...a signed copy of The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination! Win this awesome tome for yourself, for a friend, or for a local library!

Welcome to the fifth of the Thirteen Days of Hogswatch. I will be starting a new giveaway every day between now and December 13th. Each giveaway will have different rules and a different deadline, although all prizes will be mailed on December 30th, because I am bad at going to the post office (and also, I am avoiding the post office as much as possible until that other winter holiday is over).

The fifth giveaway is for a signed copy of The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination, in hardcover, including some truly awesome stories. This is going to be a random number drawing, because I am not feeling creative right now. So...

1. To enter, comment on this post.
2. If you are international, indicate both this and your willingness to pay postage. Please be aware that this is a LARGE hardcover: the cost of mailing this internationally will be considerably more than the value of the book.
3. That's it.

I will choose the winner at 1PM PST on Monday, December 12th.

Game on!

ETA: This drawing is now CLOSED.

The random number generator has spoken, and the winner of a copy of The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination is...

loree!

Instructions for the winner: Please comment on this post letting me know that you're claiming your prize and send me an email via my website (www.seananmcguire.com) with your mailing information. Both comment and email must be received by Friday, December 18th to be considered valid.

Five more days to go!

The random number generator has spoken, and the winner of a signed, personalized copy of The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination is...

professor

Please contact me via my website contact form within the next twenty-four hours to provide your mailing information. All information must be received via my website to be considered valid. If I do not hear from you within twenty-four hours, you will no longer be eligible to receive your prize.

Ten more drawings to go!

...a copy of The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination!

Welcome to the third of the Twelve Days of Hogswatch. I will be starting a new giveaway every day between now and December 25th (some other winter holiday). Each giveaway will have different rules, and a different deadline, although all prizes will be mailed on December 29th, because I am bad at going to the post office (and also, still mailing shirts).

The first giveaway is for a copy of The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination. This is going to be a random number drawing, because that's working well so far. Because this is a hardcover, this giveaway is open only to US residents and those with US shipping addresses. Mailing it internationally would cost more than the value of the book. I'm sorry, I just can't do it.

1. To enter, comment on this post.
2. Indicate that you are in the US/have a US shipping address.
3. That's it.

I will choose the winner at 1PM PST on Wednesday, December 17th.

Game on!

How about a celebration of his evil works, and the evil works of others? Introducing the latest album from awesome-tastic filk rock band, Ookla the Mok, vs. Evil.

A little background:

Ookla the Mok has been through a couple of incarnations, but has always included Adam English and Rand Bellavia. Their first album, Less Than Art, is one of my all-time favorites. Their comic book themed album, Super Secret, is a filk classic. Both are absolutely worth picking up and adoring. Apart from all that, Rand is a friend of mine, and so when he asked if I wanted an early copy of vs. Evil, I pretty much shrieked, grabbed, and ran.

vs. Evil lacks of the deep emotional content of Less Than Art, but that's actually a good thing in this context, because it lets the true silliness of their subject matter shine. From "Evil I" through "Kang the Conqueror" and "The Lizard," this is a celebration of the mad scientists and evil bastards of comic books and movies. The song "Mwahaha" could play over one of Megamind's exploits and no one would bat an eye. It's awesome.

Here is a link to the album:

http://www.ooklathemok.com/vsevil.php

Here is a wholehearted endorsement of the album:

"vs. Evil warms me to the bottom of my black predator's heart." —me.

Here is a death ray.

Draw your own conclusions.

Greetings, people of Earth.

I will be appearing today at Borderlands Books in San Francisco at three p.m., where I, along with John Joseph Adams, will be explaining the world domination plans as described in The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination. (We do not believe in confusing titles here in the lab. Confusing titles mean melted minions, and that's a waste of resources.)

I understand that you may have other things to do, but I implore you to attend the event, or to contact the bookstore to order signed books, as we will look kindly upon those who support the anthology, and given the size of my vegetable hybrid army, "looking kindly" may save your city from being used as an incubation hive.

From my heart and from my hands, why don't people understand that I just need to subjugate them all to my will?

Still waiting for her shiny new Australia,
Seanan.

WEIRD SCIENCE!

(Duh dum bum bum da dum.)

Or, really, MAD SCIENCE, because that is where my heart of hearts makes its forever home. The new anthology, The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination, is hitting shelves now, and includes my short story, "Laughter at the Academy: A Study in the Development of Schizotypal Creative Genius Personality Disorder (SCGPD)." Fans of my music will recognize the basic plot of the story as matching that of my Pegasus Award-winning song, "What A Woman's For." Yes. It is a story based on a song about using womanly wiles to cause perfectly reasonable researchers to embrace grave-robbing and storm-chasing as a means of advancing their careers. My mother is so proud.

Anyway, it's a fantastic book that I'm going to talk about a bit more in a little while, and I'm happy as hell to be a part of it. And if you're in the Bay Area, this weekend will bring you the opportunity to see the editor, John Joseph Adams, appearing with yours truly at San Francisco's own Borderlands Books. The event begins at 3:00 pm, and will undoubtedly be a rocking good time. It's always a rocking good time when John and I get together.

The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination is available now at a bookstore or internet retailer near you. Published by Tor Books, you can get it in either hardcover ($25.99) or trade paperback ($14.99), and honestly, it's worth it at either price point.

Hope to see you Saturday!

