"Out Of Ambit": Diane Duane's weblog

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Saturday, December 31, 2005

Idiots
In this morning's email, along with the inevitable spam, arrived something that made me laugh.

As usual, some of the mails were phishing expeditions, trying to get me to give them my eBay info. And one of them said:

"eBay Fraud Meditation Request"

(snicker)
posted by Diane: 12/31/2005 01:54:00 PM | link to this post

Statler & Waldorf fans...
...did you know the boys were doing live movie critique "From the Balcony" for Movies.com?

Just a thought.
posted by Diane: 12/31/2005 09:42:00 AM | link to this post

Once a trade negotiator in Narnia, always a trade negotiator in Narnia
Or something like that.

A story issued by financial news agency AFX on Sunday...claimed Narnia had walked out of the World Trade Organisation talks in Hong Kong because it was fed up with being bullied by the US and Europe.

I really want to see a copy of the original press release. (Alas, both SFX and Forbes have withdrawn the original entries. Not surprising, since this happened back on the 18th...)
posted by Diane: 12/31/2005 09:28:00 AM | link to this post

Friday, December 30, 2005

Hmm. New (old) eReader coming?
From Publisher's Lunch:

2006 is already looking a lot like 2000 again. At January's big Consumer Electronics show, Sony is expected to unveil a US version of their e-book reader using an electronic ink display, previously available only in Japan (where it hasn't exactly set the market on fire.) Expected to retail for $300 to $500, the e-reader will draw materials from Sony's own iTunes.com clone -- where Harper, Random House, and Simon & Schuster have agreed to provide files, with Harper and Random each saying they'll offer nearly entire lists of 25,000 titles. The report has no indication on how the e-books will be priced.

Does this mean that they're getting rid of some of the more annoying DRM on this thing? Let's see...
posted by Diane: 12/30/2005 08:11:00 PM | link to this post

"Io Ironia"
Imported with such pleasure from Property of a Lady:

What's this empire coming to? Now they want us to stop greeting people with "Io Saturnalia! "We have all these different cultures in Rome," they tell us. "We shouldn't offend anyone," they tell us, "We've got to be inclusive."

We've got the barbarians from the north with their tree decorations and their fire rituals. And the weirdos from Gaul, cutting mistletoe with a golden sickle. And the Mithraists, the Zoroastrians, the Isis cults, and, of course, those characters who hang out in the catacombs. "Hail, Winter!" we're supposed to say. I ask you, what next: we lose the feast? We stop the Solstice parties? No more honoring Ops, goddess of abundance?

I was buying some greenery down by the Forum the other day, and there's old Macrobius with some Visigoth chick, and she goes, "Gut Jule." And I go, "Hey! In this country, we say, 'Io, Saturnalia!' Maybe you should go back to where you came from." Then Macrobius goes, "She can't, she's a slave."

Whatever....

(heh) Happy Holidays.
posted by Diane: 12/30/2005 07:51:00 PM | link to this post

The divine Miss S. and the Eggnog Recipe
Nothing could induce me to reveal her name.

It was a long time ago, on the 6th floor (as it then was) of Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic (as it still is, though it's no longer part of Cornell -- or only glancingly so -- as it was when I worked there).

As one of the most junior nurses working on the floor, I saw many unusual things, most of which the seal of practitioner-client confidentiality prevent me from discussing. But come holiday time, there was a recurring event which I now feel it safe to reveal.

It was Miss S.'s eggnog.

(Nothing could get me to tell you her name.)

Miss S. was...frankly...a goddess. In a time when the term is thrown around with idiotic lassitude by razor manufacturers and those trying to make a fast buck, as well as those whose characters partake a whole heck of a lot less of the divine than they'd like to think they do, the term is desperately overused. But it would not have been misused of Miss S.

She was Jamaican. (And still is, as far as I know: the past tense here should be understood to imply my past and not her passing.) She was about six foot two. She was not a skinny woman: but neither was she fat. She was, straightforwardly, stacked like the brick ****house of your best imaginings. She wore her hair quite, quite short, and this helped her look more like a superbly carved ebony statue of some torrid-zone deity than you can possibly imagine. There was no room she merely entered: she was her own procession.

