Sarah Monette's Blog, page 42

Let's go three for three: signal boost: Con or Bust

con_or_bust , the annual fundraiser to help fans of color attend sf conventions (primarily WisCon), is up and running. Very cool stuff, very cool cause.

another signal boost: Red Cross

I just got email telling me that:

Severe winter weather throughout much of the United States has caused the cancellation of nearly 23,000 blood and platelet donations nationwide through the American Red Cross since January 1.

There is a critical need for donors now. All blood types are needed, but there is a special need for donors with type 0 negative, A negative and B negative blood.

Now, this email is asking me to donate, and it drives me nuts that I can't, especially since I'm A negative. But I need to get this stupid iron deficiency thing sorted out. So I'm doing the next best thing, and posting this.

If you can donate, this would be a great time to do it. Go here to find a blood drive near you and schedule an appointment.

The Red Cross estimates that every donation they get helps save three lives.

Signal boost: Connery Beagle

Doranna Durgin is doing a fundraiser for her beloved and amazing dog, Connery Beagle ( connerybeagle or @ConneryBeagle) with a collection, The Heart of Dog (dog-themed specfic stories by Durgan and a bunch of other nifty people, suggested donation $2.99).

To be clear, unlike with the Ben Jonson Memorial Fundraiser, Connery Beagle is alive and struggling with a horrifying array of medical problems. So donations will help keep him alive and able to keep doing the things he loves. And this seems to me like a very good thing.

Shadow Unit DVD extra

New Shadow Unit : "Katabasis," which is about the protagonist of my first season episode, "Dexterity" and about the stuff you have to live with after the story's over, even if the good guys win.

Unnatural Creatures: postage question

For those of you who asked, the cost of mailing one copy of Unnatural Creatures to the UK is $5.44.

Project Valkyrie: waterlog

55 minutes, 1 mile.
302 miles, 2 laps.

Unnatural Creatures

So of the 169 copies of Unnatural Creatures, seven (that I know of, and I devoutly hope there aren't any more) are defective in one way or another. None of the defects makes the slightest difference to the readability of the book. I know some people (like me) will be driven nuts by imperfections, while other people (possibly more sane) won't care. So I'm asking, if you're one of those people who will not be bothered, please comment here and volunteer to take one of the following copies:

#1, 2, 3, 4: the text is improperly centered (I apologize for not knowing the correct technical term), so that the margin at the top of each page is enormous and the margin at the bottom is cramped. No text is cut off--it's purely an aesthetic issue.

#133: the front cover is very slightly bent. This can probably be corrected by the cunning use of a very heavy book and some patience.

#147: the title page is torn at the bottom left. It's a small tear, and I have personally mended it with Scotch tape so it doesn't get worse.

#169: the front cover is dog-eared. Unlike with #133, there is a visible crease.

I am also willing to offer a bribe to those who volunteer. Suggestions as to a suitable inducement are welcome.

Thank you!

5 things

1. We had a thirty-six hour internet outage yesterday and today. SO not amused.

2. Also not amused by Wisconsin's governor. But yay for the 30,000 protesters!

3. Sean Wallace has posted the cover mock-up for the new edition of The Bone Key. I am in love with the cover art.

4. 169 copies of Unnatural Creatures have arrived! I have signed and numbered the entire print run, and this weekend will be all about making up orders and shipping them out.

5. Today, Milo and I cantered off the lunge line! This is huge, because the last time I tried cantering off the lunge line, back in May, I fell off the horse. It's taken my instructor and me this long to get me to the point where I was ready to try again, and OMG it felt completely different and SO MUCH BETTER. Completely psyched.

5 things, chlorine and echoes edition

1. Project Valkyrie
60 minutes, 40 laps.
301 miles, 2 laps.

2. Everything is melting. The world is a mess. And Wisconsin's new governor is just going from strength to fucking strength.

3. My wrists have been bothering me, and with all the sleep dysfunction nonsense, I don't have much energy, plus I have a book to revise and another half a book to write ( matociquala writes the other half), so blogging is probably going to be light and sporadic for the next little while. Just so you all know.

4. I know they're deadly carnivores who would eat me in a heartbeat, but I have a hopeless soft spot for polar bears. Especially when they're as cute as this little one and his or her mom.

5. I'm not a big fan of Valentine's Day (too many years in public school), but I am a big fan of love. So here's some itty bitty kitty Valentines committee pictures.

UBC: The Puritan Way of Death

Stannard, David E. The Puritan Way of Death: A Study in Religion, Culture, and Social Change. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.


This is a very uneven book. When Stannard is actually talking about seventeenth and eighteenth century New England and the conflict in Puritan orthodoxy between longing for and fear of death, he's excellent (the section on funerary carving and sculpture was particularly illuminating). But he insists on trying to make a transhistorical argument, and those parts of the book I found both unconvincing and off-putting: I didn't want to be convinced, because the argument seemed smug and arrogant. And very 1977.


And there's this fascinating piece of historical trivia:

in New York during the late seventeenth century, funeral ceremony was so neglected that legislation had to passed requiring that some attention be paid to the dead in order that instances of foul play might be discovered; it was ordered that every time someone in the colony died a delegation of neighbors was to be called to view the body and follow it to an approved grave site to be sure that it in fact arrived there and was properly interred.
(Stannard 129)

It pings my story radar something fierce.

Also, to an even greater degree of trivium: one of Cotton Mather's many publications was a book entitled Death Made Easie & Happy. Which, because my brain works this way, sparked the following progression:

Death Made Easie & Happy ==> Death Made Easy ==> The Idiot's Guide to Death ==> Death for Dummies

That also badly wants a story, but I'm not sure I'm the one who ought to write it.