I have received my author's copies of When Will You Rise, and they are gorgeous. So it's time for one more giveaway. (Not saying this is definitely the last, just that it might be.) To enter...

1. Leave a comment on this entry.
2. Identify your country.
3. If you are international, state that you are willing to pay postage.

...and that's it! I'll select a winner Friday morning at 9am PST.

PLEASE NOTE: Because these are author's copies, they are signed, but are not numbered. So you will not be receiving one of the 1,000 "real" copies of the book.

Game on!

I'll show them all!!!!

I am back from Chicago, and positively delighted to announce that the website for next year's hotly-anticipated Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination is now live for your viewing pleasure!

SEE! The table of contents!
READ! Story excerpts!
DEVOUR! Contributor interviews!
REMEMBER! To order your very own copy!

I know some people don't like buying anthologies for the sake of a single author; often, I am one of those people. But in this case, the ToC is incredible, the subject matter is delightful, and the anthologist is one of the best working in the business, which is a good indicator of quality. Check out the site, decide for yourself, and remember, when I inevitably conquer this puny planet, I will look kindly upon those with complete libraries.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, there's some news about When Will You Rise?. Most specifically, Publishers Weekly has given When Will You Rise? a starred review!

Here's a link to the actual review.

Here's a quote from the actual review:

"Grant excels in humanizing her characters and surrounding them with believable science and circumstances. The surefooted storytelling is mesmerizing as all-too-plausible dilemmas snowball into desperation and catastrophe."

I AM THE DESTROYER OF ALL HAPPINESS AND JOY! TREMBLE BEFORE ME! I mean...ahem. Isn't that a nice review? Isn't it nice to get a starred review for a nice book like that one? If you haven't ordered your copy yet, you totally should.

I am happy.

Submitted for by my publisher for your approval...

***

Yesterday, io9 published an excerpt of Blackout, the final book in the Newsflesh trilogy. Today, an intrepid Newsie hacked into the CDC computer system and liberated another file. For this one, though, you'll have to do a little digging...

Below is a puzzle whose answer reveals one of the five codes you'll need to access the second, top-secret document.

( Click here for the party.Collapse )

Hey, look! I'm in an anthology! River, from Dark Quest Books, edited by Alma Alexander. It's a book of stories about, well. A river. My story, "Lady of the Waters," is about a ship called The Jackdaw, her centaur captain (no, really), her faintly annoyed crew, and some giant catfish. I quite like it.

Oh, and hey, the audio books of all the Toby Daye adventures are still available at Audible.com, including Late Eclipses and One Salt Sea, which periodically appear as customer favorites. I find this awesome, and you should totally check it out if you haven't already listed to the fabulous audio narration. Or even if you have. I'm not picky.

SCIENCE CHEERLEADERS. It's like a beautiful dream. With pom-poms. There was no earthly way not to share.

...and because that last link may have restored your faith in humanity, here are some insanely depressing "rules for girls" collected from Twitter. The next time someone asks you why I keep threatening to ignite the biosphere, this is why. We can't have nice things until we've burned out all the stupid.

The title of this article right here is "How Amazon Kills Books and Makes Us Stupid." Again, destroying faith in humanity through the aid of my link file. You're welcome.

So it's a mixed bag today, but it includes SCIENCE CHEERLEADERS and CENTAUR SHIP CAPTAINS, so I'm going to call it overall a positive. Your mileage may vary.

Saturday night is MAD SCIENCE LADIES NIGHT at Borderlands Books, where that lovely and talented lady of mad science and shadow government, Shaenon Garrity herself, will be hosting the launch party for her brand new Narbonic Perfect Collection.

For those of you unfamiliar with Narbonic, it's a mad science/romance/gonzo journalism/geek culture/time travel comic that ran for six years before coming to an earth-shattering conclusion. All six years are now collected in a single glorious locale, with two mind-blowing volumes available for your perusal. The books are $30 for the set of two, or $17 individually; they'll be available for sale on Saturday.

(And yes, as always, you can contact the store to order your very own signed and personalized volumes, if you can't be there yourself.)

Shaenon will also have volumes one and two of Skin Horse, one of my favorite currently ongoing webcomics; these are $14 each, and so worth it.

The party will be from five to seven PM on Saturday, November 19th. There will be cupcakes and wine (boxed and bottled), and original art available for purchase at the low, low price of $30 a strip. If you've been to my house, you've seen several of these strips framed and hanging in my front bathroom. Fine art for everyone!

We hope to see you there! It's going to be a real good time.

Somewhere in North America, July 7th, 2014.

The location doesn't matter: what happened, when it happened, happened all over North America at the same time. There was no single index case. It all began, and ended, too fast for that sort of record-keeping to endure. Listen:

On migratory bird and weather balloon, on drifting debris and anchored in tiny gusts of wind, Alpha-RC007 made its way from the stratosphere down to the world below. When it encountered a suitable mammalian host, it would latch on with its tiny man-made protein hooks, holding fast while it found a way to invade, colonize, and spread. The newborn infections were invisible to the naked eye, and their only symptom was a total lack of symptoms. Their hosts enjoyed a level of health that was remarkable mostly because none of them noticed, or realized how lucky they were. It was a viral golden age.

It lasted less than a month. Say July 7th, for lack of a precise date; say Columbus, Ohio, for lack of a precise location. July 7th, 2014, Columbus: the end of the world begins.

