Sarah Monette's Blog, page 69

5 things for Tuesday

brit_mandelo discusses The Bone Key lovingly and with sharp acumen at Tor.com.


The evil that grape vines do lives after them.


My life will be a lot easier this summer if I can teach myself not to walk into the Anthropophagous Rosebush.


I need to start writing again. I just wish my brain wasn't so damn empty.


I have a schedule for OddCon:

Friday, April 16, 4:30P.M.: Novel Writing Q&A (come grill an author!)
Saturday, April 17, 10:00 A.M.: Baseball, Fantasy, and SF (self-explanatory, which is probabl...

why plagiarism is bad

Long ago, when I was teaching, one of the things that frustrated me the most was my students' inability to understand why plagiarism was bad. (And, yes, I came across that frequently. I never had to initiate formal proceedings, although I came close a couple times, but it was something I had to be vigilant for, and had to deal with on several separate occasions.) Some of them didn't understand what plagiarism was, and I said many bad and probably libelous things about the educational system o...

Truly, no rest for the wicked.

The insomnia has been particularly bad the last couple of nights (5 hours or so Thursday night and I slept this morning from 8 a.m. until Catzilla knocked my glasses on the floor at noon.) Partly, this is the same insomnia I've had for literally as long as I can remember, in which my body periodically seems to forget how to go to sleep, but partly, I seem to be developing Restless Legs Syndrome, as the long muscles in my thighs spent the night muttering, can't sleep, clowns will eat me...

also...

Happy birthday, brisingamen !

There's a unicorn in the garden, eating the lilies.

I went out and inspected the yard today, to see how we were doing after the ravages of winter. Everything I planted last summer seems to be alive; the irises are putting out green shoots, the hydrangeas have tiny brave green leaves, and the Cerise Bouquet roses, sullen as roses are wont to be, nonetheless are visibly Not Dead. The Grandfathered Rosebush is also Not Dead, although even more sullen, and the Anthropophagous Rosebush is reaching greedily for the sidewalk again. (This is one of th...

A Catfish Dreaming of Being ...

So I could give you a bitchfest about my fruitless quest for women's button fly jeans and why and how Levi-Strauss is FUCKING WITH ME, but you know what? Let's not. Instead, here are the podcasts I promised (right-click to download):
"Darkness, as a Bride"
"Elegy for a Demon Lover"
"National Geographic on Assignment: Mermaids of the Old West"
"Sidhe Tigers"
"The Yellow Dressing Gown"
And for your convenience, a .zip file of all five .mp3s:
Catfish Dreaming

Better things

1. I gave blood yesterday, and the blood drive was very busy.

2. The Elder Saucepan passed his physical with flying colors, plus charming all and sundry.

3. A signed hardback of The Virtu is on its way to the winner of my con_or_bust auction. con_or_bust has raised around $5,000, which seems pretty damn awesome to me.

4. The USPS is going to do stamps to help feed animals in shelters. I have for years now been buying the breast cancer stamps, on the theory that every little bit helps, but I'm mo...

Peter Watts has been convicted.

I am sick to death of my country being demonstrably stupid and evil.

I agree with Dr. Watts' assessment that judge, jury, and lawyers were all doing their best; I also agree with the juror quoted on Derryl Murphy's blog, who suggests that the wrong person was on trial. And I agree whole-heartedly with coffeeem , who points out that the jury had a tool they didn't know about. I'd never heard of jury nullification, and I'm an allegedly educated adult American who has, in fact, been summoned to ju...

UBC: Doc Holliday

Roberts, Gary L. Doc Holliday: The Life and Legend. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2006.


This is the biography of a man who left no account of himself in his own words, which means it as much a book about "Doc Holliday" as it is about John Henry Holliday, D.D.S. Possibly slightly more. Given the inevitable constraints of its subject matter, I think it is an excellent book and excellent biography (the two overlap, but are not necessarily the same); Roberts is very careful about distinguishin...

Let's see if I can get to five.

Congratulations to this year's Tiptree winners and honor list!


Gary L. Roberts (Doc Holliday: The Life and Legend, 2006) offers a really lovely metaphor:

Legends grow, and rarely by design. Like the wisteria in Doc's native Georgia, they spread, encircle, constrict, and hide the damage they do to the truth in a cascade of tales that, like foliage and flowers, cause people to forget everything else. But, like the wisteria, they have an unmistakable beauty that makes them nearly irresistible...