Miss S. (forget it, I'm not telling you her name) was also a most excellent psychiatric nurse. She had a liking for evening and night shifts, which is probably why I saw so much of her (being then the most junior member of staff and therefore routinely stuck on nights during much of the early part of my practice at PWC). Working with her was always a treat. Under that gorgeous slow-spoken smooth-as-treacle Jamaican accent lurked the intention and skill of a wily and thoroughgoing professional, a woman who could get anyone (mostly meaning our clients) to talk to her about anything (mostly meaning whatever was bothering them). She was formidable, indeed nearly fearless: I once saw her take a fire axe off a seriously out-of-control schizophrenic with no weapons but that voice (in basso-growl mode) and a scowl. Nobody messed with Miss S.

She also made the most outrageous eggnog.

She smuggled a discreet small amount of it into the clinic only on one night each year, New Year's Eve, and only to those who deserved it (which is why nothing could get me to tell you her name, as of course what she did would have been construed by the clueless-but-superior as rather naughty).

And here's how she did it (or so she told me):

You take a dozen eggs. You separate the yolks from the whites. You freeze the whites and do something else with them. (Probably meringue.)

You beat the eggs together extremely well with a pound of confectioners' sugar / icing sugar. (UK icing sugar is actually slightly superior for this, as unlike US confectioners' sugar, it contains no cornstarch.) You then pour in half a bottle of Myers' Planter's Punch Rum (or other good smooth dark rum).

You mix it all well and put it in the fridge, tightly covered, to get friendly with itself overnight.

The next day you combine this mixture with about half a gallon of whole milk and at least a quart of cream -- more, if you like. And the rest of the rum. Into this whole business you then grate fresh nutmeg (not more than a quarter teaspoon, as nutmeg is toxic in excess) and some cinnamon and allspice to taste. Check the flavor, and then add more milk/cream if you feel the eggnog's too strong.

Refrigerate for a while more: then serve it forth.

Miss S. also told me about a stronger version of this -- apparently called the "Pan Am Pilots' Eggnog" -- which involves the further addition of a dozen whipped egg whites and a bottle of apricot brandy. This is doubtless why Pan Am went under.

...I've been making this eggnog on and off for more than twenty years. It's now traditional down at our local pub on New Year's Eve: our thank-you to our neighbors for putting up with our constant search for Galactic Domination.

Try it...see what it does for you. If you try it, raise a glass to the Divine Miss S.

And Happy New Year!
posted by Diane: 12/30/2005 06:35:00 PM | link to this post

Today's cool stamp
Got a Christmas card this morning from my old housemate Theresa (aka T.R.), who's working in Kosovo at the moment. I was more interested in the card than in the stamp at first. Then while I was checking T's address on the card against the one I had on file for her before dumping the envelope, I noticed that the stamp was denominated in Euro.

"Huh," I thought. "Didn't know Kosovo had gone onto the Euro..." And I took a closer look at the stamp. Quite neat. The tiny little letters say "United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo." (Click on the image for a larger version.)

Here's UNMIK's web page. Fascinating...

I look forward with slightly unnerved interest to T's promised MP3s of New Year's celebrations in Pristina, which she suggests contain considerable amounts of both fireworks and gunfire...
posted by Diane: 12/30/2005 10:32:00 AM | link to this post

Happy blog entry titles (#1 in a series...)
"Speaking of dancing chibis..."

(As one does.) :)
posted by Diane: 12/30/2005 09:20:00 AM | link to this post

Thursday, December 29, 2005

Palm OS version of _A Wind from the South_ now available
For those who might be interested, we've now got a Palm (.pdb) version of the book available for purchase and download. There's a separate button for it in the right-hand column.

This version of the book was edited in WordSmith and has been tested in that and in Palm Reader / eReader. There are some more details about loading this file in the A Wind from the South / "Raetian Tales" weblog.
posted by Diane: 12/29/2005 02:41:00 PM | link to this post

Jesus in space
...Yet more tea on the keyboard. I really should bring the paper towels in here: it's plainly going to be one of those days.

