'80s hits reinterpreted as ragtime.

And you can segue very nicely, for anyone who hasn't seen it yet, into the Literal Video Version of "Total Eclipse of the Heart".

arcaedia on the first five pages. What she says is why, when I do novel-writing workshops, the first five pages--or fewer, even--are what we focus on.

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Scientists are giving Rubik's Cubes to octopuses.

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Ta-Nehisi Coates on "The Importance of Being Politically Correct."

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heresluck, this xkcd is so totally about you. <3

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Do Your Own Adventure w/ Sue Teller. Give her a chance to get going before you make up your mind.

Griffith Stadium pen here. SO GEEKED. (There's a funny little flaw in the wood that makes me believe this beautifully polished and glowing pen barrel really was once a seat in a baseball stadium.) I like Pelikan's Brilliant Green (that being the color of cartridge I chose, mostly at random), the pen is pleasingly heavy, and it writes nicely. WIKTORY.

Off in mere moments to meet oursin for lunch and show her some of Madison. SO GEEKED.

GEEKED, I tell you.

The dreams about failing high school calculus HAVE GOT TO STOP. Especially like the one I had last night, in which I dreamed I was failing high school calculus and then woke up to discover it was true. ARGH.

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Made progress on the new wolf book yesterday. Let's be generous and call it 500 words. Which is 500 more words than I've written in a kind of appallingly long time.

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The indefatigable fidelioscabinet has found an awesome photo-reference for Mehitabel. This is Natalia Alexandrova Pushkina, the younger daughter of Aleksandr Pushkin, and if I could have had her on the cover of The Mirador, I would have been a very happy Mole. (No, it isn't an exact match, but it's really startlingly close.)

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I'm not bothering with segues today, but if I were, this would be a good one to my first Q&A question:

Q: I am super interested in what you told the cover artists of ACE. From the previous posts, I am inclined to believe that you had very little input in the whole cover art business, but you did mention that you described the tattoos and they listened. Would you have wanted the cover art done any other way? If you had said you weren't satisfied, what would have happened?

A: My input extended only so far as the artist and the production team decided to listen to me. (I did object to the cover of The Mirador because I found--and, honestly, still find--the size and shape of Mehitabel's head disturbing. It did me no good.) When they asked me questions, I answered them and was delighted when my answers showed up in the cover art: Felix's tattoos, the cityscape behind Mildmay--the cover of The Virtu is probably my favorite for precisely that reason--Mehitabel's dress. In three of four cases, my descriptions of the characters were followed: Kay, for instance, does look like David McCallum on the cover, and that's exactly how I described him for the artist. Mehitabel is the exception there.

Okay, that's an honest answer to your question, but I want to be clear that it isn't a complaint. I think the covers for these books are fantastic. They're compositionally strong--which many fantasy covers aren't--they have coherent color schemes, they give an impression of lush baroquerie which is exactly what's called for. Most importantly from the purely mercenary point of view, they do exactly what they're supposed to do, which is catch people's attention. I've gotten emails from several people who have confessed to picking up Mélusine on the strength of the cover alone. The fact that devoted readers (and the neurotic pink circus poodle of an author) can list everything the covers get wrong is, well, par for the course.

Q: How did you choose the titles of the individual books of DoL? The main reason that I can think of is because most of them are the places all the events which transpire in, but then Virtu throws a wrench right at that reasoning, and it's really gnawing at me like a rat.

A: I did not choose the titles. Ace did. My titles were Strange Labyrinths, The Labyrinth's Heart, Labyrinths Within, and The Labyrinth of Summerdown. (I've mentioned before that I suck at titles, right?) And even after they'd explained their single-word evocative-of-fantasy title theory, I wanted to call the second book Kekropia and the fourth book Summerdown, and got vetoed again.

Q: ( spoilers for Corambis )

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Q: I have been trying to find a paperback copy of The Virtu, and nobody seems to have one. Do you happen to know where I could find one? All the others in the series are available, but that seems to have disappeared...

A: The Virtu is out of print in both hardback and paperback. I am really really sorry. My agent is making a formal protest on my behalf to Ace, and if/when the situation changes, I will definitely make an announcement.

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Q: I have a question more about one of your short stories than about your books (which I liked a lot, but I can't think of any question that has not been asked yet): I enjoyed "A night in Electric Squidland" very much and remember faintly that you said you wrote or planned on writing more short stories with Mick and Jamie. If you have written and published them, is there a way for this fan from beyond the sea (Great Britain) to buy or read them?

