Category: Uncategorized

Palimpsest is one of my favorite words.  (I even managed to work it into my thesis, which — given the research had absolutely nothing to do with palimpsests — I admit gave me some joy at the time.)  It’s also the title of Catherynne Valente’s newest novel, which has a premise so amazingly cool that I ache with envy.

And, just to rub it in for the rest of us mortals, she writes some of the most amazing prose I’ve ever read.  She is seriously the most stone-cold talented writer I’ve had the pleasure of meeting.  I realized this about 2 pages into her submission at Rio Hondo last spring.  Oh, and she tops it off by being nice.  The nerve!

One of my favorite and most cherished books as a kid was an illustrated copy of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I read and re-read that thing as only kids can do. It eventually suffered the fate of all cherished childhood books: the spine fell apart. I think my parents eventually got rid of it after they got tired of me leaving a trail of book pages everywhere I went. But I grew up with fond memories of that story, and fond memories of reading it.

I guess I was feeling nostalgic recently. So, wishing to revisit those pleasant memories, I bought a new copy for enjoyment during my daily bus commute. And that’s how I discovered, to my everlasting chagrin and embarrassment, that I had never actually read the novel.

I don’t know what I read as a kid, but it sure wasn’t 20,000 Leagues.

This month’s whirlwind trip to Boston and New York was a great success. I can’t speak for anybody else, but I had a fine time. Here’s the abridged version: Old friends! New friends! SCIENCE! Brooklyn! Heavenly macaroons! Business lunch! Publication dates! Super-secret VIP tours! Lincoln Center!

A slightly longer version of the trip report follows.

A couple of Saturdays ago, around 5 in the morning, I finished reading Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond.  I received the book as a gift this past Christmas (thanks, Daniel), and though I’d wanted to read the book ever since hearing about it almost 10 years ago, I never managed to get around to it until somebody almost literally put a copy in my hands.  (The timing worked out fairly well, too, since thanks to my new lifestyle as a bus commuter, I have more time for pleasure reading than previously.)

My friend and mentor, Charlie Finlay, has a wicked (heh) new trilogy coming out from Del Rey this year. Traitor to the Crown is, in his own words, a tale of “witches fighting a secret war behind–and sometimes in front of–the scenes during the American Revolution.” (A secret history of magic being used to fight a secret war? I think I like that idea.)

The cool part? Del Rey is releasing the books of his series in crazy-fast succession this year: April, May, and June.

Yeah. Because he’s that good and it’s going to be that huge.

But the coolest part? You can download a FREE PDF of the first book in the series, The Patriot Witch— right now, in its glorious entirety — from Charlie’s website.

That’s free as in no signup, no registration, no newsletters, no strings. Just download and read.