In Texas we made two archangels guarding the church entrance with huge swords, and they had the best mullets. Any angel or archangel that this company makes, the hairstyle is the mullet.

The above from an article in Stayfree Magazine, entitled "Jesus in Space": an interview with a man who designs and implements robot Jesuses (and other such Christian-oriented animatronics) for churches and other religious organizations.

(And if you can hear Anna Russell's voice saying "I'm not making this up, you know", well, so can I.)
posted by Diane: 12/29/2005 12:08:00 PM | link to this post

Tea on the monitor again...
It's hard to keep it in your mouth sometimes. Especially when reading stuff like this:

Muscle: In a small number of tested cases (84%) PANEXA was found to cause abdominal wall muscle breakdown coupled with spasmodic activity in lower back/spinal muscles, resulting in most patients violently bending forward like a book slamming shut. While some other drugs promote similar responses (gemifbrozil, fresh cherries, nicitonic acid, cyclosporine, mustard gas, and acetomenaphin) PANEXA's reactions are over 48X as powerful and take place with a great deal more panache and flash. Also, PANEXA can contribute to developing inhumanly powerful tongue muscles, capable of licking through steel.

(Thanks to Peter David for the link.)
posted by Diane: 12/29/2005 12:01:00 PM | link to this post

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Baby, it's cold outside. Time to reconstitute the mealworms...
No, seriously. From the package instructions:

They can be fed year round straight from the pack or re-hydrated by soaking them in warm water for 15 minutes or until soft. Re-hydration will further enhance their appeal to birds.

I bet it will. But I'm not dealing with any worms at all until I've had my tea.
posted by Diane: 12/28/2005 10:27:00 AM | link to this post

Thursday, December 22, 2005

Somebody...stole...Alistair...Cooke's...BONES??

The bones of the late British broadcaster Alistair Cooke were stolen by a crime ring that snatched body parts to sell for transplant procedures, according to reports in two New York newspapers on Thursday.

Citing sources close to an investigation by the Brooklyn district attorney's office, the Daily News said Cooke's bones were snatched before his cremation and sold for more than $7,000 to two tissue processing companies.

??!!
posted by Diane: 12/22/2005 09:20:00 PM | link to this post

This morning's heresy
Re comments from yesterday:

Speaking of theology, did you know that you've been accused of committing a heresy so ancient that it was condemned by Augustine?

Let's see, can I copy and paste Greek?

Looks like I can: It's called apokatastasis.

(The cut-and-paste from the comment to here wouldn't work, so I transliterated.)

Anyway: yup! That would be me. (In the fictional mode, anyway.) And Augustine? Fooey. Who's he when you have St. Gregory of Nyssa and the excellent Origen on your side? ("That most modest of writers." A good role model.)

But, wow, it's been weeks since I've been accused of a good heresy. Someone bring the Comfy Chair in here. And the Soft Cushions.

(wanders off to get some tea, muttering: "Xanten. Antichrist. Still can't get over that one....")
posted by Diane: 12/22/2005 10:29:00 AM | link to this post

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

The referral logs confuse me once again
So here's one for you, people:

"sword-of-xanten antichrist"

What? What??

Dear Seeking Person:

You are very confused. I guarantee you won't find whatever you're looking for here. Go somewhere else.

(headclutch)
posted by Diane: 12/21/2005 07:40:00 PM | link to this post

Ooh, Ursula!

"I'm impatient with genre as a label of quality. But if we could stop critics being ignorant, genre would be interesting."

If!

...If C. S. Lewis is my master, U. K. LeGuin is unquestionably my mistress. (For certain very specific values of "mistress". Calm down, you guys.)

(Thanks to Jessa at Bookslut for the link.)
posted by Diane: 12/21/2005 07:15:00 PM | link to this post

Monday, December 19, 2005

Hey, UK folks... "Sword of Xanten" is airing on C4 on Friday
Just so the UK readership knows: Channel 4 will be airing Sword of Xanten -- that's the title they gave the feature version of Ring of the Nibelungs -- on Friday, December 23rd at 12:35 PM.

