The random number generator has spoken, and the winner of a signed copy of either Libriomancer or Unbound is...

kay_gmd

Please email me via my website contact form. I will be passing this email on to Jim, so he can determine which book you want and make sure you get the right inscription.

Thanks to everyone who entered, and if you haven't already checked out Libriomancer, give it a shot. It's available in paperback, and it's the doorway to a very big adventure.

This past Tuesday was the release of Unbound, the latest exciting adventure in Jim Hines's Libriomancer series. Jim is a good friend and a fellow DAW author, and I love his stuff. So...

It's giveaway time! To enter:

1. Comment on this post.
2. Indicate whether you are in the US or international.
3. If international, indicate that you can pay postage.

And that's all! Tuesday afternoon, our friend the Random Number Generator will pick a winner, and the magic will begin! I will send the winner's info to Jim, and they will be able to choose a signed copy of either Unbound or, if the series is new to them, Libriomancer.

This is a great series. Lots of action and adventure, good diversity, and some of the most unique characters I've encountered in a long time. Highly recommended.

Game on!

I am pleased to announce that my first non-fiction book, consisting of essays taken from my various blogs and poetry from my two self-published chapbooks (Leaves From the Babylon Wood and Pathways Through the Babylon Wood, both of which are loooooooooong out of print) is available now from NESFA Press.

Click here for information on Letters to the Pumpkin King.

With introductions by Catherynne Valente and Elizabeth Bear, and an absolutely gorgeous cover by David Palumbo (I covet this artwork), I could not be more pleased. It's a hardcover, so the price point is high for what is essentially my blog in paper form, but you can use that paper form to kill spiders, which is pretty damn cool.

Here is what some people say. All of them are biased toward liking me, so:

"This book is bursting with Seanan-brain. You should read it." —Jim C. Hines, author of Libriomancer.

"Seanan McGuire knows how to beguile with the very best. She can whisper spells and secrets by the ballad and the bushel. But here she simply tells it as she has seen and lived it, with bravery and a loud voice, and that is magic, too." —Catherynne M. Valente, author of The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon In Two.

"Seanan is rough and potent magic. Her work may not change you, but it is likely to change your experience of the world." —Elizabeth Bear, author of Stiles of the Sky.

"I've read Seanan’s fiction and nonfiction for years. Because she's smart. Because she's funny. Because she's insightful. Because she uses the word 'f***' in original and interesting ways." —Jim C. Hines, author of Libriomancer.

Letters to the Pumpkin King! Get your copy today! (And yes, Borderlands is planning to stock them, if you're coming to the release party.)

corucia, you are the winner of a shiny new autographed copy of Jim Hines's Codex Born!

Please email me via my website contact form inside of the next 24 hours. I will pass your mailing information on to Jim, and a glorious gift will appear in your mail within the next ten days! If I do not hear from you, I will sadly have to select a new winner.

Thanks to everyone for playing!

My dearly beloved friend Jim Hines (http://www.jimchines.com/) has a new book out today: Codex Born, the sequel to Libriomancer. The magic of books has never been so real, or so incredibly dangerous.

I really, really loved this book, which I felt expanded and improved upon the world of the original, so when Jim asked if I would be willing to host a giveaway, I was happy to oblige. This is that giveaway. The rules:

1. Leave a comment on this post, naming the first book that really changed your life.
2. Identify your location in the world (US, non-US).
3. If non-US, confirm that you are willing to pay postage (for we are poor writers).

The winner will be chosen by RNG on Friday, August 9th, and Jim himself will be sending a signed copy of Codex Born to the winner. If you're not familiar with the series, you're in luck: book one, Libriomancer, is out today in paperback, so you can get all caught up.

Books! Magic! Awesomeness!

GAME ON!

ETA: Guys, I know it's tempting to discuss people's awesome taste in books with them, but please DO NOT REPLY to comments on RNG giveaway posts! It confuses the RNG, and has resulted in people NOT getting the prizes that they should have received!

Earlier this week, The Guardian published a list of what they viewed as the twenty best young novelists in genre fiction. It's a pretty good list, and I'm awed and delighted to appear on it.

But as I looked at this list, what really struck me was how many of these people I call friends, and how many I call friendly acquaintances ('cause they're not quite close enough for me to call them up and swear at them about the X-Men, but I would totally let them crash in my guest room if necessary). And that was, honestly, even more awesome and delightful than being on the list in the first place.

Lauren Beukes and I were on the Campbell ballot together, and she has been a joy and a delight every time we've been able to spend time together. Saladin Ahmed shares a publisher with me (DAW), and DAW is a family: he's like the cousin I never knew I had until he was stealing my hash browns and lecturing me about my taste in music. NK Jemsin just might be one of my favorite people to share a panel with—she's thoughtful and passionate and engaging, and her thoughts and passions are so brilliantly put together that I can just sit and listen to her forever.

Chuck Wendig is a man I would call brother (and also a man I would call a flaming cockweasel, because that's how we communicate; we're like a spinoff of John Dies at the End, scored for bearded penmonkey and shrieking murder princess).

And then there is Catherynne Valente, about whom I have already said everything, including the eternal "I miss you and I wish you were here."

There are names on the list that I've heard only in passing, names whose works I have read and names whose works I haven't reached for yet. And I know that these people are friends of my friends; that there's this huge web of community that connects us, because we came through the same forests to get here, even if we didn't come via the same paths. It's a wood that shifts every few years, although parts of it remain the same.

I didn't know any of these people before I started publishing (although Cat and I have so many people in common that it would have happened eventually; she has been an inevitability in my life since the day I met Vixy, and that is wonderful), but we have walked the same ways and seen the same sights and we are connected now, and that is incredible. There are so many other names that aren't on this list (Jim Hines, Elizabeth Bear, Peter Clines, Amber Benson, to name a few) who are part of my unique web of connections, and they all have their own webs, forever and ever, to the end of the horizon.

Community forms one meeting and one miracle at a time.

I am so glad to be part of this one.

The world is wonderful.