The only carrier of Marburg Amberlee in Columbus was Sharon Morris, a thirty-eight year old woman celebrating her second lease on life by taking a road trip across the United States. She had begun her Marburg Amberlee treatments almost exactly a year before, and had seen a terminal diagnosis dwindle into nothing. If you'd asked her, she would have called it a miracle of science. She would have been correct.

Susan's first encounter with Alpha-RC007 occurred at an open air farmer's market. She picked up a jar of homemade jam, examining the label with a curious eye before deciding, finally, not to make the purchase. The jam remained behind, but the virus which had collected on her fingers did not. It clung, waiting for an opportunity—an opportunity it got less than five minutes later, when Susan wiped the sweat from her eyes with the back of her hand. Alpha-RC007 transferred from her fingers to the surface of her eye, and from there made its entrance to the body.

The initial stages of the Alpha-RC007 infection followed the now-familiar pattern, invading the body's cells like a common virus, only to slip quietly out again, leaving copies of itself behind. The only cells to be actually destroyed in the process were the other infections Alpha-RC007 encountered in the host body. These were turned into tiny virus-factories, farming on a microscopic scale. Several minor ailments Susan was not even aware of were found brewing in her body, and summarily destroyed in Alpha-RC007's quest for sole dominion.

Then, deep in the tissue of Susan's lungs, Alpha-RC007 encountered something new; something which was confusing to the virus, in as much as anything can ever confuse a virus. This strange new thing had a structure as alien to the world as Alpha-RC007's own, half-natural, half-reconfigured and transformed to suit a new purpose.

Behaving according to the protocols that were the whole of its existence, Alpha-RC007 approached the stranger, using its delicate protein hooks to attempt infiltration. The stranger responded in kind, their protein hooks tangling together until they were like so much viral thread, too intertwined to tell where one ended and the next began. This happened a thousand times in the body of Susan Morris. Many of those joinings ended with the destruction of one or both viral bodies, their structures unable to correctly lock together.

The rest found an unexpected kinship in the locks and controls their human creators had installed, and began, without releasing one another, to exchange genetic material in a beautiful dance that had begun when life on this world was born, and would last until that life was completely gone. Oblivious to the second miracle of science that was now happening inside her, Susan Morris went about her day. She had never been a mother before. Before the sun went down, she would be one of the many mothers to give birth to Kellis-Amberlee.

***

It's a beautiful summer here in Ohio, and we have a great many events planned for these sweet summer nights. Visit the downtown Columbus Farmer's Market, where you can sample new delights from our local farms. Who knows what you might discover? Meanwhile, the summer concert series kicks off...

When will you Rise?

Denver, Colorado. July 2nd, 2014.

Janice Barton knocked twice on the door to Dr. Wells's office before opening it and stepping inside, expression drawn. "Do you think you can see three more patients today?" she asked, without preamble.

"What?" Dr. Wells looked up from his paperwork, fingers clenching involuntarily on his pen. "I've already seen nine patients so far! I've barely finished filing the insurance information for Mrs. Bridge. How am I supposed to see three more before we close?"

"Because if you'll agree to see three more, I can probably convince the other nineteen to come back tomorrow," Janice replied. For the first time, Dr. Wells realized how harried his normally composed administrative assistant looked. Her nails were chipped. Somehow, that seemed like the biggest danger sign of all. A man-made virus was on the loose, Marburg Amberlee was doing...something...and Janice had allowed her manicure to fray.

"I'll see the three most in need of attention, and then I have to close for the night," he said, putting down his pen as he stood. "If I don't get some sleep, I won't be of any use to anyone."

"Thank you," said Janice, and withdrew.

She was gone by the time he emerged from his office, retreating to wherever it was she went when she was tired of dealing with the madhouse of the waiting room. On the days when it was a madhouse, anyway. This was definitely one of those days. The gathered patients set up a clamor as soon as he appeared, all of them waving for his attention, some of them even shouting. Dr. Wells stopped, looking at the crowd, and wondered if the other doctors involved in the Marburg Amberlee tests were having the same experience.

He was deeply afraid that they were.

The trouble wasn't the patients themselves; they looked as hale and healthy as ever, which explained how they were able to yell quite so loudly for his attention. Their cancers were gone, or under control, constantly besieged by their defensive Marburg Amberlee infections. It was the people they had brought to the office with them that presented the truly alarming problem. Husbands and wives, parents and children, they sat next to their previously ill relatives with glazed eyes, taking shallow, pained-sounding breaths. Some of them were bleeding from the nose or tear ducts—just a trickle, nothing life-threatening, but that little trickle was enough to terrify Dr. Wells, making his bowels feel loose and his stomach crawl.

They were manifesting the early signs of a Marburg Amberlee infection, during the brief phase where the body's immune system attempted to treat the helper virus as an invasion. That was the one stage of infection that could be truly harmful; when Marburg Amberlee was hit, it hit back, and it was more interested in defeating the opposition than it was in preserving the host. These people were infected, all of them.

And that simply wasn't possible. Marburg Amberlee wasn't transmittable through casual contact. Pointing almost at random, he said, "You, you, and you. I can see you before we close. Everyone else, I'm very sorry, but you're going to have to come back tomorrow."

Groans and shouts of protest spread through the room. "My baby's sick!" shouted one woman. A year before, she'd been dying of lung cancer. Now she was glaring at him like he was the devil incarnate. "What are you going to do about it?"