I have to say that neither of us is entirely wild about the feature cut. It's tough trying to ram four hours' worth of screenplay into so small a space, and I'm afraid the roughness shows. But (as we keep telling each other) at least the thing got made. So make some popcorn and kick back. The dragon's fun, at least.

(BTW, considering the hour at which they're showing the thing, I have a feeling some of Kristanna Loken's more, uh, revealing scenes are going to be curtailed. Well, fooey.)
posted by Diane: 12/19/2005 01:16:00 PM | link to this post

Sunday, December 18, 2005

Ah me, I've been tagged (yes, it's the Holiday Meme)
By email. And anonymously. I swear, whoever did this, I'll track you down and make your life annoying somehow. (sigh) But doubtless this is the Universe getting back at me in some obscure way. I was just muttering the other day about being endlessly on that "Have you read this book?" meme. (And afterwards, yes, thinking, "What the heck are you complaining about, you loony?" Never mind.)

1. What's your favorite holiday movie?

For funny? No contest: A Christmas Story. (Scrooged would come in a close second.) ...For serious? Probably the original version of Miracle on 34th Street.

2. What's your favorite holiday song (title and artist)?

The Pogues' "Fairytale of New York." (The only Christmas song I know which contains the word "maggot." And other words that rhyme with it.)

3. What's the best holiday gift you were ever given and why?

There was this "Patti Play Pal" doll that I remember with great affection. I think I was six at the time.

4. Do you have a special someone to kiss at the stroke of midnight on New Year's?

Absolutely. Been kissing him for nearly twenty years now and have no plans to stop any time soon.

5. Name your favorite reindeer?

Comet. Comet's had a lot of bad press in the last few years. I never did believe that whole thing about the "honeypot" sting and the missing plutonium. I blame rogue elements of the old KGB, myself.

6. Favorite holiday food?

Pumpkin pie.

7. Snow day -- cuddle by the fire or hand me a snowball?

(sigh) Do I have to pick one? Okay, I'll have the cuddle. (Other required accessories: cognac by Remy Martin, snow by Leukerbad, fireplace by Brauereigasthof Aying outside of Munich.)

8. What was your New Year's resolution from this year?

To keep off the weight I lost in '04.

Did you stick to it?

Yup.

9. Is there really a Santa Claus?

(blink) Last I saw, the Bishop of Myra was still a historical personage. Let's not get too revisionist here: it might damage the results on the morning of the 25th. (BTW, does anybody know any other saints who were victims of bodysnatchers? I'm not just talking relics here: I'm talking the whole body. Though since it's "merchants" who're reported to be responsible, I guess we can assume that relics might have been on their minds. Who knew that the commercialization of Christmas got such a head start?...)

10. Present or stocking stuffer?

Uh, this sentence no verb.
posted by Diane: 12/18/2005 02:24:00 PM | link to this post

Saturday, December 17, 2005

An example of why I really, really like Cleolinda

Speaking of cheese, I just got a spam email with the subject heading Careless cheddar. What, guilty cheese has got no rhythm?

Heh.
posted by Diane: 12/17/2005 01:52:00 PM | link to this post

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Just a word to those of you who've bought "A Wind..."
First of all, thanks! :)

Thanks also to those of you who let me know how small the page size was. I wasn't entirely clear that the thing was formatted for A4: my apologies.

If you'll go back to your download link in an hour or so (or whenever you please after that, naturally) and download the file down again, you'll find a much more easily readable version of it.

(You may also have received an email from me about this issue by the time you see this note, as I'm about to gang-mail all the earliest buyers.)

Another note too: the book will have its own page over at http://raetiantales.blogspot.com momentarily, as soon as I get some FTP issues sorted out.
posted by Diane: 12/15/2005 01:54:00 PM | link to this post

Astonishment
Folks...thanks so much for all your responses. (There have been about two hundred so far.) I am utterly blown away by the willingness to lay out cash for something that isn't even vaguely visible over the horizon yet.

