Lilith Saintcrow

Yes, the moment you’ve been waiting for. No, wait, you haven’t been waiting for this, because I didn’t tell anyone I planned to do it. Shoot. Now I’m all confused.

*clears throat prepatory to cheap shillsharing good news*

Ladies and gentlemen, Faithful Readers, I present to you:

The Necromancers Have Mortgages Too coffee mug, and the Japrimel Lives! coffee mug.

Because I am a geek.

I have big plans for a “Japhrimel Lives!” bumper sticker, too. If, you know, anyone’s interested…

UPDATE: The Japhrimel Lives! bumper sticker. Enjoy.

Check out this ad. It’s done by the same guys who did all the colored balls in San Francisco ad, and it’s spectacular.

As the Selkie remarked, the Diet Coke and Mentos guys have nothing on these boyos.

Look yonder! It’s another Thursday Revue!

For the first third and the last eighth of Sarah Monette’s Melusine, I was in sheer despair. After all, I’d heard so many good things about this book. Why was it giving me so much trouble?

The basic premise goes like this: there’s this world, see? And it’s historical, and magic works. There’s a wizard who was once a prostitute (Felix Harrowgate, a great name) and a guttersnipe cat burglar (Mildmay, an even greater name) and on them rests the destiny of the Dickensien, fabulous (in the old sense) city of Melusine, where the rich lead lives of hardscrabble ambition and the poor die as easily as flies. Felix the wizard is used in a dastardly plot to destroy the Virtu, the magical thing that keeps the city safe, and Mildmay is drawn in despite himself, terrified of becoming a victim either of his own secrets or of the high-stakes game he finds himself in.

I loved Mildmay. I mean, actual throat-clenching, pure penguin love. I adored Mildmay’s parts of the book–in the first third and the last eighth I had to force myself not to skim through Felix’s parts. And herein lies the first problem with this otherwise very solid book.

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Why is it that when I have something to say about writing, Elizabeth Bear says it better? *sigh* And that she just happens to be right on all counts is kind of depressing, too. There goes that blog post I wanted to write.

Note: the last two sentences in the above paragraph were delivered with a twinkle in the eye and a wide grin.

In other news, I’ve been feeling ridiculously better since I started taking a B-complex daily. Like, utterly, completely better to a ridiculous degree. Plus my red sweatpants are refusing to stay up and fit properly, as well as my jeans. This is the first indication I have of the working-out and the attention to my mood during eating actually providing a sea change in how I regard nutrition. Before we get started, though, I want to register that I don’t want to be thin.

I want to be healthy, and strong enough to beat the schnoogies out of anyone who invades my house or threatens my kidlings. There’s a difference.

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Note: In this blog, all names except mine are changed to protect guilty and innocent alike. Just so you know.

Saturday was busy–attending Boy Scout’s Masonic hoo-haw with the Selkie and the Froop. (I was there in support capacity for the Selkie.) Then came heading over to the bookstore for work, which was my dismal failure of the day. I managed to get almost nothing done, being utterly robbed of ambition after my eight o’clock wakeup, hitting the track, and keeping a straight face during pomp and circumstance. I am so irreverent, it’s a miracle when I can keep the smile and wisecrack back for more than ten minutes.

Sunday I spent trying to rag Those Who Live With Me into housework, with limited success. So I knocked off about two PM and went to get books and wine. Hey, it was a weekend, right?

Note to the winedrinkers among ye: Chateau Lorane’s 2002 Marechal Foch kicks major bootay. It was smooth but not overly sweet (I hate gagging-sweet reds) with a lovely full body and pleasant finish; it was good right after opening and only got better and more complex as it breathed. I’m thinking further about the Luna Vineyards 2003 Sangiovese I picked up; it had a charcoal breath when I opened the bottle and a port-like bouquet after a bit of breathing. I’ll need another interaction with this wine before I decide how I feel about it. But the Marechal Foch was spectacular.

So as you can guess, I was pretty mellow all evening. I scored some Lemony Snicket books for the Princess (she was utterly grateful, now needing only the last three in the series) and an anatomy book for artists for the Froop (also grateful, BTW. Good kid.) For me there was a Nabokov, of course–Look at the Harlequins!–and for the Dear Husband Muffin there was Bob Woodward’s State of Denial. Which I promptly stole from him as he was making homemade pretzels (love that man) and am now 250 pages or so into.

It’s a good thing I was mellow, for there is much in this book to cause spleen to vent. And that’s all I’m going to say.

Oh, there’s an interview with me over at AustGate. I talk about the post-Buffy fantasy world, tropes and archetypes, and assorted other fun stuff. Enjoy!

Happy Monday to you all. I’m going to go back to Woodward and suck on a bit of coffee. It is, after all, a Monday.