"I'm going to see you tomorrow," said Dr. Wells firmly, and waved for the chosen three to step through the door between the reception area and the examination rooms. He retreated with relief, the feeling of dread growing stronger.

He honestly had no idea what he was going to do.

***

Rumors of an outbreak of hemorrhagic fever in and around the Colorado Cancer Research Center have, as yet, been unsubstantiated. The head doctor, Daniel Wells, is unavailable for comment at this time.

When will you Rise?

[NOTE: I am a day behind, due to the convention I attended this past weekend. This should have gone up yesterday; after the next one, I'm all caught up.]

Atlanta, Georgia. June 18th, 2014.

The atmosphere at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia was best described as "tense." Everyone was waiting for the other shoe to drop, and had been waiting since reports first came in describing the so-called "Mayday Army's" release of an experimental pathogen into the atmosphere. The tension only intensified when Dr. Alexander Kellis responded to requests for more information on the pathogen by supplying his research, which detailed, at length, the infectious nature of his hybridized creation.

One of the administrative assistants had probably put it best when she looked at the infection maps in horror and said, "If he'd been working with rabies or something, he would have just killed us all."

If he was being completely honest with himself, Dr. Ian Matras wasn't entirely sure that Kellis hadn't just killed them all, entirely without intending to, entirely with the best of intentions. The proteins composing the capsid shell on Alpha-RC007 were ingeniously engineered, something that had been a good thing—increased stability, increased predictability in behavior—right up until the moment when the Mayday Army broke the seals keeping the world and the virus apart. Now those same proteins made Alpha-RC007 extremely virulent, extremely contagious, and, worst of all, extremely difficult to detect in a living host. The lab animals they'd requested from Dr. Kellis's lab in Reston were known to be infected, but showed almost no signs of illness; four out of five blood tests would come up negative for the presence of Alpha-RC007, only to have the fifth show a thriving infection. Alpha-RC007 hid. It could be spurred to reveal itself by introducing another infection...and that was when Alpha-RC007 became truly terrifying.

Alpha-RC007 was engineered to cure the common cold, something it accomplished by setting itself up as a competing, and superior, infection. Once it was in the body, it simply never went away. The specific structure of its capsid shell somehow tricked the human immune system into believing that Alpha-RC007 was another form of helper cell—and in a way, it was. Alpha-RC007 wanted to help. Watching it attack and envelop other viruses which entered the body was a chilling demonstration of perfect biological efficiency. Alpha-RC007 saw; Alpha-RC007 killed. Alpha-RC007 tolerated no other infections in the body.

What was going to happen the first time Alpha-RC007 decided the human immune system counted as an infection? No one knew, and the virus had thus far resisted any and all attempts to remove it from a living host. Unless a treatment could be found before Kellis's creation decided to become hostile, Dr. Matras was very afraid that the entire world was going to learn just how vicious Alpha-RC007 could be.

Dr. Ian Matras sat at his desk, watching the infection models as they spread out across North America and the world, and wondered how long they really had before they found out whether or not the Mayday Army had managed to destroy mankind.

"Cheer up, Ian!" called one of his colleagues, passing by on the way to the break room. "A pandemic that makes you healthy isn't exactly the worst thing we've ever had to deal with."

"And what's it going to do in a year, Chris?" Dr. Matras shot back.

Dr. Chris Sinclair grinned. "Raise the dead, of course," he said. "Don't you ever go to the movies?" Then he walked away, leaving Dr. Matras alone to brood. It wouldn't be long before they all had cause to regret those words.

***

The Centers for Disease Control have issued a statement asking that people remain calm in the wake of the release of an unidentified pathogen from the Virginia-based lab of Dr. Alexander Kellis. "We do not, as yet, have any indication that this disease is harmful to humans," said Dr. Chris Sinclair. A seven-year veteran of the Epidemic Intelligence Service, Dr. Sinclair graduated from Princeton...

When will you Rise?

Things that are awesome, part one: writing for anthologies.

Things that are awesome, part two: being asked to write for anthologies.

Things that are awesome, part three: being asked to write for anthologies being edited by John Joseph Adams, who is one of those anthologists I just have crazytrain respect for.

Things that are awesome, part four: ...did I mention the mad science?

When John announced The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination, I knew that failure to submit a story would result in hand-wringing, retribution-seeking, day-ruing agony on my part. This knowledge did not present me with an instantaneous understanding of what I should write. And then my iTunes decided to do a mad science medley, concluding with the me-and-Paul version of "What A Woman's For."

And then my cackling scared the cats.

I am crazy-pleased (or maybe just plain crazy) to announce that "Laughter at the Academy: A Field Study in the Genesis of Schizotypal Creative Genius Personality Disorder (SCGPD)" has been sold to John Joseph Adams for inclusion in the book The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination, coming in 2012 from Tor Books. It's a charming little tale about lab assistants and alternate paths to mad genius, and it has rapidly become a favorite of mine for live readings, because it's so. Much. FUN.

Plus, just look at this lineup: Carrie Vaughn, Alan Dean Foster, Daniel H. Wilson, L. E. Modesitt, Jr., L. A. Banks, Austin Grossman, Marjorie M. Liu, Ben Winters, David Farland, Mary Robinette Kowal, Harry Turtledove, Seanan McGuire, David D. Levine, Genevieve Valentine, Naomi Novik, Jeffrey Ford, Grady Hendrix, Theodora Goss, Jeremiah Tolbert, and David Brin, plus an introduction by Chris Claremont. See that? That's me, in a book with Chris Claremont. THOSE FOOLS SAID MAD SCIENCE DIDN'T PAY, BUT I'VE SHOWN THEM! I'VE SHOWN THEM ALL! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...er. Sorry.

