“Is Monk ever going to get any?”
“You mean have sex?”
“Yes,” she said. She’d actually asked me the same question during the question-and-answer session but I guess my answer didn’t satisfy her.
“Well, the show is over, so no, I don’t think so.”
“What about in your books?”
I shook my head. “I just don’t see it.”
“I do,” she said. “Vividly.”
I won’t be taking part. I’m still editing Man Bites World (finished one of the difficult parts today) and I’ll have galleys for Game of Cages soon. After that, it’s new project time, so I’ll have brainstorming and outlining to do. I may not write another word of rough draft until Christmas.
However, even if I weren’t knee-deep in edits, I’d probably skip it. I’ve never joined in and probably never will.
House Haunted By Tortured Souls Of Current Residents
“HARTFORD, MI—On the outside it may look like any other home, but within the walls of 6535 Maple Ave. lies a terrifying secret: Every night, when the sun goes down and the moon comes out, this suburban bungalow is haunted by the restless, tormented souls of its current residents, the Davidson family.”
Wonderful.
I just stopped by my local Borders and saw they had new stock to sign. Eight new copies of Child of Fire. This is the third time I’ve dropped by in the month since the book came out, and they’ve had new books on the shelf every time.
Also, the Amazon.com sales ranking is now lower (higher? How about “closer to 1”) than it’s been for three weeks. In fact, it was hovering around 25K yesterday, and has been in the teen-thousands (I made a word!) all morning.
Thank you, everyone, who has given the book a read and helped spread the good word. I’m tremendously grateful.
Also, ethelmay sources the “apartmently” story from a previous post. Thank you, too!
I missed this when it first blew up last week (thanks a lot, missing LJ-feeds!), but apparently there was an online dustup about the fact that Kindle owners can have more than one Kindle (or iPhone) on a single account. There’s no requirement that the machines all belong to the same person, or that they all live at the same address, either. This lets people who download a book onto their Kindle share it with friends.
Apparently, this came up in a NYTimes article, and some authors went on a name-and-shame campaign against the reader named in the article because the article made it seem that she was bending the rules. Dear Author covers the situation pretty well, and makes some good points about e-books and book-sharing.
Me, I think it’s great that Kindle readers can share. That brings me closer (but not to) the point that I’d be willing to get one. People: Share my books with your friends and I will be happy!
Oh, and writers shouldn’t call readers “thieves.” Duh.
On that note, John Scalzi points out that Amazon.com has a new patent that would track e-book piracy by altering the text of the book in unique ways–essentially substituting synonyms for words in the book.
Scalzi, quite sensibly, calls bullshit on that. Jane at Dear Author likes the idea better, although she seems to be promoting an idea similar to but not identical to what Scalzi’s talking about.
For me, I hate it. I have zero faith in a computer’s ability to substitute synonyms sensibly. In fact, readers would probably be astute enough to spot the switches.
And it reminds me of certain horror stories, such as the English author who who discovered that the editors who published their book in the U.S. were concerned enough that American readers would be confused by British terminology (“They went back to his flat.”) that they did wholesale search-and-replace. At which point one of the characters delivered a line of dialog “apartmently.” Ungood.
I’m with Scalzi on this one (and I hope that “apartmently” story is apocryphal).
1) Michael A. Stackpole on Cory Doctorow’s book promo experiment. via Jay Lake
2) The Game of White! MightyGodKing on board games.
3) Coyotes attack, kill adult human in Nova Scotia. What a horror. via James Nicoll.
4) “I just get naked. It’s what I do.” This ought to make Sarah Palin’s book release extra-special. Best part: His handler is named “Tank Jones.” lol
5) People trust experts who seem tentative in their conclusions, and amateurs who express certitude.
6) New form of bioenergy powering Swedish heating plant: Dead rabbits.
Genreville is doing a series of Urban Fantasy interviews. The first two (out of more than a dozen) are posted. Seanan McGuire is first, followed by Charles De Lint. Check it out.
How you can tell a cliche has thoroughly permeated the culture:
My son and his buddy, both seven years old, were playing Lego Batman–in fact they were playing a scene in “Arkham Asylum” where supervillains and goons stream in endlessly. After 10 minutes of pitch battle, Buddy said: “Man, everybody is running around fighting and shooting each other! It’s like being in a bar!“
“Just because I plan to euthanize the world doesn’t mean I want to be a dick about it.”
Yeah, I think that just about sums up this book.