The Devil's Work

So mirrorthaw and I have been joking for a while about this Ph.D. in early American history I'm apparently pursuing in my spare time*, and this morning I realized that I could submit a thesis proposal by January 1st if I needed to. Which, THANK GOODNESS, I don't. Also, ironically, I think it'd be a pretty good book--better in many ways than my actual thesis. Hypothetical title: The Devil's Work: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692.

( click for outline )

So, yeah. I could write this book. I'd even kind of enjoy it. But there is NO WAY IN HELL I'm going back to school, so unless some publisher is crazy enough to want to pay me for it, it shall remain, as it is now, hypothetical vaporware. (Yes, that's a tautology. I'm kind of fond of it.)

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*Despite all the reading about Nazis, I'll never be more than a dilettante in the history of the Third Reich and the Holocaust, because I can't read German (or Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Hebrew, etc. etc. etc.). Had I But Known, I would have taken German in high school, but I didn't know--and there would have to be some pretty radical changes in my life and my goals for me to take it up now.

signal boost

Probably you've seen this already, but. Brianna Lacey is missing.

Moff's Law

Found via Tobias S. Buckell, this is awesome.

the happiest geek in geekland

Since I'm spamming LJ today anyway--

The mail just brought me two copies of ESLI Magazine (one of which I will be mailing to Bear here presently), in which appeareth the Russian translation of "Boojum." I can identify which story is "Boojum" because it's the only one with two authors (and I can sort of recognize Bear's name and mine in Cyrillic)--and it has an illustration in which I can recognize both the Lavinia Whateley and Black Alice Bradley. (!)

People, I am SO. GEEKED. Endorphin rush and everything.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!