as Blood" has been added to the schedule, tentatively with a January completion, to let me release it in tandem with the Fiction River issue containing "Red as Snow."

"The Ghosts of Bourbon Street" has been added to the schedule, tentatively with a March completion, to keep y'all from going into Verity withdrawal.

"Blocked" was already on the schedule from the last tip jar, and "Oh Pretty Bird" will be locked in if I have space.

Thank you all so, so much.

I am now taking "tip jar" donations to fund the next InCryptid story or stories. To tip, please PayPal to...

delirium@xocolatl.com

I will leave the tip jar open until next Wednesday, the 9th, when I will close it and post a total for what was collected.

If I get $200, I will prioritize finishing and posting "We Both Go Down Together," aka, "Alice actually arrives."
If I get $300 or more, I will add "Ghosts of Bourbon Street" to the inchworm list, which means it gets scheduled and everything.

"We Both Go Down Together" will be posted this year even if no one tips me a penny; I'm not holding anything finished hostage, just trying to justify shuffling things around.

Thank you!

Psst. C'mere.

So it's no secret around here that I love, love, love my DAW covers, or that showing them off is one of my true pure joys in life. Aly Fell, who designs the covers for the InCryptid books, has been everything I could have hoped for in a cover artist. He's incredible. Want proof?

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 )

If you've read "Bad Dream Girl," you already know that Antimony Price is a derby girl. But did you know that her team, the Slasher Chicks, has team shirts?

Well, now you do.

Originally printed for the San Antonio Worldcon, we have some shirts left over, and I am going to be selling them here in batches of three. For examples of what they look like, check these two links:

https://twitter.com/priscellie/status/369568694038310912/photo/1
https://twitter.com/seananmcguire/status/368529320907522048/photo/1

Both pictures are of the tank top, not the T-shirt, but you can see the logo clearly. All overruns (tank and T) are white ink on black fabric. T-shirts will be $20 for standard sizes. To purchase, please comment here, and upon confirmation, email me via my website contact form so that we can work out payment and shipping ($5 for domestic, $10 for international).

The current batch:

1. Girl-cut T, Medium.
2. Girl-cut T, Large.
3. Girl-cut T, XXL.

The reason for the small batches is simple: I have to hand-carry to the post office. I reserve the right to update the sale structure if I have the opportunity to carry a larger batch. I will update this post as time goes on.

Well, it's here: at long last you, too, can join the roller party already in progress. Glitter and Mayhem is available now from a bookseller near you! Twenty-one stories, twenty-one parties you know you want to be invited to.

The scores are in:

"Though stories range from humorous to horrific and from innocent to explicit, they stick to the theme with thoroughly enjoyable results. The diverse cast includes gay, lesbian, transgender, and drag queen characters, all portrayed in sensitive and positive lights. This collection definitely brings the party, with nary a poor choice to spoil the evening." —Publishers Weekly

"Glitter and Mayhem not only justifies the risks and faith required from its kickstarter backers, it shows that there is an audience for anthologies that take risks to bring short fiction outside of the usual bounds to a genre audience." —SF Signal

"Most of the stories here are weird, clever, and weirdly clever. Many of them involve roller skating. I never knew that I needed them. But now I want more sci-fi and fantasy stories about roller skating." —Revolution SF

"Glitter and Mayhem reminds me of the sweat and liquid latex-scented parties of the '90s Lower East Side. Only with, like, 50% more murder." —Kelly Sue DeConnick

Basically, come to our party if you want a good time...and if you want to meet Antimony "Final Girl" Price, the roller derby doll little sister of our beloved Verity. Annie's got another bout coming up in February, when she'll be taking on all challengers in "Jammed," but it all begins with "Bad Dream Girl" in Glitter and Mayhem.

See you on the track!

Thanks to the efforts of my covers-and-conversion squad (Tara and Will), I have a new InCryptid short available on my website.