The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer is currently open for voting! This award uses the same nomination and voting mechanism as the Hugos, even though the Campbell Award is not a Hugo, and will be presented this year in Chicago, during the Hugo Awards Ceremony. Having been on the Campbell ballot in 2010, I can testify that it is a huge, huge honor to be nominated, and that it gets your name in front of a lot of eyes that might not otherwise have heard of you.

(I can also testify that winning is amazeballs best thing oh my sweet Great Pumpkin corn maze paradise wonderful. But that's probably true of winning most awards that you really, really want.)

If you are currently a member, either Attending or Supporting, of Chicon 7, you are eligible to vote for the Campbell Award, along with the Hugo Awards. If you're not a member, either Attending or Supporting, you can view the membership rates by clicking right here. A Supporting Membership comes with voting rights and the complete Hugo packet, and is only $50.

Because writers who are eligible for the Campbell are, by their very nature, relatively new writers, it's possible that you don't know anything about this year's candidates. Jim Hines has sensibly decided to help you with this little problem, and has conducted interviews with all five of this year's nominees. Go, read, and be enlightened!

We have a truly awesome class of Campbell nominees this year; any one of them is worthy of the tiara. Because remember, the Campbell is one of only two major genre awards that comes with a tiara (the other is the Tiptree).

In closing, I present the comic strip I drew to commemorate my own eligibility:



TESTIFY!

The odds are decent that you've seen this by now, if you were online at all this past weekend. But since I'm going to be posting about the Hugos a bit this week, I thought it might be kind of me to put the whole ballot up here for people to review. If you don't need to know, don't click the cut. Life is simple!

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Hugo Awards, they are given each year at WorldCon to celebrate the best the science fiction and fantasy fields have to offer. They are voted on (and people are nominated by) the members of the World Science Fiction Society. You can become a member by joining the current year's World Science Fiction Convention.

This is important, and we will talk more about it later. But what you should know right now is a) if you're going to WorldCon, you can vote, and b) if you're not going to WorldCon, but you want to have a say in what we, as a community, recognize, you can obtain the right to vote by purchasing a Supporting Membership to the current WorldCon. Supporting Memberships cost $50, and get you access to the entire electronic Hugo Voter's Packet, which contains all the nominated fiction of the year, as well as other exciting goodies. This is a more than $50 value, grants you the opportunity to find out what we as a community think warranted inclusion on a Top 5 list for the previous year, and lets you be a part of making history.

And now...the ballot.

( Click here if you're curious, or just want the reminder.Collapse )

I missed the SF SqueeCast's Awkward Episode—although you don't have to; you can listen to it, and all the awkwardness, here—and that made me Very Sad. This was the episode for saying awesome things about each other, which is something that, well. It's socially awkward, and hard to do. We feel weird sometimes, being overly positive about our friends. It's like "I love you, I have to be critical of you, because no one will believe me if I say you did something awesome."

Screw that.

Catherynne Valente is proof that the universe intends for all us fairy tale girls to find one another, given enough time, enough space, and enough raw need. Our paths wound through the same wood for a very long time; the last ten years of my life are peppered with mutual friends offering to introduce us to each other, and it just not working out. And I'm glad, I'm so glad, because we needed to reach the same stage in our stories before we could recognize each other. I'm the Lily Fair to her Snow White; she's the Ozma to my Dorothy; she's the sister I didn't know I was looking for, for so very long. And she's amazing. She really is! It's not just because I love her: I am actually very critical of her, because I love her. Her Russian political fairy tale, Deathless, is out in paperback today, and I give copies of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making to every little girl I know.

Jim C. Hines was one of the first people to welcome me to DAW when I signed with them for the October Daye books. He was friendly, he was knowledgeable, and he made a scary process a little less unknowable and terrifying. For that alone, I would love him always. So of course he has to be funny, and smart, and an awesome blogger, and a great writer who re-imagined some of my favorite fairy tale characters into ass-kicking heroines who don't need saving, by anyone other than themselves. He's like the Lego of fantasy authors, constantly being reconfigured into something new. The awesome, gender-neutral Lego of my childhood, not the sexist, pink-and-purple Lego Friends of today. He's a gentleman, a scholar, and one of the best men I know. I'm proud that he's my friend. You should read all his books.

Elizabeth Bear always struck me as vaguely terrifying. She was smart, she was loud, she wrote lots of books, she won a Campbell Award, she had a Giant Ridiculous Dog...terrifying. And then I met her, and realized she was terrifying because in another lifetime, she was my best friend all the way through school, and echoes of the time she shoved me off a roof in that reality kept overwhelming my sense of this one. It sounds weird, but it's true: we met, and I instantly knew that I'd known her forever, and wanted to keep knowing her forever, because not knowing her made my life less awesome. Her upcoming book, Range of Ghosts, is one of those things I shouldn't have loved, and did, because it was just that well written, and that infused with the raw awesomeness of the woman who had written it.

Paul Cornell still thinks I'm capable of being shy when put in front of a microphone, and wrote some of the best Doctor Who novels ever conceived. Also some of the best episodes.

John Scalzi sometimes shows up in my dreams, usually taking poor, confused me by the hand and leading me to where I'm supposed to be (often, it's a plane).

Tanya Huff changed my life forever with her books, and then changed it again with her friendship. I am beyond blessed to know her.

Amy McNally is planning to fiddle the Devil for my soul when he comes to collect on the crossroads bargain that I clearly made when no one was looking.

And then there is Vixy.

If Cat is my sister in story, Vixy is my sister in soul: she's the wicked girl I was looking for all my life, without ever knowing what I was trying to find. Some of the happiest moments in my life have included her, and they were all the more amazing because of it. I am eternally grateful to the filk community, for throwing us into the same space, and to OVFF, for giving me an excuse to say "hey, you want to sing with me?" Vixy makes me a better writer, a better performer, and a better person, because I feel the need to live up to her example. She makes me a better friend. For that, I am so grateful that there aren't any more words.