I consider "Laughter at the Academy" to be part of my mad science triptych, along with "The Tolling of Pavlov's Bells" and "Apocalypse Scenario #693: The Box." This piece is the sheer, unfettered id, my delight in things that mutate, melt, and devour your brain while you're not looking. It makes me happy.

From my heart and from my hands, why don't people understand my intentions?

Today is Kaja Foglio's birthday! If you don't know Kaja, she's one-half of the creative team behind Girl Genius, along with her husband, the interminable Phil Foglio. Together, they won the 2010 Hugo for Best Graphic Novel. Also, they fight crime.

I'm just saying.

This month, the Foglios unleashed their unspeakable powers on a new arena: the novel. While Phil has written book-length prose before (most specifically Illegal Aliens, co-written with the awesome Nick Pollotta), this is Kaja's first foray into this particular medium. Agatha Heterodyne and the Airship City [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] is a novelization of the first two volumes of the Girl Genius graphic novel. Meaning what? Meaning that if you already read the comic, this isn't new story, per se, but it's deeper story, more intricate story. It enriches and expands on what you already know. And if you haven't read the comic, well, why not? It's available for free online. Yes, all of it. Yes, the Foglios make a living giving away their product. Why? Because it's that good.

Why am I telling you all this? Because it's Kaja's birthday, and what she asked for this year was, well, that we talk about her book. If you were considering picking up Agatha Heterodyne and the Airship City [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy], why not do it today? Give Kaja a book sale for her birthday, and help the Foglios ring the bells on Amazon (or at your local independent bookseller—I note that Borderlands Books has the book in stock, as, I'm sure, do many others).

The Foglios are great people, and Agatha Heterodyne is a great book. If you like steampunk, gaslamp fantasy, wacky science, mad science, cute blonde girls in corsets, and making my friends happy, give Agatha Heterodyne and the Airship City [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] a look! Statistically speaking, if you're reading my journal, you'll probably be glad that you did.

So Kate swears that I'm the creepiest thing going at any length less than thirty pages (I suppose because when I'm working under thirty pages, I don't have time for the why-porn to really saturate whatever it is I'm writing). Now's your opportunity to find out if she's right, because "The Tolling of Pavlov's Bells" will be appearing in the January issue of Apex Magazine.

YOU GUYS YOU GUYS I SOLD "PAVLOV'S"!!!! THE STORY WITH LIKE ONLY THE MOST TIPTREE TITLE EVER!!!!

...in case you can't tell, I'm pleased.

"Pavlov's" is the middle piece in what I view as my mad science triptych. The other two pieces are "Laughter at the Academy: A Field Study in the Development of Schizotypal Creative Genius Personality Disorder," and "Apocalypse Scenario #683: The Box." (No, you can't read the other two yet; I'm hoping you'll be able to eventually, I just need to get there.) They're sort of my id/ego/super-ego of mad science, and now that they're all written, maybe I can get it out of my head for a little while.

Ha. Ha. Ha. No, really.

But anyway: I finally found a home for "The Tolling of Pavlov's Bells," and it's a totally cool home, and I couldn't be more pleased. And if I ever do a short story collection, the odds are good that it'll be called The Tolling of Pavlov's Bells, so publishing the title story is always a good maneuver.

Mad science, killer viruses, and all that other good stuff can be yours in just one short month! You're welcome.

The Pegasus Awards for Excellence in Filking are given out each year at the Ohio Valley Filk Festival. This the biggest award in the filk world; when trying to explain them to non-filkers (or even new filkers), it's often said that the Pegasus Awards are "the Hugos of filk." This is not inaccurate. It's a major award in the filk world, with a ballot nominated and voted on by the community.

Every year, there are four "standard" categories—Best Song, Best Classic (for songs more than ten years old), Best Performer, and Best Writer/Composer—and two "floating" categories, which change from ballot to ballot. Floating categories can range from general, like "Best Parody" or "Best Love Song," to extremely specific...like this year's floating categories, "Best Magic Song" and "Best Mad Science Song."

I was at the Skin Horse volume two release party when Amy and Vixy both sent me text messages to inform me that "What A Woman's For," my song about the virtues of being Dr. Frankie's little helper when the world just has to be destroyed, had won the Pegasus Award for Mad Science. Yes. I got an award for Mad Science, at least in song form.

TREMBLE, PUNY MORTALS! TREMBLE, FOR SOON I AND MY GENETICALLY-ALTERED ARMY OF FLESH-RENDING PEGASI WILL COME FOR YOU IN THE NIGHT! THOSE FOOLS LAUGHED AT ME AT THE ACADEMY, BUT THEY'LL PAY! THEY'LL PAY! OH, HOW THEY'LL PAY!

...ahem. And also, thank you to everyone who voted, and squee! Pegasus! Congratulations to all the 2010 ballot winners, especially my frequent musical partner in crime, Paul Kwinn, who won the Pegasus for Best Magic Song. Life is good.

I'm so happy.