It's been two years since "The First Fall," and the Healy family is putting itself back together one day at a time. Alexander and Enid are getting ready for their annual trip to White Otter Lake, and it seems like a good opportunity for the family to do some bonding away from the house. Also, they figure Fran would like to meet the denizens of the lake, and it's a certainty that they'd like to meet her. Poachers and plesiosaurs abound as this latest adventure gets underway.

You can download "Loch and Key," and earlier free stories, here:

http://seananmcguire.com/icshorts.php

Please download and read locally, for the sake of my server.

You can learn more about the residents of White Otter Lake in the Field Guide, which exists for just this reason.

This post will serve as the discussion post, if anyone wants to talk about the story once they're done. Thanks again to everyone for reading. This is the third story prioritized on my word count list by the recent tip jar, with one more to go!

Carniepunk, a new, carnival-themed anthology of urban fantasy awesome, is available now from a bookstore near you! (If there is not a bookstore near you, I recommend Borderlands Books, which does mail order and has hairless cats.) Featuring stories from me, Rachel Caine, Jennifer Estep, Allison Pang, and many more, this is an exploration of the carnival by a bunch of people who have actually been to the carnival at least once in their lives.

Yes. I know. That's a lousy sale line. But not everyone knows how to put together a Ferris wheel, okay? And people did their research, and on the whole, the stories are solid, fun reads, and the book is beautifully designed. My story, "Daughter of the Midway, the Mermaid, and the Open, Lonely Sea," requires no knowledge of my pre-existing universes, and gives you a sneak peek at one of the mermaid species to be found in the InCryptid setting (we'll be seeing more of them in an upcoming Fran and Johnny story, "We Both Go Down Together").

Here are some review bits:

"'Daughter of the Midway, the Mermaid, and the Open, Lonely Sea" by Seanan McGuire is a haunting story about, you guessed it, mermaids. It’s about growing up, family secrets, and relationships between mothers and daughters. It has an ending that, while not what I’d exactly call happy, hits you hard and lingers for a very long time." —Dear Author.

"...this story is about a mermaid growing up in the carnival. And in fitting with my theory above, the writing is strong. Very strong. Not even the depressing nature of the full circle concept of her journey could bring me to pull away from it." —Wicked Little Pixie.

I really, really loved several of the stories in this anthology, and none of them made me want to throw the book across the room. I file it under "anthology I would recommend even if I wasn't in it," which is my benchmark for a really good collection. So step right up. I haven't jawed you false. Put your money down, take your ticket, and find out what's behind the painted curtain.

I promise that it's worth your while.

I am absolutely delighted to announce that "Jammed," the second in my accidental series of "Antimony Price does roller derby" short stories, will be appearing in the anthology Games Creatures Play, edited by Toni Kelner and Charlaine Harris, scheduled for release on April 1st, 2014.

Nope. Not an April Fool's Day joke. Genuine Antimony goodness will be yours!

Here is an Amazon link for perusal of the book as a whole (although the title of my story is listed incorrectly, so give it all a grain of salt). It can even be pre-ordered now, to beat the rush!

I'm super-excited about this. I love Toni and Charlaine, and I love Antimony, and I love roller derby. Everybody wins!

Now strap on your skates and get ready for adventure.

Thanks to the efforts of my covers-and-conversion squad (Tara and Will), I have a new InCryptid short available on my website.

This one was...difficult to write. Those of you who know the family history may have noticed that the child born between "Married in Green" and "Sweet Poison Wine," Daniel Healy, was never mentioned by any of the modern members of the Price family. That's because he only lived three years. Losing him set the stage for a lot of what went wrong from there. That didn't make it a pleasant tale to tell. So consider this your trigger warning: the story opens with his funeral.

You can download "The First Fall," and earlier free stories, here:

http://seananmcguire.com/icshorts.php

Please download and read locally, for the sake of my server.

This post will also serve as the discussion post, if anyone wants to talk about the story once they're done. Thanks again to everyone for reading. This is the second story prioritized on my word count list by the recent tip jar, with two more to go!