I can't list everyone in the world, or my fingers would fall of. So I say to those who read this: Happy Valentine's Day to each and every one of you, and if you don't celebrate Valentine's Day, happy Horny Werewolf Day. May you be happy, may you be loved, may you be warm and safe and dry. May you have stars to steer by, wish on, and follow, and may you find your sisters and brothers and lovers and children in these woods, waiting for you, where you always knew they'd be.

Point the first: If you are a member of Chicon 7, the 70th World Science Fiction Convention, who joined before January 31, 2012, you are eligible to submit a nomination ballot for the 2012 Hugo Awards. The nomination deadline is now less than a month away. Please, please, consider nominating for the Hugos if you are eligible to do so. (Note: This is not the same as saying "please nominate me." The ballots are secret, and you can nominate whatever you damn well want. Nominate the best things you saw in 2011.) If you are not eligible to nominate, remember that buying a supporting membership now means you will receive the electronic voter packet, and be eligible to vote on the final ballot.

Point the second: If you're wondering who is or is not eligible, many authors have made convenient posts delineating their eligibility. My eligible works are listed here. Because I am occasionally lazy and do not want to do work that other people have already done for me, I wish to direct you to this fabulously hysterical post by Jim Hines, which helpfully links to a bunch of "what I am eligible for" posts by other people. Sometimes my laziness gives me an excuse to expose others to awesome. My life, so hard.

Point the third: As you know, I watch a lot of television, and hence often have very strong feelings about the Best Dramatic Short Form category (there's a shocker). I sometimes feel like American science fiction television winds up at a disadvantage compared to UK television, not because it's bad, but because the seasons are so much longer that it's far easier for us to "split the vote" during the nomination period, resulting in a ballot with three episodes of Doctor Who and nothing from, say, Fringe, which I would only love more if the producers started arranging for cupcake deliveries to my house every time there was a new episode. (Seriously, the episode "Peter" from season two should have been on last year's ballot, with bells on. It was sheer genius.) So I am asking you, as people who may not watch quite so much television, to consider a specific work for the 2012 ballot.

Specifically, I am asking you to consider Phineas and Ferb: Across the 2nd Dimension, which is within the length-limit for the short form category. It's real science fiction, folks, seriously. Only with songs and a secret agent platypus. This show is inspiring the science fiction fans of tomorrow in a way that very little else currently is, and it inspires me, daily. You can view the whole thing on Netflicks; it re-runs regularly on Disney and Disney XD; and it's available on DVD. Please, if you haven't seen it already, give it a gander, and consider whether it might be worthy of your nomination.

"Every day is such a dream
When you start it with a monotreme..."

—from "Everything's Better With Perry."

Last night I dreamt that I had somehow become involved with a television show based on the old Gammarauders RPG, and that jimhines had been hired to write the novelizations of said show. He wrote a whole book focusing on one of the characters I'd introduced to the show, a sort of candy-cane punk rock girl who drove a giant air-breathing octopus (it made sense in context). I, of course, read the whole book, because I am me.

I was having a discussion with Alan at Borderlands about how I felt about the whole thing after I finished it. "Did you like it?" he asked.

"I did," I said. "I hope it sells lots and lots of copies and makes lots and lots of money."

"Is she really supposed to be the missing princess of Thatllbetheday?"

"Actually, yes. See, there's this note at the crypt of Buddy Holly, and..."

...and then I woke up, before I found out what the note said. But wow, is my subconscious weird sometimes.

I promised you shopping lists, and I intend to deliver! I'm taking a very generous definition of the word "friend," here, using it as a sort of shorthand for "friends and acquaintances and people who've emailed with me a few times and would probably buy me a drink at a convention if it was convenient and they had their wallets with them." Since that takes a long time to type, "friends" is our winner.

I have read every book I am recommending to you today, so consider this my Endorsement of Awesome. I've tried to be upfront about things like age ranges and such, but let's face it, I was reading Stephen King at the age of nine. My ideas on what you should and shouldn't give to your seven-year-old are messed. Up. So please try before you buy, and don't come crying to me if your kid starts claiming the clown in the closet is coming for his soul (hint: the clown probably means business).

First up, the inimitable Jim Hines! I mean that. He's hard to imitate. One of the things that makes him so amazing is the way he crosses age and gender barriers like they weren't even there. You think I'm funning with you? Hand Goblin Quest [Amazon] to any teenager who likes things that are awesome, and watch the divide between "boy books" and "girl books" melt away. Now try it again with the adults of your choice. It's fun, well-written comedic fantasy that has something for everyone. It's also the first of a trilogy. Hard to go wrong with that!

Once you've spent some time with the goblins, you could do a lot worse than sticking with Hines and taking a peek at The Stepsister Scheme [Amazon], the first of his modern action-adventure fantasy answers to the Disney Princess craze. It's a very pink book, but it, like the goblin books, works for male and female readers alike, with its engaging plot, awesome characters, and wicked-good dialog. I even helped to copyedit the third and fourth books in the series, which tells you something about my love for this world.

Moving on from Jim—thanks, Jim!—means it's time to take a look at the fantastic Jeri Smith-Ready, whose fantastic Wicked Game [Amazon] will introduce you to some of the most unique, most fascinating vampires currently stalking the shadows. They're the DJs of WVMP, and with the help of a con-artist protagonist and an author who knows how to go for the jugular, they can keep you rocking all night long. I love these books. Check 'em out.

But hey, maybe vampires aren't your thing. You could be more X-Files than Angel. And if that's the case, may I direct your attention to the delightful Gini Koch, and her steaming-hot, sexy, silly, utterly enchanting Touched By An Alien [Amazon]. (Okay, I admit it, I love Gini in part because there is now a DAW heroine whose name is sillier than Toby's. Thank you Katherine "Kitty" Katt, for making my protagonist less likely to kill me.) The sequel comes out next week, and wow, do you not want to miss the opportunity to beam up.

Cat Valente is exploring a different kind of alien landscape in her beautifully-written Habitation of the Blessed [Amazon], a landscape populated with creatures out of myth, legend, and allegory. She conjures up historical myths almost forgotten in the modern world, and weaves them together into something just probable enough to hurt your heart. It's a beautiful book.