A: I have not managed to publish any more stories about Mick and Jamie. (I have one written that no one will buy, and something else that seems to be the first chapter of a novella, and then three or four other ideas that are thus far obstinately refusing to be phrased in the form of a story.) Hopefully, this situation will change for the better.

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Q: What's your preferred baseball team, if any? I only ask this because of, well, I suppose an auxiliary reference question--the writer Ynge, is it a reference to Brandon Inge?

A: I forget where I got Ynge's name, but no. It wasn't that.

I was raised an Atlanta Braves fan. Now, mirrorthaw and I follow the Milwaukee Brewers on the radio. But I'm more a baseball fan than I am a fan of any particular team.

[You can still ask your question(s) here.]

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ETA: The Sekrit Origin of the Virtu revealed! (Hint: it isn't the toaster.)

Fountain Pen Hopsital, who regularly send me pen pr0n, include in their latest catalogue, Historic Pen Editions' Stadium Seats Collection. You can get a pen made out of seats from Shea Stadium (N.Y. Mets, 1964), Dodger Stadium (L.A. Dodgers, 1962), Ebbets Field (Brooklyn Dodgers, 1913), Fenway Park (Boston Red Sox, 1912 and still going strong), Griffith Stadium (Washington Senators, 1911), Polo Grounds (N.Y. Giants, 1891), and Yankee Stadium (N.Y. Yankees, 1923). My fountain pen geekery, my baseball geekery, and my history geekery* have collided violently, and I WANT ONE.

Of course, I am not actually a fan of any of the teams whose stadium seats have been made into pens, but that hardly matters. (And we will not enter into the question of whether I need another fountain pen. Shut up.) I'm torn between Fenway Park, because it's STILL THERE, and Griffith Stadium, because it ISN'T still there, and neither is its baseball team--or teams, since the Wikipedia entry tells me it was also a part-time venue for a Negro League team called the Homestead Grays. Torn, I tell you!

Baseball! History! Fountain pens!

(This has been a public (dis)service announcement for anyone else who may find their geekeries colliding here, too.)

ETA: I went with Griffith Stadium.

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*Can I just say that I hope someday Major League Baseball is REALLY FUCKING SORRY that they've destroyed all their historic ballparks? Dodger Stadium is the third-oldest baseball stadium in America and it's ONLY FORTY-SEVEN YEARS OLD.

I want to talk for a minute about why "genre" is the wrong word for science fiction and fantasy--though not necessarily the wrong word for horror. And how that makes the whole question of genre vis-a-vis sffh so damn complicated.

I'm sure I've said most of this before, probably more than once, so here's a cut tag for those of you who don't want to sit through it again.

( but if you do, click here )

Freud is such a problem.

Partly this is because he was right, and partly it is because he was grossly, irredeemably wrong. Oftentimes in the same essay. And partly it is because his disciples and intellectual descendants have reified his ideas, transforming them from theories into universal truths. (Not that Freud himself did not contribute to that tendency with his pontifical--in fact, patriarchal--stance.)

And any truth Freud has to offer is most assuredly not universal.

But that doesn't mean he isn't thought-provoking and it doesn't mean he can't be illuminating. It just means you have to approach him with caution and an independent mind.

Case in point: I started reading Frederick Karl's biography of Kafka, Franz Kafka: Representative Man: Prague, Germans, Jews, and the Crisis of Modernism and very shortly thereafter posted a plaintive call for better biographies. Happily, perverse_idyll suggested Ernst Pawel's The Nightmare of Reason: A Life of Franz Kafka. I haven't finished Pawel yet, but I've found an oddly illuminating point of comparison which I think will demonstrate why I found Karl unreadable and Pawel compelling.

First, from Karl:
( this is where I started yelling )

Compare with:
( the analogous opening move from Pawel )

( And then I go on talking for a while )

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WORKS CITED
Karl, Frederick. Franz Kafka: Representative Man: Prague, Germans, Jews, and the Crisis of Modernism. 1991. New York: Fromm International Publishing Corporation, 1993.

Pawel, Ernst. The Nightmare of Reason: A Life of Franz Kafka. New York: Farrar Strauss Giroux, 1984.

Gideon
Hotch
Reid
JJ
Garcia

( sixth verse, same as the first )

( seventh verse, same as the first )

( eighth verse, same as the first )

And that concludes our whirlwind tour of the onomastics of Criminal Minds. Thank you and good night.

(I do not have an icon for Garcia. I have yet to see one that tickles my fancy.)

Gideon
Hotch
Reid
JJ
Elle
Morgan
Prentiss

( fifth verse, same as the first )