Hello, and welcome to my journal! I'm pretty sure you know who I am, my name being in the URL and all, but just in case, I'm Seanan McGuire (also known as Mira Grant), and you're probably not on Candid Camera. This post exists to answer a few of the questions I get asked on a semi-hemi-demi-regular basis. It may look familiar; that's because it gets updated and re-posted roughly every two months, to let folks who've just wandered in know how things work around here. Also, sometimes I change the questions. Because I can.

If you've read this before, feel free to skip, although there may be interesting new things to discover and know beyond the cut.

Anyway, here you go:

( This way lies a lot of information you may or may not need about the person whose LJ you may or may not be reading right at this moment. Also, I may or may not be the King of Rain, which may or may not explain why it's drizzling right now. Essentially, this is Schrodinger's cut-tag.Collapse )

Remember when I posted all glowingly about a web comic called Skin Horse, and kept saying everybody should read it?

Remember how one of my big selling points was the first year of strips was now available in convenient dead tree format that you can take anywhere?

Good.

Shaenon and Jeff are now funding volume two through Kickstarter, which is a sort of crowd-funding aggregation service. You say how much you need by what date, and then people kick in what they can to make your project happen. The Skin Horse fund opened yesterday, with a $3,000 goal and an end date of, well, July.

It hit $3,000 last night. See what can happen when people believe that you're real?

Anyway: The volume two Kickstarter sponsorship fund is still open, and comes with some really awesome bonuses for sponsorship, including character sketches, side-stories, and more. The $20 sponsorship level gets you a signed copy of the book, for what would have been the book's cover price anyway—it's basically pre-ordering with a guaranteed signature, which is pretty neat.

If you like Skin Horse, consider sponsoring volume two. If you can't figure out what the hell I'm talking about, go read the comic, and then consider sponsoring volume two.

We're the shadow government.

We're here to help.

Brooke, being Brooke, and hence attracted to anything that involves "science" and "spiders," provided me with a link to a full-sized piece of fabric made from spider silk. Because this was awesome, I promptly shared it with my friend Rae. The following conversation occurred:

raelee: That is a lot of spiders. But very purty silk.
seanan_mcguire: I will put them all in the bed of the next human who vexes me.
raelee: *eyes you* Duly noted.
seanan_mcguire: You rarely vex.
raelee: Still, sharing my bed with a million spiders, while extremely kinky, is not high on the list of activities I'd like to participate in before my death... especially since it has a high probability of leading to said death. Therefore, I'll take the proper precautions so as not to vex.
seanan_mcguire: It'd be like, LEGS LEGS LEGS LEGS LEGS LEGS LEGS *enrobe* *devour* LEGS.
raelee: Yeahhhh, I just freaked out reading that.
seanan_mcguire: ...oooops. Sorry.
raelee: s'ok, everyone needs to have a mini seizure at their desk occasionally.

There are days when I truly feel that being my friend ought to come with a hazard advisory of some sort. Or maybe just a little label that flashes after pictures of horrible things, like botflies and flesh-eating bacteria. "WARNING: Seanan is going to think this is cool, and probably want to discuss it with you. Please begin self-sedation now."

I was invented to make sure you stay fully alert and aware of your surroundings. Lest the million spiders in your bed catch you by surprise.

So here's the thing.

I have three albums currently available. You can read about all three of them on my website's albums page. I'm very fond of all three. They each have their strengths and weaknesses, they each represent something different in my musical growth, and they each make me happy. Right now, only Red Roses and Dead Things is available through my website; the other two are available through CDBaby.com.

As of August 1st, Red Roses and Dead Things will be transitioning to CDBaby.com, and will no longer be available through my website.

There are a lot of reasons for this, and most of them have to do with time. I just don't have the time to monitor the order database, and people keep trying to order the other two albums, which requires even more time to unsnarl. So everything's being out-sourced, as part of an effort to save my sanity. Why am I announcing this? Well, because I'd rather not flood CDBaby right off the bat, thus forcing me to do still more mailing. So:

If you have been waiting to order Red Roses and Dead Things, now would be a good time. I commit to shipping all paid, pending orders during the first week of August, after which I will be contacting any unpaid pending orders, directing them to CDBaby, and deleting them from the system. The ordering system will then go down until we have to take pre-orders again.

So there's the thing. If you want to order Red Roses and Dead Things, now is a good time; it will be unavailable for the first week of August, while the transition is going on. Thank you for understanding.

After an exciting evening chasing around San Francisco, visiting the freaky alien demon suede kittyfaces at Borderlands Books, and helping Kate get her glasses to fit right, I returned to the safety of the East Bay...where my mother promptly abducted me off to meet up with my baby sister, the trucker, in Brentwood. In the parking lot of an Office Max.

Did I mention that it was after nine o'clock by that point, and that I hadn't really eaten anything besides a McDonalds ice cream cone since lunch? Oh, and that my new CD finally arrived today -- at least according to the UPS website, as I hadn't yet had visual confirmation?

Yeah, it was a night.

But now I'm home, and I've confirmed the existence of the CDs. Yes! One thousand copies of Red Roses and Dead Things have joined the general clutter of my home. Actually, right now, they're increasing the specific clutter of my bedroom. Not precisely what I'd call optimal, but as it allows me to sign and number the pre-orders (to the degree that I can manage before a formal shipping party), I suppose I'll cope.

It's a damn pretty CD, too. It came out even better looking than I was hoping it would.