Finally (for now), a book I loved so much that I actually blurbed it: Carousel Tides [Amazon], by Sharon Lee. It's an urban fantasy old-school enough that it wouldn't look out-of-place next to War for the Oaks and Tam Lin, and at the same time, it's totally part of the modern urban fantasy explosion. It's gorgeous and rich and deep and unique, and I can't recommend it highly enough.

That's books by my friends for today!

Last night when I got home from a trip to Borderlands Books (where I was roundly snuggled and nose-licked by Ripley the Sphynx), I found a box on my front porch. The box, when opened, proved to contain twenty copies of A Local Habitation. Not ARCs—actual, finished books, suitable for fondling, screaming over, and putting on bookshelves. Alice promptly started trying to eat them. Not to be outdone, Lilly promptly started trying to eat the box that they came in. I have emailed my publisher to thank them for the cat toys.

I called my mother, whose usual response to "Mom, I just got _______" is to show up at my house and refuse to leave until she's managed to acquire a copy for herself. "Mom, I got my author's copies of A Local Habitation," I said.

"Wow!"

"So are you coming over?"

"Not tonight."

You could have knocked me over with a feather. (There are plenty of feathers to be had in my house because, again, cats.) "What? Why not?"

"Idol starts in half an hour."

So now we know where I rank in my mother's eyes. Not second, as I always feared, but third, behind Jim Hines and American Idol. As I cannot swear eternal vengeance against American Idol, I'm going to have to swear it against Jim Hines. He has a lot less in the way of professionally-trained security guards and hungry lawyers. I mean, sure, he's got goblins and all, and to this I say, again, cats.

It's a little freaky to be able to look at A Local Habitation and see it all book-shaped and real, with a bar code and a price tag and an ISBN and everything. I don't think it's ever going to get less freaky. Sometimes I still wake up and wonder "did I really sell the books? If I turn on the light, will they really be sitting on the shelf?" Thus far, they always have been, but my dreams have fooled me before. Although I'd like to think that if I'd dreamt the last few years, there would have been more candy corn and semi-appropriate nudity.

Thirteen days. That's all that remains before A Local Habitation is available on store shelves, waiting to be taken down, read, and enjoyed. Hopefully, lots of people will find and adore it, and hopefully, some of them won't have read Rosemary and Rue, creating a beautiful synergy through which many, many copies of both books will be sold. (Crass commercialism? Well, yeah. But I'd like this series to last for a long, long time, so I think this desire makes perfect sense. Anyone who looks noble and says "I don't care if my book sells well, I just care if it's loved" is either independently wealthy, insane, or messing with you.)

Thirteen days. That's all that remains before the second of Toby's stories is out there for anyone to read. That may be the weirdest part of all this. I mean, I'm used to my friends reading drafts and telling me what they did or didn't like, and I'm used to my publishers (all of whom I know) reading things and telling me what to fix, but there's no possible way for me to know every single person who reads my books personally. It just isn't going to happen. So there are all these strangers out there choosing me to tell them stories, and it's just...it's amazing. There was even a four-star review in the new issue of Romantic Times, a glossy, awesome, nationally-published magazine:

"McGuire's second October Daye novel is a gripping, well-paced read. Toby continues to be an enjoyable, if complex and strong-willed protagonist who recognizes no authority but her own. The plot is solid and moves along at a not-quite-breakneck pace. McGuire has more than a few surprises up her sleeve for the reader."

This is all very real, and very wonderful, and Great Pumpkin, I just hope it goes spectacularly, and that I don't catch fire.

Thirteen days. Wow.

I called jimhines the other night to talk about some writing stuff and reviewing stuff and other such fun things we have in common. As is pretty normal when a parent is on the phone, his kids found multiple reasons to interject themselves on his side. As is pretty normal around my house, my cats found multiple reasons to interject themselves on my side—more, in fact, than his kids did. They came up to "tell" me things, either in a Siamese bray or in that odd Maine Coon half-trill half-gasp. They brought me toys and demanded I throw them or wave them in the air for cats to bat at. They were, in short, damn nuisances, and they're lucky they didn't get drop-kicked across the house. (To be very clear: I would never do that. Not unless one of them had contracted a zombie virus and was going for the other, and even then, zombie cats is probably the fastest way to take me out during the inevitable zombie apocalypse.)

I apologized, because that is what you do, and the conversation continued. A bit later Jim said, quite reasonably, "I've noticed you take your cats very seriously."

You know what? I do. My cats are cossetted and cared for, cuddled and cursed at, spoiled and sheltered, and I'm proud of that fact. Lilly and Alice are some of the sweetest, friendliest, most social cats you could ever hope to meet. When you come to my house, the cats are there, ready to greet you, ask you about yourself, and demand as much attention as they feel they can get away with. They're the WalMart greeters of the cat world. Anyone who thinks cats don't care about their people only needs to spend a little time with my cats to learn that this doesn't have to be true, and part of why they are the way they are is how seriously I take them. They are some of the most important people in my life, and it's not their fault that they don't have thumbs or speak English.

I periodically get flack over the fact that my cats are pedigreed, rather than being shelter rescues. I've actually learned to recognize that particular lecture as it gets started, since it always seems to begin with one of three or four mostly-harmless statements. My answer stays the same from lecture to lecture: I donate to the SPCA, I do shelter outreach and volunteer work when I can, and I give to private no-kill shelters. I do my part. But I lost a lot of cats when I was a kid to health conditions that are genetic, are passed through family lines, and can be anticipated if you know the cat's family history. In short, I get pedigreed cats so I can meet their grandparents and ask their breeders about the possible health problems within the line. I take my cats too seriously to deal with losing them more than once a decade. Lilly is six. With her health, and her breed profile, she'll probably be around for another ten to fifteen years. Still not enough time, but at least it's long enough that I'll probably be over Nyssa when she goes.

Mostly.

(Not everyone has had my bad luck with cats. I also grew up way below the poverty line, which made veterinary care difficult as hell to afford. That doesn't change the degree of comfort I take from saying "This is Alice, and this big puffy guy here? That's her great-grandfather, who is fat and healthy and happy and beautiful and could probably bench-press Godzilla if he had to.")