It becomes obvious that I'm going to need to keep people posted on what I do about this project. With that in mind, I started up another blog at http://felinewizards3.blogspot.com. I'll post a link to an RSS feed for that tomorrow or the next day so that it's easier for everybody to know when something new happens. I'll also be mailing people to let them know that they're on an informal mailing list (and there are a lot of the mails I received that need answers anyway.)

Meanwhile -- it seems to me it might be smart to test-run another aspect of this experiment. A lot of you have said "I'd buy anything of yours..." (Which, by the way, is incredibly flattering.) Well, here's your chance to buy something of mine that's never been published (though it's been bought a couple of times...). For more information, please see the material I've added to the bottom of this post.

Thanks!
posted by Diane: 12/15/2005 12:13:00 AM | link to this post

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Straw poll
I got an email this morning that started me thinking. Among other things, it said:
Will you ever do a follow up to "To Visit The Queen?" I love those books!

Well, I love them too -- I've always had a soft spot for those characters. After a few moments I wrote back:

Though I had a third book planned, the first two have never sold very well on either side of the Atlantic, so there is (unfortunately) zero chance that any publisher will buy a third one. I have occasionally considered writing the book and self-publishing it -- but again, there's no guarantee that enough people would ever buy the self-published book to repay the investment in time and money that it would take me to write and publish it. For the time being, at least, it seems that I'm going to have to concentrate on the "mainstream" YW books.

But thanks for your interest!

And then I started to get up and go make some tea.

And then I sat down again.

The outline for the third book, The Big Meow, was completed in 1998. The series' then-editor at Warner read it and liked it, but after consulting with the sales staff -- as editors must -- she passed on it: what we both knew at that point was that the first two books weren't selling anything like strongly enough to justify taking the gamble of publishing the third one. So I sighed and put the outline away. (For those who're curious, it completes the trilogy, and -- like the second book -- has a strong time-travel component: but this one's set in just-post-WWII Los Angeles. Those who remember the film "Cast a Deadly Spell" will immediately catch somthing of the intended atmosphere.)

Every now and then I'd get another of these emails, and send out a response more or less like the one you see above...and then I'd sigh. Because it's a book it would be a lot of fun to write. And of course every now and then a fan will say, "You should just go ahead and write it!" And I sigh some more. Though I absolutely do my work because I love doing it, I'm also running a business here. And I have a lot of calls on my time. Right now there are about six other projects cooking along on the top of my creative cooktop (...yes indeed, she's going into food idiom again...this is what happens when I blog before breakfast...) and in each of those cases, people have put it in writing that they're going to give me money when I turn the work in. I therefore know that, when the dust settles, my cats (and husband) will eat. And that's a good thing.

This situation, though, would be much different. I would be taking something of a leap of faith -- itself not so terrible a thing: I do that every time I sit down at the computer to write something. But this leap -- essentially writing a book "on spec", something I have not done since my first novel twenty-five years ago -- would involve putting in months of labor (which at this point in my career translates into a pretty hefty pile of cash) for a very, very uncertain return. I might never see even a reasonable percentage of that investment returned...which I would find extremely annoying. Time is too damn precious to waste.

So now I turn to the readership and ask you/them to give me some data to work with.

The obvious solution to this problem is publication on demand (POD). I don't mind doing that. But you have to understand that it ain't cheap at the reader's end. Without dragging you all through the math -- which would take me a while, and I have enough trouble with math after the caffeine hits, let alone before it -- let's just say that a "trade paperback" perfect-bound copy of The Big Meow is going to cost you hardcover prices, not paperback. If I'm to make any money at all on the deal (by which I mean, at least recoup my publishing and labor expenses), you're going to be paying $20-25 for a copy of this book.

Would you?

If you would, drop me an email at this address:

thebigmeow@youngwizards.com

I'd also ask those of you who read this blog and frequent LiveJournal or other communities where there might be interested parties to please forward the contents of this message to them in whatever ways seem most appropriate. (Either post the URL of this blog posting's permalink -- see below -- or just cut-and-paste the pertinent contents. Or just paraphrase the basic message and pass on the email address where people can indicate their interest. In any case, folks, please spread the news around any way you can to those who would be interested in seeing it.)