...meet me down where the river runs red.

I am over the moon to finally be able to announce that "Stingers and Strangers," an original Jonathan Healy and Frances Brown short story, will be appearing in the upcoming Weird West anthology, Dead Man's Hand. To quote the official press release:

"'The weird western is the forefather of steampunk, with a history that includes Stephen King's Dark Tower and Card's Alvin Maker,' editor John Joseph Adams explains. 'But where steampunk is Victorian, weird westerns are darker, grittier, so the protagonist might be gunned down in a duel, killed by a vampire, or confronted by aliens on the streets of a dusty frontier town.'"

"Stingers and Strangers" fits between "No Place Like Home" and "Married In Green." When Johnny and Fran head to Colorado to investigate reports of dead and missing miners, they're in for a whole pile of trouble. It's an engagement not to be taken lightly.

For more information about the anthology, including a full table of contents (Elizabeth Bear! Kelley Armstrong! Ken Liu!), check out the official press release, located here:

http://www.johnjosephadams.com/blog/2013/04/10/new-anthology-dead-mans-hand/

Dead Man's Hand will be released in May of 2014. I'm so excited!

Thanks to the efforts of my covers-and-conversion squad (Tara and Will), I have a new InCryptid short for your reading pleasure—and it's the longest one yet. "Sweet Poison Wine" is the story of Jonathan and Fran's honeymoon, which goes precisely as smoothly as you'd expect, given that it's the two of them.

You can download this, and earlier free stories, here:

http://seananmcguire.com/icshorts.php

Please download and read locally, for the sake of my server.

This post will also serve as the discussion post, if anyone wants to talk about the story once they're done. Thanks again to everyone for reading, and for those of you who were able to chip in to the recent tip jar. The prizes begin to flow!

Okay, so first off: the tip jar is closed. Any money that is randomly sent to me after this date does not go into the tip jar total. So please wait until the next time I do this, to make sure that you get the story to go with your silver, okay!

Second off, thank you to absolutely everyone who donated, thought about donating, or couldn't donate. You are all awesome.

Thirdly, the total:

$2,312

...um. I'd sort of been hoping for four hundred, but that felt greedy. So...wow. Thank you all so much, and now let's tell the people at home what they've won!

"Sweet Poison Wine" (the followup to "Married In Green") is finished, and Tara is designing the cover now. As soon as that's done, I'll send the files off for ebook conversion, and we'll be ready to post.

"The First Fall" has been added to the schedule, tentatively with a June completion. Could be sooner, as I knock other things out of the way, shouldn't be later, since Half-Off Ragnarok is due on May 1st.

"Loch and Key" has finally stabilized as a consequence of my mapping out "The First Fall," and will be going on the paid fiction list as soon as I clear "The First Fall" and can see the schedule again.

"Blocked" has been added to the schedule, tentatively with a February completion, to keep y'all from going into Antimony withdrawal.

Thank you all again, so, so much. You are amazing.

It's time to reduce the link file by posting some of the truly awesome Midnight Blue-Light Special reviews that have shown up recently. Hooray!

Alice the Writer has posted a review of Midnight Blue-Light Special, and says, "If this book were worse, I would be using this space to rail about how Seanan McGuire should spend her time focusing on Toby Daye's adventures so we'd have more of those. Alas, Verity's world is just as well-rounded as Toby's, her monsters and men just as interesting, her allies just as amusing." This is the best complaint ever, and I wish to hug it a lot.

Over the Effing Rainbow has posted a review of Midnight Blue-Light Special, and says, "Right, then. No beating around the bush with this one—the second book in Seanan McGuire's InCryptid series is, in my opinion, possibly one of the most well-written and engaging urban fantasy novels I've read—and I've read every one of the Dresden Files novels several times over by now. McGuire is, for me, an author who is well within Jim Butcher's league for this stuff—her October Daye series continues to improve with every new book, and I can already tell that her pattern is holding true with this series as well." Daaaaaamn.