My cats are intelligent and friendly; well-behaved because it never really occurs to them that they shouldn't be; stand-offish on occasion, but far more inclined to be right up in your business, checking out whatever it is you think you're doing. Alice will follow you around the house, tail down and eyes wild, watching you for signs of mischief. Lilly will stay between you and me whenever possible, waiting for you to do something she doesn't approve. In short, my cats are individuals, and I take them as seriously as they take me.

So today is Tuesday—hooray!—but for me, it's essentially Monday, because I spent the real Monday in a haze of sedatives, painkillers, and other exciting pharmaceuticals associated with having lots and lots of dental work done. I now have two permanent crowns on my upper right rear molars, and can actually eat crunchy foods, like apples and carrots. This is very exciting for me. I'm living the dream, and in the dream, I can chew. (Years of poverty plus a pronounced phobia of dentists mean that I have a lot of work ahead of me. Fortunately, I have a very understanding dentist who specializes in working with the phobic, and who understands that I need to keep my iPod on at all times to keep from panicking when I hear them talking about what they're going to do. Oblivion is my anti-phobia buddy.)

In keeping with the week's established medical theme, I'm going to be spending the afternoon with my doctor, being poked and prodded and (one hopes) declared to be in as good of health as can be expected. This is a necessary first step in scheduling my next spinal epidural, IE, "those periodic injections which render Seanan capable of continuing to walk and interact like a normal human being." It's probably too much to hope that the procedure could happen before OVFF, but I'm guardedly hopeful of shoving it into the week between OVFF and World Fantasy, when I'm already going to be off from work and can thus spend the day in bed without any guilt.

Today is the book-day birthday for The Mermaid's Madness [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] by jimhines, a gentleman and a scholar if ever there was one. He's also a fellow member of the DAW Mafia, and just an awesome all-around guy...plus the book is amazing. My mother liked it better than she liked the first one, and we all remember how much she liked the first one. I highly recommend The Mermaid's Madness as a good investment of your book-buying dollars for this week. Join the Princess party now, and beat the rush!

I spent a good chunk of Sunday accidentally taking a six and a half mile walk through the cities of Concord and Clayton. I was trying to get to a friend's house for a barbecue, and I overshot by a little bit, assuming you consider four miles, much of it uphill, to be "a little bit." I had never walked some of that route before, so it was educational. I also hadn't walked all the skin off my heels in quite some time, so it was painful to boot. I am now wearing thick socks and bandages, and have no intention of taking that walk again any time soon. Still, it was a pleasant, if unexpected, little adventure in getting to know my home town a bit better. (Quoth a woman who saw me walking by with my iPod on, a Super Double-Gulp in one hand, and a book in my other hand, "Now that's multi-tasking.")

Autumn has arrived at last; I was forced to break out my duvet Sunday night, and woke this morning under a cascade of cats, since not even Alice's innate insulation robs her of the feline desire to snuggle up to the nearest human and leech as much heat as she possibly can. (They promptly stole the warm spot when I got up. This is because they're cats, not idiots.) Next up, umbrellas and the annual hunt for a pair of shoes that I haven't already worn past the point of being waterproof.

And that, for the moment, is that. What's new with the rest of the world?

Last year, jimhines wrote a fantastic book called The Stepsister Scheme [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy]. My mother really really loved it, thus proving that a) she has taste, and b) Jim is trying to woo her away from me. Hmmmph. But since we're both DAW authors, it's not like I could stay cranky for long.

Well, in just two weeks, the sequel to The Stepsister Scheme can finally be yours. The Mermaid's Madness [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] comes out October 6th, bringing you everything you loved about the first Princess adventure, and so much more!

Because it's almost Jim's book-day birthday, I thought he needed a pretty little dead ghoul to make the day even more exciting. Mel was surprisingly mellow about being turned into sushi, probably because the ocean is full of sharks, and she likes anything with more innate killing capacity than she possesses. I was a lot less mellow when I realized that I was going to need to hand-color all that fish netting. Oh, the things I do for love...

Happy book-day, Jim! Hooray for The Mermaid's Madness!

1. BART is not on strike. I would say "yay, the unions reached a settlement," but since I left Lilly alone with my Internet-equipped computer just before the strike was called off, I'm going to opt for "yay, my Siamese is not fire-bombing the California coastline to protest Mommy not coming home for a week." Don't mess with the Siamese. You will regret it.

2. Fourteen days. Just saying.

3. My new Netbook is a joy and a wonder, except when it's royally fucking stuff up. Most recently, it has elected to royally fuck up the .ms of Red Hood's Revenge that I was giving a quick polish for Jim. I'm attempting file recovery now, and if that doesn't work, I'll just go through the .ms a second time. Thankfully, it was relatively clean.

4. Also thankfully, my Netbook did not elect to royally fuck up the latest draft of The Brightest Fell (Toby Daye, book five). This is A Very Good Thing. I would be substantially less sanguine about that particular rewrite. There might be screaming, and possibly the eating of human flesh. Mmmm, human flesh.

5. The incredibly awesome stick insect that has been sticking to Kate and GP's front door frame for the last few weeks was gone this morning when I went out to meet the bus. I wish him all good things in his future endeavors, and hope that he is not inside the house, preparing to crawl into someone's ear.

6. I have decided that I don't like second books in trilogies that don't admit to being trilogies when I pick them up. There will be more on this later.

7. I want a nap.

How's by you?

Now, it's really no secret around here that I love jimhines dearly. He was one of the first DAW authors to reach out to me and say "welcome to the family" (andpuff doesn't count, since we've known each other for years). He's been supportive, sane, and willing to pat me on the head when I'm flailing hysterically. Since we share an editor, this may have been born partly out of the desire to have me not drive said editor insane, but I try to interpret things positively.

Jim is a nice guy. That's one of the best things about him. That he's just a damned nice guy. And he's auctioning off an ARC of The Mermaid's Madness, sequel to The Stepsister Scheme, to benefit the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

It's a good cause. It's a good book. And he's a damn good guy.

