Cover Art and Cover Copy for Atlantis Cranks! Author Chat This Thursday!

[dr_pretentious]

My very excellent editor has posted the cover for Atlantis Cranks Need Not Apply over at the Drollerie Press blog. We're aiming for a February release. If all goes well, I'll have copies on CD to sell at the Wicked Faire.

The Ria story is going the way it's always going: slowly, but forward, but slowly. It's a rough beast slouching toward the Jersey Shore to be published.

Meanwhile, come join me at the Drollerie Press author chat this Thursday, the 18th, 10pm to whenever. Sometime when it isn't 2am, I'll post more details about the how. There will be all sorts of door prizes--free e-books, ARC's of upcoming releases, that sort of thing.

thunderpigeon and annathepiper will be there to talk about their respective books. Books I got to read and love in early drafts long before they found a home at DP. Check out David Sklar's The Shadow of the Antlered Bird, which is sort of a dark fantasy Beatnik buddy movie in which one of the buddies is the son of the queen of Faerie, and he's fleeing for his life from the consequences of his own ill-considered sorcery. Angela Korra'ti's Faerie Blood hasn't been released yet, but the ARC will probably be on offer Thursday night. I still remember reading the first draft of the opening chase scene aloud to Dan, and how in between bouts of bouncing around the kitchen in his enthusiasm, Dan would pause to marvel at the heroine's skill as a bicycle mechanic.

And now for the weekly Gareth Report:
We took the boy to a performance of Handel's Messiah. He made it through the first movement quite contentedly, alternating between my lap and Dan's, watching the violinists and the soloists with rapt attention. He did so well, we almost considered pressing our luck and staying for the second and third movements, but it was past his bedtime. Twenty years ago, Dan and I first met in a high school choir, during the dress rehearsal for the winter concert. The best piece on that program was "And the Glory of the Lord." For a couple of Pagans, we're surprisingly sentimental about the Messiah. I've heard it said that the Devil has all the best tunes. Well, I don't know anything about the Devil, but I'd argue that Jesus has all the best oratorios.

Comments

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

Re: Bookness: W00T! I'd join you on the chat and happily bang on about how fab your writing is, but it would be 3am over here. Still, I shall be there in spirit.

re: Gareth: That's amazing. You're clearly doing something really right with him.

[onyxtwilight.livejournal.com]

So. Awesome.

But now The Messiah is in my head, thank you very much. (Oh, well... it replaced that 'Jizz in My Pants' song from Saturday Night Live, so I suppose it's just as well. >:-)

[citabria]

You think that's bad? How about focusing on Part II, Sec 26.

Damn f-ing sheep.

Welcome to my particular Messiah-hell.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

The sheep song always makes me smile. But then, I'm easily amused. What I don't care for is the "Thou shalt dash them with a rod of iron" bit. The Easter movements are really heavy on the eschatological violence. Primate that I am, I'd rather have violence that's just plain scatological, thanks.

[citabria]

The dashing with iron stuff doesn't stick in my head the way the sheep do. Probably, at least in part, because it's so darned unsettling.

[thunderpigeon.livejournal.com]

Hey, thanks for the plug. And I finally got around to uploading my cover art as a user pic.

And the cover art for Atlantis Cranks looks great! I think I already mentioned this elsewhere. And I'm looking forward to Anna's book, when it's available--it already sounded good, but your enthusiasm adds to that. I did not know that bicycle repair was one of the gifts that the fair folk passed on to their progeny. But having lived in Seattle for a while, I can agree that it's certainly a useful skill in that city.

As for the Devil having the best tunes, I knew someone in college who'd spent a year doing charity work in a village in South America (sadly, I've forgotten which country), and when the natives invited her to their religious ceremonies, one of them described their religion as "a Devil-worshipping cult." She was kind of shocked at that, but she went anyway, and concluded ultimately that at some point a missionary had attended one of their ceremonies and called it that, and the natives said "Oh, there's a word in Spanish for our religion!" and just repeated the phrase without any idea of its implications.

Which is to say, there seems to be a certain subset of religious folk who love God but hate the world (I know, makes no sense to me either), and attribute to the Devil anything that celebrates the beauty of the world and makes them want to stay and enjoy their time here.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

At the Parliament of the World's Religions, Michael York (the religion scholar, not the actor) told me a story about that kind of massive miscommunication when English, Spanish, and indigenous languages collide. He'd gone to some other ecumenical gathering and tried to talk to someone from an Andean tribal group through a Spanish interpreter. The interpreter kept translating "religion" as "the church" and "the sacred" as "things having to do with the church," from which the indigenous woman concluded that she shouldn't have come to the ecumenical gathering because it had nothing to do with her. Eventually Michael found a way around the problem, but I don't remember what it was.

On a different subject

[amushink.livejournal.com]

I keep trying to post your book on my facebook as a favorite, but there is something wrong with the software... keep getting a reject message. Maybe iread doesn't allow e-books?

Re: On a different subject

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Or possibly Drollerie Press would need to send its data and cover art to Facebook or whoever does that applet. I'll mention it to my editor.

[citabria]

Darn, you didn't get to find out if he, too, likes sheep. ;)

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

He definitely likes sheep. One of his electronic toys sings four verses of "Old MacDonald," and the one animal sound Gareth sings along to is the baaaing. Whenever the duck verse comes along, he just points at the duck picture and shrieks "Duck duck duck duck duck!"

Maybe it's a good thing Handel didn't try to include that famous scriptural passage about how all we, like ducks, have gone swimming, along with the one about how all we, like sheep, have gone astray.

Poor Handel. Dead for centuries, and he still can't live down that little accident of enjambment.

Inauguration Day

[(Anonymous)]

This is a very important day for America, perhaps the most important ever. I wish the very best for our new President and Vice President.

And my best wishes too go to Drollerie Press. In 2009, may we receive more and more of the recognition and success that we deserve.

John

[leannarenee.livejournal.com]

I wish I hadn't missed your DP chat, your series sounds simply and utterly wonderous and I'll certainly be checking it out. And I'll say, from having sung soprano on "And the Glory of the Lord" last Sunday at our wildly-left-wing Lutheran Church, with the caveat of being Pagan-leaning myself but for my absolute obsession with High-Church liturgy, I think you're spot-on about the oratorios. Happy Solstice and blessed be.