Badass Book Reviews has posted a review of Midnight Blue-Light Special, and says, "This book will take you through the entire gamut of emotions. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll worry for the characters safety, and you'll cheer their triumphs. As with all Seanan McGuire novels, the writing is top-notch and the world entirely engrossing. Give yourself some time to savor this novel; once you pick it up, you won’t be able to put it down!" Yay!

Michael Jones at Tor.com has posted a review of Midnight Blue-Light Special, and says, "Midnight Blue-Light Special is fun. Even in the darkest moments, when Verity is dealing with ruthless enemies and fighting for her life, when good people are making desperate choices, there’s that sense of whimsy, of magic, of joy, which makes this a book, and a series, well worth checking out. I can’t wait for the next installment." He also calls attention to the amount of As You Know, Bob in the book, which is a fair cop, if not one that I have a clear bead on fixing, since when I cut the AYKB, I get complaints about things being dense and confusing. This is the lesser of two evils, I guess. It's a great review, and Michael Jones pulls no punches, as always.

Fantasy Book Cafe has posted a review of Midnight Blue-Light Special, and says, "Like its predecessor, Midnight Blue-Light Special is humorous and highly entertaining without a dull moment. While I wanted to see the premise of the first book built on a little more in the second book, I thought it did a great job with a kickass main protagonist who had strengths beyond her fighting ability as well as a quieter character with inner strength. I also enjoyed that it got a bit darker and the stakes were higher for the characters, and I’m certainly looking forward to reading more in this series." Woo!

I am pleased with how this book has been received, and I can't wait for y'all to see book three, and meet Alex properly for the first time.

As mentioned in this post, I have been running a "tip jar" all week for the short fiction that I give away on my website. I'll be closing the tip jar tonight, so this is the last call.

A few answers to things people have asked me:

1. No, I am not holding anything finished hostage. This is just a way of moving things up onto the "paid work" list, which gets them finished and posted faster.

1b. ...on the other hand, I will still be pacing stories. So I'm not going to post a new short the day after a book comes out, just for the sake of my own sanity. That's why I'm not promising hard delivery dates.

2. Yes, you can "tip" me any time, but it won't go into the "tip jar total," which is what I'm basing my schedule off of. You can also wait until I decide to do this again (probably in six months or so).

3. Yes, this particular tip jar is for InCryptid stories only. If I open a jar for another series, it will be clearly marked as such.

3b. No, you can't tell me what series to take tips for next.

If you had been meaning to tip, or wanted to tip before the jar closed tonight, you can PayPal to delirium@xocolatl.com. I promise that is really my account, despite the weirdness of the email address and spelling.

Thanks to everyone who's donated so far, and I will post both a total collected and a "what I am committing to" after the tip jar closes.

...VERITY PRICE!

Midnight Blue-Light Special debuted at #20 on the New York Times Bestseller List, making it the first book in the InCryptid series to make the print list (the entries on the NYT List that are printed in the paper, rather than just being posted on the website). This is a massive jump from Discount Armageddon, and I could not be happier or more honored.

Thank you all so much for reading, and for following me into this candy-coated heart of darkness. It is an honor, and I am so excited for you to find out what happens next, in Ohio, with Alex.

It's gonna be a party.

I am now taking "tip jar" donations to fund the next InCryptid story or stories. To tip, please PayPal to...

delirium@xocolatl.com

I will leave the tip jar open until Friday, when I will close it and post a total for what was collected.

If I get $200, I will prioritize finishing and posting "Sweet Poison Wine," aka, "the honeymoon story."
If I get $300 or more, I will add "The First Fall" to the inchworm list, which means it gets scheduled and everything.

"Sweet Poison Wine" will be posted this year even if no one tips me a penny; I'm not holding anything finished hostage, just trying to justify shuffling things around.

Thank you!