Well, I'm about to get going; I've got a few last non-computer things to do around the house, and then I'll be off to catch the bus to get to the train station to take the train to get to the airport to board the big metal sky-bird and fly to Michigan. I'll be in Ann Arbor for the next two days for business reasons, getting back to California late Wednesday night.

(If I'm very, very lucky, I'll make it to my hotel in time for Fringe tonight. But I'm not counting on it.)

Entries will be taken for the random draw Rosemary and Rue giveaway through Friday morning, when I'll be selecting the winner. Remember, if your number comes up, you'll have seventy-two hours to claim your prize before I give it to somebody else, so it's a good idea to keep an eye on what's going on over here. There will absolutely be other giveaways over the next several months, since it's a great way to get copies out there into the world. Also, if you're attending the San Diego Comic Convention, word is we'll have a stack of the lovely things for handing out. A stack. How cool is that?

There have been a few alterations to the Appearances Page over at my website. The lovely folks from DucKon will be getting me my panel schedule in the next week or so, so you'll have plenty of time to plan our awesome adventures in discussing _________. I'm hoping for a nice plague, and maybe something that's dead, but still moving around.

I'm going to miss my cats, but I get to meet jimhines in the flesh for the first time. In all things there are balance.

See you when I land.

After a completely uneventful flight -- my in-flight entertainment deck was busted, so I put on my iPod, cued up my "all 'Rain King,' all the time" playlist, which is ninety-plus minutes of versions of the same song, put my head down, and passed out -- I landed safely in Seattle at a little past eleven o'clock last night. I was promptly met by Satyr and Sandi, the editors of Ravens in the Library, as well as good friends of mine, who bore me boldly off to Chez Tinney, hence to be united with my new giant feline companion.

(Alice is, in fact, giant. She's more than doubled in size since the last time I saw her, and may actually be bigger than my mother's new puppy, Smudge. She's also fluffy as hell, and possessed of the world's plumiest tail. I'm afraid there may be truth to my mother's accusation of my desire for a Maine Coon being born partially out of tail withdrawal.)

Today, my plans include "finishing the new Vel story" and "dealing with kitten contracts," as well as a healthy, happy dose of "work on art cards." Life is pretty good. I'll be here in the Pacific Northwest through Sunday, when I'll fly home to begin the laborious process of introducing Lilly and Alice to one another. Since they're both pretty mellow cats with vast amounts of fur, I'm not anticipating much trouble, although you should be anticipating kitten pictures sometime early in the next week.

Oh, and since I seem to have forgotten to announce it -- my mother got a puppy! Her name is Smudge, after jim_hines's fabulous fire spider, and she's gorgeous. She's half Malamute, half Rottweiler, and has those amazing crystal blue Malamute eyes. She was taken from her mother too young, but I've hand-raised kittens, and was able to bully my mother into going to the pet store for puppy formula. (I try not to bully my mother. But when the puppy's too young, we buy it the formula. This is how the game works.) Smudge is doing fabulously, and she's getting bigger by the day. We're introducing her to Lilly a little at a time, since she's likely to accompany my mother when Mom comes over to clean at my place.

So I'm safe, alive, and doing just fine, thanks to the wonderful people at Virgin America and their wonderful flying machines. How's everybody else, out there in the world? I lack deep thoughts today. Give me yours.

(The scene: riding around in the car with Mom, doing errands. Because there are always errands to be done. But as these errands included getting the frame order for my book covers placed, neither of us really minded.)

Mom: So I finished my book.

(She looks sorrowfully towards Goblin War, barely visible in her bag.)

Me: Cool.
Mom: Is he writing another one? I'm going to write him a letter and tell him he has to write another one.
Me: I don't think he's writing another one right now.
Mom: He has to.

(I pause to consider the idea of what my editor -- who is also Jim's editor -- would do to me if my mother went to his house to make him write another Jig novel.)

Me: Well, maybe someday. Mermaid's Madness comes out in October.
Mom: The Jig books were so good. I loved the way [spoilers redacted]. And when I found out he was [spoilers redacted], I just about died. I did not see that coming.
Me: So you liked them.
Mom: Hell, yeah.
Me: Cool.

(More discussion follows. And then:)

Mom: So you're going to meet him while you're in Michigan?
Me: Hope so.
Mom: Tell him Smudge needs to find a Lady Smudge.

(There is a pause as I consider this. Finally...)

Me: It'll be all Charlotte's Web meets Firestarter up in the caves.
Mom: Exactly.

So Jim, your seduction of my mother continues. I WILL HAVE MY REVENGE. In other news, Rosemary and Rue comes out in 164 days. 164 is the smallest number which is the concatenation of squares in two different ways. I really love the word 'concatenate.'

That is all.

Last night, my mother came over to do the final run-around errands before my trip to New York -- I leave tonight, and get back to California on Sunday. This required going to a surprising number of stores, as Target didn't have pencil cases (K-Mart did), K-Mart didn't have my anti-snap hair goo (JC Penney's did), and nobody seemed to have my kitty litter (we eventually found the correct brand at Safeway). I proposed dinner. She proposed Italian. So I took her to my local hole-in-the-wall Italian cafe, Pasta Primavera, which is one of those incredible little strip-mall joints that looks like it should be full of roaches, and tastes like it's full of Heaven.

Now, I frequently tell people that I come from a carnie family (which I do); this should give you an idea of our general position on 'fancy cuisine.' Kate says my favorite Indian place is the equivalent of In-n-Out Burger, and she's not far wrong. So it was a real treat to watch my mother attempting to navigate her way through the menu, which did not include the word 'spaghetti' anywhere between its covers. Now I know how Kate felt when she was first starting to take me out for Indian.

We eventually wound up with roast asparagus, red peppers, and caprese salad (basil, tomatoes, and mozzarella cheese) as a starter, while I had the mixed seafood linguine, and Mom had bowtie pasta with chicken breast in a Gorgonzola sauce. Also, there was bread and salad. Mom had never encountered a) caprese, b) Gorgonzola sauce, or c) a pleasant waiter who kept bringing her more cheese before. So that was fairly awesome. And after she stopped burning her mouth on the pasta -- which was admittedly approximately the temperature of molten rock -- she was really pleased with everything, and that was even more awesome. I really appreciate being able to take my mother out and introduce her to nice things. Especially since our mutual standards are low enough that we both remain pleasantly easy to satisfy.