The address has an autoresponder on it, so anyone who mails to it will know that what they sent was received. You don't have to write a message if you don't feel like it -- if you do, you might like to add the subject line "Response to straw poll" so I'll know that message has something in it.

I'll leave the mail address working for some months, as there's no way I'd be in a position to start doing anything about this project until the spring anyway.

The ball's in your court(s) now. Let's see what you have to say.

(...An addition: the following material appeared in a later post -- I'm moving it here.)

It occurred to me that it might be smart to test-run another aspect of this experiment. Specifically: which works better -- paper-and-electronic formats, or just electronic?

A lot of you, in responding to the post above, have said "I'd buy anything of yours..." (Which, by the way, is incredibly flattering, and thanks.) Well, there's one book of mine which very few of you will have ever heard of...because, though a publisher paid for it (indeed, it was sold twice), it was never published. It was written, though...so we can try out on this one some of the techniques I'll later be using on The Big Meow. What's also interesting is that this book's situation is almost the inverse of TBM's: it was the first book of a projected trilogy, rather than the last.

A Wind from the South was originally outlined and written as part of a three-book package sold to Corgi Books / Transworld in the UK. The other two books (The Door into Fire and The Door into Shadow) were easy enough for Corgi to market, but they didn't quite know what to do with Wind in terms of marketing, as it didn't fit into any of the (then) expected categories. It was a 125,000 word fantasy novel with a very strong historical component, but it took place in the country which would eventually become Switzerland...and for some reason, the Corgi sales staff had real trouble figuring out what to do with this. Eventually -- because Fire and Shadow weren't selling all that well in the UK, and they decided to cut their losses -- Corgi elected not to publish Wind, and released the book back to me. No other English-language publisher was particularly interested in Alpine fantasy at that point...so finally I put the book back in the box and got on with other things. Then, a few years ago, the book was bought again by the publisher Heyne Verlag in Germany, and very nearly had its first publication in German -- which would have had kind of a strange resonance considering some of the events in the novel. But not long afterwards Heyne was bought by the Bertelsman publishing conglomerate, and in the ensuing corporate downsizing, many projects in progress were dumped, AWFTS being one of them.

At any rate, I've been intending to turn this book out into the great world for some time. (There were some even some abortive attempts at home-based POD some years back, but it was too labor-intensive at my end, and didn't work out.) A Wind from the South could well be a perfect-bound paperback from Lulu.com eventually. But for the moment, I don't see why I shouldn't release it as an e-book.

So here it is at RaetianTales.blogspot.com. At that page you can read the first two chapters (as a .PDF file). If you like the sample material, the whole book's yours for $5.99 via PayPal. The "buy it now" button is in the middle column of this blog, and also over at RaetianTales.

Thanks!
posted by Diane: 12/13/2005 10:16:00 AM | link to this post

Sunday, December 11, 2005

Okay, now I am bummed
It hasn't been the best ten days or so. I've spent most of it codeined out of my mind in attempts to deal with the pain while the antibiotics deal with a broken and abscessed tooth.
And now they tell me that the "Teen Titans" animated series is being axed? On the heels of that tremendous three-parter that restated the original comic's Trigon arc?? Argh!

And feh. Feh, feh, feh. I'm going back to bed.

(But at least there's still the comic. Go Joe Torres.)
posted by Diane: 12/11/2005 12:09:00 PM | link to this post

Saturday, December 10, 2005

Instructions

Never leave your unit in a freezer, convection oven, or cyclotron unless the Cell Phone function is set to END CHARGING (U symbol; Ü symbol on German-language units).

...To operate in Spot Welding mode, see pp. 38-42. Welding mask included with Type AQ-2.5 units only.

...Calculator-mode note: Never attempt to compute the distance to Betelgeuse from earth while watching C-SPAN. (See p. 401.)

For a moment there I thought that Mike Ford had written this. Oh well: still not bad.
posted by Diane: 12/10/2005 03:38:00 PM | link to this post

And one other thing...

Wizardry powers Blogger. But you knew that!