I am pleased to announce that my story, "Red as Snow," will be appearing in the December issue of Fiction River, subtitled Hex in the City. Need more details on Fiction River? Look no further than this link. But, you know. I'm going to give more details anyway, because I'm that kind of girl.

This is a monthly anthology series, each issue focusing on a different theme. December is the month of urban fantasy, but they've covered an amazing range of subjects already, and I'm incredibly excited to see where they're going to go from here.

"Red as Snow" is an Istas-narrated story, which is a first for me. It's also the first story set in the InCryptid universe but not centering on any member of the Price-Healy family. Instead, it's about Istas, and Ryan, and parasols, and pizza. And carnage, of course. You can't have waheela without carnage.

This is a new chapter in the expansion of the greater InCryptid universe, and I couldn't be more excited about it. December 2013! Mark your calendars, and prepare for impact.

Yay!

Guys guys guys! The Traveling Circus and Snake-Handling* Show is tomorrow! For the eighth time, my band of merry wanderers will descend upon San Francisco, bringing music, chaos, and the excitement of a book release party with us! This time, we're actually not going to be at my beloved Borderlands Books, although they will be selling books at the event: thanks to an opening in the Variety Preview Room Theatre, we're going to be trashing someone else's house for a change! The party begins this coming Saturday at 6:00 PM, at...

The Variety Preview Room Theatre
Hobart Bldg., 1st Floor (use the entrance next to Citibank on Market St.)
582 Market Street @ 2nd and Montgomery
San Francisco, CA 94104

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE.

Delicious cupcakes! Free popcorn, for that circus feeling! A cash bar, including a signature cocktail designed just for us, The Snakehandler! Jeff and Maya Bohnhoff rocking the house, now with special bonus Paul Kwinn and imported bonus Vixy! And this time, I'm not the only author who's going to be taking her turn in the ring. That's right: I have AWESOME BONUS GUESTS. Sarah Kuhn, awesome author of the geek rom-com One Con Glory, will be joining the fray, as will Amber Benson, whose latest Calliope Reaper-Jones adventure, The Golden Age of Death, dropped just two weeks ago.

Three authors. A lot of music. Plenty of sugar. Accessible booze. NOW HOW MUCH WOULD YOU PAY?

I thought so.

Seating at the Preview Room is limited, so please show up early. We are a kid-friendly circus, although there will probably be swearing (I'm planning to show up, I swear a lot). The doors will open at 6:00 PM to allow for getting drinks and books, meeting people, and generally relaxing into the night; the Circus takes the stage at 7:00 PM. Here is the full schedule for the evening (subject to change):

6:00 PM: Welcome to our party! The doors will open for milling, schmoozing, hitting the bar, and finding seats. AND CUPCAKES!
7:00 PM: Would you like some music?
7:30 PM: Perhaps you would like to win things.
7:40 PM: Now there will be a reading! WHO WILL IT BE? NO ONE KNOWS! (Amber, Sarah, or Seanan.)
8:00 PM: More music?
8:30 PM: More prizes?
8:40 PM: Another mystery reading!
9:00 PM: Last music of the night.
9:30 PM: Q&A and book discussion.
9:50 PM: Thanks and final raffle before we move to the lobby for signing.

One note from the management:

"Don’t Drive—Seriously. Parking sucks in this area. Take BART or MUNI downtown, as we are directly adjacent to the Montgomery Street BART/MUNI station! Street parking ($3.50 per hour/coins or meter card, no charge cards) is metered 7 days a week til 6PM. If you have to drive, we suggest parking at the Folsom St. Garage at 3rd & Folsom (cheapest), across from Moscone Center."

See you Saturday!

(*No snakes will be present at the event, which is a shame, because I like snakes. I will content myself with humans. FOR NOW.)

So remember when I said that I would answer ten questions about the InCryptid universe? I'm almost done, but here's your ninth answer!

tylik asks...

"How frequently have cryptids attended universities? Have many gone for graduate degrees? How has that worked out for them?"