Mom had never heard of tiramisu before. She looked suspicious when I ordered her one, which is a totally reasonable reaction, given some of the things she's seen me eat. Then she got her first bite of the stuff, and promptly made the 'oh my God why did no one tell me this existed' face. I win at feeding my mother.

She's on the last of the Jig the Goblin books (by Jim Hines, who seems to be her new favorite author -- CURSE YOU, JIM, SHE'S SUPPOSED TO BE MY BIGGEST FAN), and is loving them completely. This is the first fantasy she's read for years. I think I can probably control her actions for months by threatening not to get her a copy of The Mermaid's Madness when it comes out. Because manipulating your parents is always good for a laugh.

I have given my mother tiramisu.

All is right with the world.

1. If you wander on over to my website -- which is getting shinier and more functional every day as the back-end code comes online, all hail porpentine, who has slaved over a hot keyboard for our delight -- you may find a few truly awesome things waiting for you. Specifically, we now have icons and wallpapers, designed by the splendid taraoshea. All icons and wallpapers are free for use! Print them out, stick them to things, do whatever makes you happy. Well, except for posting them to your Deviant Art account and claiming that you made them. That would make the Tara sad, and she knows where I keep the chainsaws.

2. As you explore the site, you may see that there is now a landing page for the 'Velveteen vs.' stories. Yes, the link currently takes you to the big COMING SOON graphic, but its very existence means that, before too terribly much longer, there will be an online archive of the adventures of Velma 'Velveteen' Martinez as she struggles to survive the foul mechanations of the Marketing Department without giving in to the urge to just kill somebody already. Because the best way to show you care is with random semi-comic superhero stories, you know. My comic book store tells me so.

3. Speaking of my comic book store, the new best thing ever is walking into the place where I go for my weekly fix (I am such an X-junkie) and being greeted by Joe (the owner) with a cheery "Do you have CDs for me?" That moment, right there, was enough to validate my entire musical career.

4. Oh, and as an FYI for those who share my comic book habit -- Monday was a holiday, but it wasn't a shipping holiday. So today is still new comic book day, day of comic book-y goodness. Although according to the release lists, very little has come in that holds any actual interest for me. That's probably for the best, what with Wondercon right around the corner. Ah, sweet Wondercon. I wonder how I've lived so long without you.

5. I spent several hours last night at Borderlands Books, hanging out with Ripley, the freaky demon suede alien kitty-face (aka, 'the elder of the store's two resident hairless cats'). The more time I spend with her, the more I start to think that maybe life with a Sphinx wouldn't be so bad. Sure, they're naked and weird-looking, but they're also smart, friendly, and incredibly soothing to hang out with. This is probably a sign that I need some sort of 'cats are not like Pokemon, you do not need to collect them all' intervention.

6. While I was at Borderlands, I chanced to notice their list of top sellers for January, and jimhines grabbed the #10 slot with The Stepsister Scheme! Way to go Jim! The weird naked cats were very impressed.

7. For those of you who missed the (admittedly rather quietly delivered) memo, I will be leaving California for a short time in March, as I hop on a plane and fly out to New York for more fun with my friends at DAW. I love visiting my publisher, largely because it gives me an excuse to say 'my publisher' a lot, and that's still a sort of shiny-and-new thing for me. I am assured that by the time An Artificial Night (the third Toby book) hits the shelves, I won't find it all quite so exciting, but I really hope not. We all need things that make us irrationally happy. Anyway, my schedule is pretty packed while I'm there, so I'm not going to be looking to host a meet-and-greet or anything, but it's definitely going to represent a break in my standard routine.

8. Zombies are still love.

9. I have now managed to go three months without starting a new novel. For some people, this may seem like an unremarkable 'I just went three months without bursting into flame' or 'I just went three months without unleashing a global pandemic'-type statement, but for me, it's the result of Herculean efforts in the arenas of focus and restraint. I love starting books. The freedom and the scope of it all is just a wonderful thing. But I can be strong. I can be controlled. I can keep myself from getting beaten by my editing pool.

10. This coming Sunday is the official release date for Ravens In the Library, a benefit anthology assembled to help with SJ Tucker's unexpected medical bills. It's got an awesome list of authors, and, on a more personal note, it's got my first official this-is-in-print anthology appearance: my short story, 'Lost,' will be the final piece in the book. I'm very excited.

That's my wending for Wednesday. What's yours?

So jimhines has proven himself to be a class act. How? By sending a copy of The Stepsister Scheme to my mother, that's how. An autographed copy, no less. Since I'm not always sure my mother believes that authors actually exist -- the whole publishing process is arcane to her, which is understandable, since it's arcane to me, too -- this was made of awesome and pie. AWESOME AND PIE.

(Mom: "Is this for me?"
Me: "It has your name in it."
Mom: "Is he mad at me?"
Me: "...logic fail, Mom.")

After giving her the book, we went to Target to pick up my prescriptions for the month. (Yes, I am a grown woman. No, I do not drive. Yes, this sometimes means I ask my mother to run errands with me. No, I don't think this is a problem. I pay for gas, and it gives us an excuse to hang out without needing to find an actual activity that we have in common. Beyond playing with/tormenting the cats, flea markets, and going to Target, we mostly avoid that sort of thing.) As we waited, she asked me where I'd come up with some of the words on my new album.

"Like what?" I asked, all innocence.

"Epidemiolo-whatzit," she said.

Cue my mother getting a fifteen minute class on epidemiology while standing in the pharmacy aisle at the Target. Many people turned faintly green. Somehow, this turned into a vigorous explanation of recessive genes, why white cats are deaf, and why male pattern baldness passes through the female line. More people turned faintly green.

My mother's final verdict:

"I have no idea how I made you."

