5 things abt Corambis, Project Valkyrie, & fluffy cats

[truepenny]

Another half hour last night with the Wii. Was completely thrown off by suddenly having the male trainer "filling in" for my female trainer on the first exercise of the evening. Mercifully, he went away after that, but it was the worst halfmoon pose I've done in quite some time. wtf, Nintendo?

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Thank you to everyone who has commented with support for and love of my books on the previous post. I appreciate it a great deal more than I can express.

Thank you also to casacorona, who stepped up to the plate to explain how things look from the publishers' apex of the triangle. A thankless task--for which I thank you!

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Also pursuant to the previous post, the April Locus has a review of Corambis by Faren Miller, which includes phrases like "Monette displays both wicked powers of invention and something like sly wit" and says the ending "should satisfy even the rare cynical reader who hasn't already been won over by Monette's gifts for character, voice, and great prose." So I'm feeling better.

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Catzilla got me up this morning by sitting on my pillow and draping his incredibly fluffy tail across my face. I hope that this was a mere accident and not actually, you know, planned. Because if it was planned, I am so doomed.

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I regularly tell Catzilla (he whom we rescued from the flower bed) that he doesn't know how lucky he is, and given the size and scope of his brain, it's true. One of the feralistas who hangs out on and around our porch is a long-haired brown tabby (named Hilary in honor of Sarah Caudwell's Hilary Tamar, because I have yet to figure out what sex s/he is), and poor Hilary has, I noticed this morning, a mat large enough to be mistaken for a kitten on his/her right haunch. S/he also has dead leaves matted into his/her tail, and in general needs the kind of grooming help that s/he is much too skittish to allow.

It's hard to be a fluffy kitty. This is something even Catzilla knows.

Comments

[heresluck]

You and your fluff-brained fluffytailed cats, I swear. Thank goodness you have the ninjas to up the average feline IQ in that house.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

What can I say? I have a weakness. *g*

[casacorona.livejournal.com]

Fluffy cats rule.

[heresluck]

It is a very cute weakness! Which I share, of course. Except for the part about the buckteeth fluff.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Hee.

[callunav.livejournal.com]

Oh, go Locus!

Right on.

[cruaich.livejournal.com]

That's much more the sort of review I would expect you to get. I finally had the money to order Corambis last night. I got the last copy in Amazon UK so they'll be ordering more already. :) Eee, I can't wait until it arrives!

[alamaris.livejournal.com]

Perhaps the fluff-brains come with the fluff-bodies. I know my own hairmonster is one of the dumbest cats I've ever met, yet somehow, sometimes, he manages to rub enough brain cells together to make me seriously wonder about cat dictatorship.

I'm glad to hear you got a cheering review. No matter what one thinks of one's projects, nice words are always good to hear.

[casacorona.livejournal.com]

You're very welcome.

[cassandraterra.livejournal.com]

Hillary sounds like my cat Cristobal. He was all matted up when I took him in. Luckily Cristobal wasn't skittish so we were able to get him in a cat carrier and off to the vets. He's just SO fluffy!

[sienamystic.livejournal.com]

My big blond fluffball Dexter was trapped, with his grey brother, at about 12 weeks, and I fostered them until Miles was adopted and it was clear that Dexter, who was the world's biggest chickenheart, would never find a home because all he did at the adoption fairs was cower. He's still skittery, although much improved, and we tell him constantly how lucky he is because he would NEVER have survived out in the world with his magical combination of dumb and scaredy and hairy.

[slimequeen.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who is unnerved by the male trainer invading the Wii Fit. I always start out with deep breathing, and I swear I'm so jolted by that man's voice he makes me almost fall off the board. Fortunately, he doesn't horn in that often.

I just gobbled Corambis up!

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

I came home from a brief and unplanned sojourn in the hospital to find that the library had the book for me, and talked my hubby into taking me there to get it. I didn't have enough energy to read my email or catch up on LJ, so I needed a book. I found Corambis not only extremely restorative, but quite satisfying to read.

I loved the settings and new characters and where you went with Mildmay and Felix. I am still, childishly, a little disappointed not to learn more about Heth-Eskaladen's mythos. I'm totally in love with the idea of a librarian god who descends into hell and who ends up being worshipped by the underclass of a city, many of whose members one would presume would be illiterate or mostly so and the sort of people who would frequent libraries.

At any rate, thank you for the series. When I was telling my husband about the books yesterday I concluded that The Doctrine of Labyrinths is a series that is likely to stand the test of time. I think that I'll keep it on my shelves when I chuck out a number of other series, and that Ephrael Sands may well join Abdul Alhazred and the mysterious author of The King in Yellow in the list of names to conjure with!