There's this interesting tendency to treat "cryptid" as a catch-all when talking about this universe, much like we use the word "human" as a catch-all. But cryptids are not a single species sometimes divided by race and geography; they're a hundred, two hundred, a thousand different species, with different needs, wants, and desires. How many frickens have attended universities? None, although some may have been dissected there. How many cuckoos have attended universities? More than you'd like to consider.

Whether or not a cryptid chooses to attend university is influenced by a number of factors. Chief among them are...

1. How human do they look? No male wadjet is ever going to get a degree, unless it's through the mail, because they're basically enormous cobras, and that doesn't go over well with the Dean of Admissions. Cuckoos and lilu, on the other hand, can stroll right through the front doors.

2. How connected to human society are they? University costs money. No matter how much someone like Istas might want to major in fashion design, waheela simply don't have the funds, or the credit scores, to pay for it. Ryan, on the other hand, comes from a family that's been interacting with humans for centuries, and could probably pay for his entire education up-front, if he chose to pursue it.

3. What good will it do? University campuses in the InCryptid world frequently play host to one or more cuckoos, and are one of the safest places to be during a cuckoo encounter. Cuckoos have two big additions, chaos and math, and they go to school for numbers, not destruction. Basically, they're unlikely to fuck with the students because they don't want it to disrupt their class schedule. Very few of them are actually enrolled, however, because the degrees wouldn't do them any good. They're here to learn equations until they get bored, and then go out and smash shit. You don't need a degree to do that.

So let's assume we're looking only at the human-appearing, well-connected types of cryptid. That still gives us dozens of species, with their own racial needs and desires. Some dragons do attend college, because they understand that if you want to make money, you have to spend money; they're the ultimate financial aid students, because while the Nest will pay their every expense, you can be damn sure they'll explain any drops in their grades or unnecessary electives to their sisters. Bogeymen love college, but usually stick to night school, where they won't stand out as much. Tanuki are big fans. And so on, and so on.

There's no single answer to this question, because there's no single "cryptid" that we can use as our poster child for non-humans pursuing higher education. But in this world, there are more non-human students than most people would think.

Maybe that explains Rush Week.

To celebrate the release of Midnight Blue-Light Special, here. Have an open thread to discuss the book. Judging by the comments I'm seeing, you've had time.

THERE WILL BE SPOILERS.

Seriously. If anyone comments here at all, THERE WILL BE SPOILERS. So please don't read and then yell at me because you encountered spoilers. You were warned. (I will not reply to every comment; I call partial comment amnesty. But I may well join some of the discussion, or answer questions or whatnot.) I will be DELETING all comments containing spoilers which have been left on other posts. No one gets to spoil people here without a label.

You can also start a discussion at my website forums, with less need to be concerned that I will see everything you say! In case you wanted, you know, discussion free of authorial influence, since I always wind up getting involved in these things.

Have fun, and try not to bleed on the carpet.

As of today, Midnight Blue-Light Special is officially available from bookstores all over North America, and from import stores all over the world. It's been spotted in the wild from California to New York, with several points between also chiming in to let me know that they've got copies. Hooray!

Since it's release day, I figured it was time to once again answer the wonderful people asking how they can help. So here are a few dos and don'ts for making this book launch awesome.

DO buy the book as soon as you can. Sales during the first week are very important—think of it as "opening weekend" for a movie—but they're not the end-all be-all. If you can get the book today, get the book; if you can get it at my book release party, get it at my book release party. Whatever works for you. Brick-and-mortar store purchases are best, as they encourage reordering. If you've already bought the book, consider buying the book again, as a single copy might get lonely. They make great gifts!

DON'T yell at other people who haven't bought the book yet. I know, that's sort of a "why are you saying this?" statement, but I got a very sad email from a teenager who'd been yelled at for not buying A Local Habitation the week that it came out. So just be chill. Unless you want to buy books for people who don't have them, in which case, don't yell, just buy.