Neither does anybody else, Mom. Neither does anybody else.

* Item: according to the latest issue of one of the totally random-ass gossip magazines that I like to read while I'm waiting for my groceries to be rung up, Miley Cyrus is in talks to play Snow White in the adaptation of The Stepsister Scheme. Now, Jim keeps insisting he knows nothing about this rumored movie project, but I see how it really is. He just doesn't want everyone he knows with nieces under the age of sixteen to mob him demanding Hannah Montana tickets. YOU CAN'T FOOL ME, JIM. I'll be expecting tickets for Gracie and Alanna stat. And me, of course. I'll, uh, need to keep them company. That's it.

* Item: I sometimes wish we had a gossip-column for the urban fantasy circuit, not because I actually want to get stalked, but because I want an excuse to write sentences like 'Is the author of Dead to Me a secret serial killer?' or 'Has David Wellington managed to wake the Great Old Ones in Central Park? WE HAVE PICTURES.' And then I remember that I don't actually need an excuse, and my life becomes awesome once more.

* I'm doing my editorial revisions on An Artificial Night, sort of hand-in-hand with my second rewrite of Late Eclipses of the Sun. I'm really not sure which is more painful, although right now, I'm inclined to vote editorial revisions. It's incredibly difficult to keep my inner perfectionist from kicking in when I'm just supposed to be making small changes, and I'm pretty sure I'd get in trouble if I let myself get sucked into a full revision. (As for who I'd get into trouble with, well...trust me, there'd be a line. It would form remarkably quickly, and many of them would have access to sticks. Sharp, pokey, pointy sticks.)

* Anyone who thinks it's strange that I'm editing book three when book one (Rosemary and Rue, mass market paperback, DAW Books) isn't coming out until September needs to have a long chat with Kate about the sort of lead time I prefer to build into my projects. There may be flow charts involved. Wear comfortable shoes.

What's up with all of you?

So y'all may have noticed me talking a goodly amount about the works of jimhines lately. This isn't because he bribed me, ironically enough; it's just that I find his books deeply entertaining, and I have a very low threshold for amusement sometimes. And it is in the spirit of my low threshold for amusement that I take this opportunity to remind you that The Stepsister Scheme comes out tomorrow. I haven't posted my full review of the book yet -- although I have posted my mother's -- but I found it to be a fun, fast, flippant take on the classical fairy tale heroines of old. Less 'Joss Whedon does Disney,' more 'Warren Ellis and Steven Moffat do the Brothers Grimm.' (Knowing Ellis and Moffat, they're either doing them in, or doing them some serious physical damage in an alleyway.)

I would happily hand this book to an eleven-year-old girl who likes to read, having been one, and thus having a decent recollection of what I would just skim over because hello, still boring. I would just as happily hand it to any adult friend, male or female, and be like, dude, check it out.

So anyway, The Stepsister Scheme, by Jim Hines, from DAW Books. January 6th, 2009. Help yourself through the post-holiday hangover with some ass-kicking princesses and a whole lot of wacky fun.

In honor of this most exciting event, I present another shot of my resident Pretty Little Dead Girl, this time in full-on Cinderella mode. (I promise you that the only similarity to the book is the archetype. Jim's Cinderella is a lot less likely to slit your throat, empty your pockets, and leave your body by the side of the road for the crows to peck at.) Now that I'm free from the confines of the calendar, I'm finding myself with an assortment of really odd, occasionally really amusing pin-ups. Because my brain does not believe in allowing me to have any of that mythical thing referred to only as 'down time.' Expect more randomness in the weeks to come, although I'm likely to save them until and unless I have something appropriate to post (like, say, this).

Whee!

I went holiday shopping with my mother yesterday. Always an entertaining experience, since she's essentially tireless, shameless, and the only person I know willing to go through the entire bottom-of-the-barrel clearance section at Rasputin's with me. As we were driving to the mall, the following exchange took place. (I started transcribing as we talked, and I take good shorthand, so this really is close to verbatim.)

Mom: "I finished that book you gave me. I really liked it."
Me: "You mean The Stepsister Scheme?"
Mom: "Yeah."
Me: "Good! Did you bring it back?"
Mom: "No, I forgot. I just can't believe a guy wrote it. Is he a little light in the loafers maybe?"

(We pause while I giggle hysterically. Then:)

Me: "No, Jim's married. He has kids."
Mom: "Oh. Well, it was really good. He describes things really well."
Me: "Well, I'll tell him."
Mom: "You tell him your mother gives it a thumbs up. Now he just has to write another one."
Me: "He has. It's called The Mermaid's Madness. It'll probably be out next year."
Mom: "Good! Because I want to know--"

(There is a longer pause while my mother gives opinions on the book that would count as spoilers if they were posted here. Also, because I spent half of her diatribe laughing too hard to write.)

Me: "I'll let him know."
Mom: "I couldn't put it down. It's one of those books you can't put down. I got home at three in the morning and I was reading the damn thing. I was like you in your bed with the flashlight when you were a kid."
Me: "That's awesome."
Mom: "I really liked how he handled--"

(Another long pause while Mom goes on about the book. Also, more laughter.)

Mom: "So I figure people will like it."
Me: "Good."
Mom: "On second thought, maybe you shouldn't tell him I read his book if it's not out yet."
Me: "That's what ARCs are for. They help build word of mouth, and that sells more copies."
Mom: "Oh. Well, I'll tell everybody they should buy it."

There you have it. The Stepsister Scheme: it kept my crazy mother up all night. (Also, she would pause for the rest of the day, say 'Cinderwench,' and just start giggling.)

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

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

Hee.

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

(*Goblin Quest, Goblin Hero, and Goblin War, all published by DAW Books, all available now from a retailer near you. Support your local bookstore. Buy more books.)
(**Coming from DAW Books on January 6th, 2009. The day after my birthday!)

jimhines is a great guy, an awesome author, and generally just a neat person. This auction is a chance to get an advance copy of his upcoming book, The Stepsister Scheme -- which sounds bad-ass cool -- and help a good cause at the same time.

Things like this are why fandom is such an incredible thing.