Re: I just gobbled Corambis up!

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I'm glad the book was there at a moment when you needed it.

And, really, what more do you need to know about Heth-Eskaladen than your very tidy summary? I don't know any more than that.

[larryhammer]

Now I'm trying to envision what something that is like, but is not, sly wit would look like.

---L.

[mia-mcdavid.livejournal.com]

"Monette displays both wicked powers of invention and something like sly wit" and says the ending "should satisfy even the rare cynical reader who hasn't already been won over by Monette's gifts for character, voice, and great prose."

Well, YEAH!!!

[mmarques.livejournal.com]

The first time I saw the male trainer, I freaked and messed up my pose. Then tried to figure out how to swtich the trainer back. Now, I just roll my eyes.

[rabidfangurl.livejournal.com]

I had a thought on the Sequel Problem. Why not just have a two or three page "previously on" summary at the beginning of each book? Not as part of the story, but more as prologue. The old hands can skip it and the newbies can use it as a quick guide to where they are. I mean, they do it on TV all the time, so why not books?

[mevincula.livejournal.com]

that used to be pretty standard practice in fantasy of the 1980's...sigh. I guess there ARE some things I miss from the 80's.

[(Anonymous)]

Fluffy Kitty Tail! Words of goodness. I have a question of genuine interest, and concern. If ACE dediced to cut you loose, which is a grave mistake, because your work has proven itself countless times, (your voice IS truly unique), have you already found another publisher? Will you publish books now for the house that published The Bone Key?

Same anonymous in the other post, who said firstly ´It doesn´t matter´.

(it does, so dumb of me)

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I am, at the moment, Between Publishers. No one hopes more than I do that this situation will change for the better soon.

[cissa.livejournal.com]

My fluffy, woolly-furred ct like to "share" her tail by sticking it in our faces at night during cuddle-time. We are not as enthusiastic about this as she is.

I am still trying to de-mattify her; I've got the ones around her neck and sides, but the ones on her belly and in her armpits are not such that she appreciates attention to.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi

I just finished reading Corambis, and I wanted to tell you that I like it tremendously - not least because we met someone (Murtagh) that Felix really connected with - with a connection that seemed, albeit singular and transitory, more complete on a number of levels than any that were described for him before. I guess there's that whole martyr resenting being a tarquin thing. (?) That's just one of the many reasons it was a very SATISFYING book. So thank you. (And it's Ace's loss, btw. I'm looking forward to reading anything else you write, in the world of Melusine or otherwise. Though I hope in.)

'Verlain', if one googles for a definition:

http://www.learn-foreign-languages.net/lflnet/french.asp

From which:

[L'argot (French Slang)

French slang is an active language which is used in informal situations to create a more friendly linguistic environment. The funniest form of slang is undoubtedly Verlan, which consists in separating a word into syllables and rearrange it with a different order. It was probably create as a code to convey secret words in front of authorities and with time it has became so popular that many verlan words are used in everyday French. But where does the name Verlain come from? To understand this, let's play the game. The starting point is l'envers, the French for "the reverse". If we divide l'envers in the two syllabes l'en and vers, we invert them and put it together in a single word, we obtain vers l'en...adjust the spelling and...here you are: verlain...easy, no?]

And on a complete segue, verlain as you use it in the book is almost exactly what variations on the consonant cluster HRM mean in Arabic. Sacred/sanctuary (as in Haram as-Sharif - the al Aqsa mosque, the dome on the rock, in Jerusalem), dirty/unclean (haraam - like pork) and not to be touched (the Harem of Haroun al Rashid).

Warm regards

Zafar

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

I did not know about Verlain; I think I borrowed my made-up word from the name of the French poet Paul Verlaine, mostly because I like the sound of it (which is where most of my made-up names and words come from). But that's a very pleasing accidental convergence.

On the other hand, the concept of verlain comes from my reading of the anthropologist Mary Douglas' Purity and Danger. So although I did not know that about Arabic (nifty! thank you!), I take no credit for reinventing that particular wheel.

Bookjoy and fluffy cats

[razziecat.livejournal.com]

Amazon just emailed me that my copy of Corambis has gone out! HAPPY DANCE!!!
As you see by my icon, I, too, am graced with the presence of a fluffy cat. He is Razzie...from Erasmus, which supposedly means loveable, which he is...except when he jumps onto my dresser 15 minutes before the alarm goes off and knocks things onto the floor because, hey, if he's up, shouldn't I get out of bed and entertain him?