DO ask your local bookstore if they have it on order. If your local store is part of a large chain, such as Barnes and Noble, the odds are good that the answer will be "yes," and that they'll be more than happy to hold one for you. If your local store is small, and does not focus specifically on science fiction/fantasy, they may have been waiting to see signs of interest before placing an order. Get interested! Interest is awesome!

DON'T berate your local bookseller if they say "no." Telling people they're overlooking something awesome doesn't make them go "gosh, I see the error of my ways." It makes them go "well, I guess it can be awesome without me." Suggest. Ask if you can special-order a copy. But don't be nasty to people just because their shelves can't hold every book ever written.

DO post reviews on your blog or on Amazon.com. Reviews are fantastic! Reviews make everything better! Please, write and post a review, even if it's just "I liked it." Honestly, even if it's just "this wasn't really my thing." As long as you're being fair and reasoned in your commentary, I'm thrilled. (I like to think you won't all race right out to post one-star reviews, but if that's what you really think, I promise that I won't be mad.)

DON'T get nasty at people who post negative reviews. You are all people. You all have a right to the ball. That includes people who don't like my work. Please don't argue with negative reviewers on my behalf. It just makes everybody sad. If you really think someone's being unfair, why don't you post your own review, to present an alternate perspective? (Also, please don't email me my Amazon reviews. I don't read them, I don't want to read them, and I definitely don't want to be surprised with them. Please have mercy.)

DO feel free to get multiple copies. No, you probably don't need eight copies of One Salt Sea for your permanent collection, but remember that libraries, school libraries, and shelters are always in need of books. I'm donating a few of my author's copies to a local women's shelter, because they get a lot of women there who really need the escape. There are also people who just can't afford their own copies, and would be delighted. I wouldn't have had half the library I did as a teenager if it weren't for the kindness of the people around me.

DON'T feel obligated to get multiple copies, or nag other people to do so. Seriously, we're all on budgets, and too much aggressive press can actually turn people off on a good thing. Let people make their own choices. Have faith.

DO check with your local library to be sure they have a copy of on order. If they don't, you can fill out a library request form. Spread the paperback love!

DON'T forget that libraries need books. Many libraries, especially on the high school level, are really strapped for cash right now, and book donations are frequently tax deductible. If you have a few bucks to spare, you can improve the world on multiple levels by donating books to your local public and high school libraries.

DO suggest the book to bookstore employees who like urban fantasy. Nothing boosts sales like having people in the stores who really like a project. If your Cousin Danny (or Dani) works at a bookstore, say "Hey, why don't you give this a try?" It just might help.

DON'T rearrange bookstore displays. If the staff of my local bookstore is constantly being forced to deal with fixing the shelves after someone "helpfully" rearranged things to give their chosen favorites a better position, they're unlikely to feel well inclined toward that book—or author. It's not a good thing to piss off the bookstores. Let's just not.

So those are some do's and don't's. I'm sure there are lots of other things to consider; this is, at least, a start. Finally, a few things that don't help the book, but do help the me:

Please don't expect immediate email response from me for anything short of "you promised us this interview, it runs tomorrow, where are your answers?" I normally make an effort to be a semi-competent correspondent, but with a new book on shelves, final edits due on Half-Off Ragnarok, and The Winter Long in need of finishing, a lot of things are falling by the wayside. Like sleep.

Please don't ask me when book three is coming out. I may cry. Plus, the answer is March 2014.

Whee!

It's time to go back to Jonathan Healy and Frances Brown, as they settle down into their lives in Buckley Township, Michigan, and get ready to face what lies ahead. The next step? Marriage, of course, assuming they can make it to the altar...

A new Jonathan and Fran story, "Married in Green," 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. Please download, rather than trying to read locally! We do not want to swamp my server.

All cover graphics are by Tara O'Shea (be sure to admire the awesome cover she did for "Bad Dream Girl," 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!

This post will also serve as the open thread, so expect spoilers in the comments.