Ye Olde Bulleted Lyste
First: Steelflower and Hunter’s Prayer are both shipping through Amazon! Huzzah! I hear Steelflower is shipping through Barnes & Noble too. This means they’re out, O-W-T spells OUT! *grin*
And nowe, Ye Olde Bulleted Liste, againne, for I finde I hath brainpower not enoughe to smooshe a flea with thee Booke eatyng my tyme.
* Yeah, can you tell Chaucer Hath Blog has a new entry up? A hilarious new entry that deals with Blazing Man. I particularly hooted with laughter over the buying of pardons. I’m also reading Ivanhoe with the Selkie. Merry Olde Misspellings (that were perfectly acceptable and even standard in their own time), ahoy!
* I expected the most recent installment of Selene to create more of a stir since it has filthy pretty-much-noncon smexxors. But maybe I just didn’t pull it off well enough. Or maybe I was just an idiot when I worried it might shock people. Maybe I’m a prude? I didn’t think it was possible, but…
* I really wish more people knew about Sheila Simonson, particularly her Regencies, which I think are just the most awesome Regencies around. I know a lot of people love Georgette Heyer, but she (and most other Regency authors) leave me cold. Simonson, however, I LOVE with the flaming passion of a thousand suns. I just got out A Cousinly Connexion the other day and pretty much enjoyed myself wherever I opened the book up, which is rare. I found out Uncial Books is re-releasing Love & Folly soon–consider me a happy, happy camper.
* Speaking of books I wish more people knew about, I loved Midori Snyder’s Oran Trilogy (first book here) and was thrilled to find out they’d been re-released with new covers. I loved the old covers but I’m gladdened by the re-release more than I can say. I was looking for them about a year ago and could not find them anywhere, which made me a Sad Panda.
* I am thinking of decommissioning the Penguin Love cups. The person I had that tagline with (because penguin love is the sweetest love, delivered in a Cartman voice) is no longer a part of my life. It used to be a tagline we just trotted out whenever something flat-out didn’t make sense; it was out way of commemorating the absurdity of the world. It is no longer. I’m going to have to put together some new cup designs.
* Last but not least, oh holy hell, can I just please write this circus book in sequence instead of in little weird bits needing to be held together by wire? This is beyond a doubt the sloppiest-looking half a draft I’ve ever worked on, and it’s mine. *headbonkety*
I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming…
August 28th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
“But maybe I just didn’t pull it off well enough. Or maybe I was just an idiot when I worried it might shock people. Maybe I’m a prude? I didn’t think it was possible, but…”
You pulled it off wonderfully, no worries there.
The main issue about smexxors is whether they belong to the story in that particular moment or if they’re there just to gain a couple pages in a book. In this case, it helped understanding the relationship between Nikolai and Selene and gave an insight to their characters, so it had its own reason to be there.
And it was grandly written, but then, my opinion might be slightly biased… *mazoku whistling innocently*
August 28th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
I am awaiting arrival of my copy of hunters prayer. Yay. Also, still buzzed every time I use my giant Saintcrow mug. Awesome, can’t wait to see the new range.
August 28th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
“But maybe I just didn’t pull it off well enough. Or maybe I was just an idiot when I worried it might shock people. Maybe I’m a prude? I didn’t think it was possible, but…”
I too thought it was well done. The only thing that upset me is that Nikolai is such a freaking idiot regardless of how old he is. She feels like he’s raping her every time they have sex and the creep doesn’t pick up on that? Or he does and just doesn’t care. So yeah, the sex didn’t bother me, Nikolai did.
August 28th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
“But maybe I just didn’t pull it off well enough. Or maybe I was just an idiot when I worried it might shock people. Maybe I’m a prude? I didn’t think it was possible, but…”
I’m joining in on the general consensus here: it was very well done! I actually thought it would be more than it was, the way you were leading up to it in your journal, but it was perfect as it was for the scene. The thing that bothers me a little though is the way Selene can’t see past her generalization of vampires and see that Nikolai genuinely cares for her, or maybe even more than cares (at least from my perspective). Sure, he’s a Nichtvren that obviously has forgotten how to show a human that he cares, so he’s a “bit” possessive at times. Heh. I can’t wait to see how this progresses; every Mon/Wed/Fri I keep checking the site a dozen times to see if it’s up yet (darn those time zones!). I’m a little confused though; will this be published in book-form when you’ve finished it, or is it already? Cus I would dearly like to have Selene and Nikolai in my bookshelf too.
August 28th, 2008 at 11:40 pm
“darn those time zones!”
Heh, that makes it the 2 of us!!
September 2nd, 2008 at 10:10 am
I liked the scenes, and the character building that went into them. I wish both characters were more open with each other, but that’s what’s making the story so great. So don’t change anything, I’m loving the story and can’t wait for the next chapters.
September 3rd, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Loved it, loved it, loved it. But then I love smexxors when they appear in circumstances as masuzko expained so well.
That scene illustrates how very divided Selene is. We’re viewing an extreme exercise in the futility, at times, of mind over matter.
Something I really like about your writing is your exploration of the nature of Power, all kinds and at all levels of society and person to person. Charactars who have power, but are exploited by the more powerful; people who can’t reconcile who they used to be with who they are now and so they are stuck, stuck stuck until circumstances move them to change.
And with Selene, a subtle twist onsubjugation/exploitation vs free will: is it rape when your mind says, “No”, but your body says “Yes”, because your body needs sex to survive? Is it rape when the magical compulsion to have sex is from within, rather than without, (like a spell, etc)? Very intresting things to think about! I love this series!!!
PS
Re Nikolai understanding her feelings- as a male circa 800 C.E. I doubt he is particularly intrested in Selene’s need for self-determination. Besides, an obssessed person is rarely able to appreciate the feelings of the object of his obsession.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:07 am
I am on with the rest… I’ve read ‘worse’ than that.. I might even have written worse (that I am sure of…:-/ )
And as said previously, I was ’shocked’ on how Nikolai didn’t see further than his own need on how Selene was coping… at the ‘question’ he raises I was hoping he would at least try to understand and sooth her… and he just… goes on with his program…
I was so… angry with him at the time… (even though, I had my own attempts at the theme I always cut them short when I know someone else will read… because I am too much a traditional ‘prude’ and because I always think it’s going to be the ‘worst’ scene of all… but the scene in Selene was perfect in my opinion…