So that's my Friday night. Having signed and numbered the first ten CDs, I will now proceed to my bed, where I will probably dream of being crushed to death beneath a hail of disks. Because that's how this works. Good-night, world.

Researchers have found out what made the 1918 flu pandemic so deadly. Because that's always a good idea. Basically, there's a three-gene sequence which tells the virus go 'you know what? The upper respiratory tract is dull. Let's go have a party in the lungs!' This leads to pneumonia, which leads to death. And since it's viral pneumonia, rather than bacterial pneumonia, it's both droplet-based and unperturbed by silly little things like antibiotics. Whee!

To quote the article: "The three genes -- called PA, PB1, and PB2 -- along with a 1918 version of the nucleoprotein or NP gene, made modern seasonal flu kill ferrets in much the same way as the original 1918 flu, Kawaoka's team found." Now. Maybe I'm being a little silly here, but does building a better flu really sound like a good idea? To anybody? I've read The Stand. I don't feel like moving to Colorado. I love pandemics in history and in theory, but I'd really rather not have 'They Fucked Around With Flu' stamped on mankind's collective tombstone.

In other news, small boys still hold firecrackers in their bare hands, because maybe this time, it's going to go differently.

Since I'm feeling better* today, I'm taking care of all those things which were permitted to slip over the past several days. Specifically...

* I've gone through and checked checks against orders in my ordering database, so that I could correctly mark off those people I don't need to harass into paying me. I'm a very polite harasser, really, but the major down-side of doing CDs the way I do -- IE, 'the pre-orders pay for the production costs' -- is that when people don't pay me, I have real trouble making the albums actually exist. In other news, I now have 212 pre-orders in the system. I feel special.

* I've reviewed the final mastered tracks for Red Roses and Dead Things, confirming that they are MADE OF AWESOME. I am, of course, hyper-critical of my own performances, but that's my nature, and everything I can be objective about on the album is fantastic. Michelle Dockrey, Maya Bohnhoff, and Tom Smith are all super-cool in their appearances, and Tony Fabris just blows me out of the water with his mournful Dave Davenport. I'm so glad this album is about to exist.

* I've also written the back page for the liner notes, which is sort of like the acknowledgments page in a book, only with a lot more references to James Gunn and his pressing need to call me. And yes, I will be sending him a copy of the album. He's on the extremely short 'freebie' list. (It consists of James Gunn, Stephen King, and Eric Kripke, for this album. Because I am a good little horror girl.)

* Since I like not being clubbed to death by The Agent for getting nothing done**, I've also been plugging away on The Brightest Fell. The goal du jour is hitting three hundred pages, and then breaking to hammer on The Mourning Edition for a little while. I find it hysterical -- and also annoying -- that I have, like, two books in my entire 'write this' list that start with the word 'the,' and I'm working on them both at once. Bah.

* Also, I keep stopping to poke at Facebook, and its addictive little clicky-clicky vampire game. You know you're hooked when you consider soliciting total strangers to join your clan. Again, bah.

More to come, after I find my desk under this pile o' crap.

(*Local values of 'better' include 'capable of moving around under own power without feeling the intense need to stop and yark up everything consumed in the past hour' and 'capable of stringing six coherent words together in a line.' We've lowered our standards, now up yours.)

(**My definition of 'getting nothing done' is a very specialized one. I know this thing.)

Well, I'm home sick today, currently presenting two out of the five primary symptoms of streptococcal sore throat. (Quoth my mother, "Honey, you are the only person I know who says 'Mommy, I've got strep' by announcing that you're presenting primary symptoms of something I can't pronounce.") Big fun for the whole family! For the morbidly curious, I'm feeling deeply unwell, have marked swelling of the throat and tonsils, difficulty swallowing, tender lymph nodes, and so much red inflammation that I look like one of my own manuscripts post-editing pass. Not much fun.

In an effort to make myself feel better, I've been catching up on some of the television that's been building up while I was off doing other things, like writing, editing, and attempting to have a life. Well, let's see. How about The Eleventh Hour? Crazy science always makes me feel better! Yeah! And this episode is about...

...smallpox getting loose in Philadelphia. Right. Well, now that I'm sick and deeply disturbed, what about watching some ReGenesis? Originally created for Canadian television, ReGenesis really seems to have been created with me in mind, since it's sort of a crazy cross between Numb3rs and House, only instead of fighting either crime or weird medicine, they fight genetic crime and monstrosities of science. ReGenesis will make me feel better! And the first episode of season one is about...

...a horrible hybrid of camel pox and Ebola getting loose in Canada. Right.

I'm going back to bed.

How better to begin celebrating my favorite month -- the month that contains Halloween -- than with this announcement:

Pre-orders for Red Roses and Dead Things, my first themed studio album, are now officially open! Pardon my squealing, and with big, big thanks to porpentine, who has made the magic go once again. Featuring performances by Paul Kwinn, Tony Fabris, Michelle Dockrey, Amy McNally, Jeff Bohnhoff, Maya Bohnhoff, Tom Smith, and probably several other people that I've managed to temporarily forget, this is a solid star-studded adventure in the worlds of mad science and horror. It brings the creepy. It brings the silly. And it brings the AWESOME.

To place your order, go to:

https://seananmcguire.com/secure_order.php

Pre-orders follow this price scale:

* $17.00 USD: Domestic pre-order (US and Canada)
* $22.00 USD: International pre-order.

(Basically, all pre-orders are a base cost of $15.00, plus shipping.)

We're taking three hundred total pre-orders, then closing it down; depending on how fast they come, and when we hit three hundred, there may be a small overage, but not much. All pre-orders will be given access to an exclusive download version of 'What A Woman's For' (which may or may not be released more widely into the wild after the album is released). Since we also need to pay mixing costs, we're taking album sponsors; to donate for sponsorship, click here:

All sponsors will be included in the liner notes. You can view the potential track list here:

http://seananmcguire.com/albums.php

The track order is by no means finalized, and I'll probably be doing some canvassing soon, to get an idea of other people's opinions on what should come first, last, where, and when. We may have to cut a song, depending on final track lengths; we don't know yet.

Questions? Comments? Glee!

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva will be firing for the first time on September 10th, at 9:00 AM (or thereabouts). Since I am not actually in Geneva, this means the Large Hadron Collider will be firing for the first time...tonight. At around 11:00 PM. After I've gone to bed.

So, y'know, I may wake up to discover that a black hole has been accidentally unleashed and will now begin cheerfully devouring the planet. Or I may not wake up at all, since the really paranoid people inform me that there's a decent chance the Large Hadron Collider will recreate the Big Bang and, in so doing, unmake all creation. (Amanda, before you hit me with your amazingly large physics brain, I know this isn't going to happen. But a girl can dream.)

So if tomorrow we're all reduced to component atoms, stardust, and the sound of voices screaming "I told you so!" into the void, well...

I regret nothing.

Do you?

Hello, and welcome to my journal! I'm pretty sure you know who I am, my name being in the URL and all, but just in case, I'm Seanan McGuire, and you're probably not on Candid Camera. This post exists to answer a few of the questions that I get asked on a semi-hemi-demi-regular basis (currently, approximately every two months). It may look familiar; that's because it gets reposted every time the answers change, and to let new people know how we roll around here. (I will make no more Clueless references in this post, I promise.) Also, sometimes I change the questions. Because I can.

If you've read this before, feel free to skip, although there may be interesting new things to discover and know beyond the cut.

Anyway, here you go:

( This way lies a lot of information you may or may not need about the person whose LJ you may or may not be reading right at this moment. Also, I may or may not be the King of Rain, which may or may not explain why it's drizzling right now. Essentially, this is Schrodinger's cut-tag.Collapse )

Having been asked several times recently, I thought I'd give a quick CD FAQ. The short form: yes, I have recorded and released two CDs, and am currently in the middle of recording a third. My first two CDs remain currently available, although supplies are falling fast. When they're gone, they're gone; I'm not planning to re-release either of them any time soon.

The first CD, Pretty Little Dead Girl: Seanan McGuire and Friends Live at OVFF 2005, was recorded live at, yes, OVFF 2005. Eleven tracks of totally live performance goodness, including the explosion of cheers from the audience when I started taking off my clothes (during 'Maybe It's Crazy,' track five on the album). Several of the songs on this CD exist only on this CD, and probably won't ever be recorded elsewhere.

The second CD, Stars Fall Home, was recorded primarily by Kristoph Klover at Flowinglass Music, with additional tracks recorded everywhere from England to Seattle, Washington. This album features performances by some of my very favorite people, and an incredible amount of raw musical talent. It's a great big sampler box of a CD, with songs ranging from the very, very serious, to the very, very silly. I love it so.

You can listen to samples from both CDs at: http://seananmcguire.com/albums.php

You can order either or both at: https://www.seananmcguire.com/secure_order.php

Both CDs are $17.00 (USD) -- that includes shipping and handling. (That cost is per CD, just to clarify.) International orders are available for an additional $5.00, to cover additional shipping costs.

If you have questions about any of my albums, including the one that's yet to be released, please let me know!

Hello, and welcome to my journal! I'm pretty sure you know who I am, my name being in the URL and all, but just in case, I'm Seanan McGuire, and you're probably not on Candid Camera. This post exists to answer a few of the questions that I get asked on a semi-hemi-demi-regular basis. It may look familiar; that's because it gets reposted every time the answers change, and to let new people know how we roll around here. (I will make no more Clueless references in this post, I promise.) Also, sometimes I change the questions. Because I can.

Anyway, here you go:

( This way lies a lot of information you may or may not need about the person whose LJ you may or may not be reading right at this moment. Also, I may or may not be the King of Rain, which may or may not explain why it's drizzling right now. Essentially, this is Schrodinger's cut-tag.Collapse )

Hey, look at that! The wonderful folks responsible for throwing the party known as Duckon 2009 have decided that since they were awesome enough to invite me as their Filk Guest of Honor, I should have a profile page to tell people who I am. That was sweet of them, don'cha think? (It probably has something to do with wanting people to come to their convention, but hey, I am not a picky person about anything but food.)

The picture that accompanies the profile is from our Red Roses and Dead Things photoshoot. You can tell because I'm wearing lipstick. All the rest of it could really just be a shot from any day in the life.

Pre-reg prices have gone up at this point, so you should really consider grabbing your slot before they jump again. You know you want to watch me talk folklore with Jim Butcher. You know you also want to see what kind of crazy we're going to cram into the concert. (Hint: I'll have just come out with a mad science-themed album, I own a lab coat, I've been known to do on-stage stripteases...) It's going to be a fun time all around!

Seanan vs. Illinois. Round one, fight.