C.E. Murphy's Blog, page 85

Green Tea Cupcakes

So yesterday was the 200th birthday of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Irish author of such gothic classics as UNCLE SILAS and CARMILLA. Swan River Press, a small Irish press specializing in gothic horror and half-forgotten Irish authors, has done a rather splendid celebration of Le Fanu, including

- a track at last weekend’s Eurocon

- a walk through Dublin with Le Fanu’s life & career as the path

- a lecture last night by Le Fanu expert Jim Rockhill

- and the release of DREAMS OF SHADOW & SMOKE: Stori...

Unforgiven: A Highlander fic

So a few weeks ago, Medieval POC, the website I feel is the actual purpose of the Internet existing, posted this picture:

and requested immortal vampire fic. I was all like “VAMPIRE WUT NO HIGHLANDER OBVS!” and she said that would do too.

And then I, er, had an idea. And then…well, then this happened:

Unforgiven: A Highlander Fic

Etruria (today, Tuscany): ca 500 BC

The last thing he remembered was the lion killing him.

He didn’t expect to awaken in a field; he did not expect to awaken with a surge...

10 movies

I’ve been working on this list for a while, and in the past few days an actual meme of it seems to have popped up on Facebook, so I don’t know, maybe it’s in the gestalt. It was surprisingly difficult to come up with the list.

Ten movies I will watch over and over again, in no particular order:

1. While You Were Sleeping

2. The Cutting Edge

3. The Replacement Killers

4. The Hunt for Red October

5. A Knight’s Tale

6. Sliding Doors

7. Maverick

8. Robin Hood (Disney)

9. The Princess Bride

10. Much Ado Abou...

Fantasy Fudge update!

Soooooooooooo the fudge fundraiser closed out on Saturday morning at a preposterous 615% funded and about 60 pounds of fudge promised to people all over the world.

The truth is that *making* the fudge isn’t nearly as big a task as packing it up will be. I’ll be sending out a Choose Your Package (1 type, 3 types, or Sampler Package) poll soon, and will make and ship the fudge in October. My expectation is that I’ll be spending weekends making and packing fudge to ship on Mondays, and I’ll prob...

Shamrokon!

Shamrokon was a lovely, fun, totally exhausted weekend. Not so much exhaust*ing* as exhaust*ed*; for some of the attendees it was the 3rd con weekend in a row, and for lots of them it was the 2nd. It turns out that’s a lot. :)

I myself was on three panels (all of which went pretty well), helped judge the Golden Blasters, which are one of my very favourite parts of the current Irish fandom scene, and threw a Let Them Eat Cake party on Friday night.

The biggest mistake of the cake party was not l...

Dublin 2019!

Dublin 2019! That was the other thing I wanted to mention in yesterday’s Loncon blog!

As you know, Bob, Dublin is putting in a bid to host WorldCon in 2019. I got involved with the bid about 18 months ago, and I’m really excited about the prospect.

So, apparently, is everyone else: by Saturday night at Loncon there were apparently about 250 pre-supporters, people who have given 20 quid to help finance the bid itself as well as the convention. There were many others who asked if we would be at S...

Loncon!

Loncon was pretty amazing.

It was well-run, with the only really visible snafu being that they weren’t prepared for 3000 people to show up at 9am Thursday, imagining, instead, that they’d show up more gradually through the weekend. So Thursday there was a Very Long Line to pick up registration materials, but they handled it super well and kept it moving. A highlight was my friend Kate, after walking from one end of the very long convention centre concourse to the end where Loncon was taking pl...

things to say

I have a lot of political posts warring in my brain to be written and not much actual will to write them right now, it seems. I guess in another couple weeks I’ll see if I still want to say them.

In the meantime, this is a good body image campaign.

Ten days to go on the Fantasy Fudge Fundraiser and $1077 to make me write a story about Joanne attempting to make fudge. :)

After running out of ink and getting a new toner cartridge, my printer has started jamming on hideously wrinkled pages. After c...

TBR shelf doom

I’m afraid the TBR shelf has gotten totally out of control again, and I have two SFF conventions coming up. This cannot bode well. But it’s not my fault! We went to America, where there are thousands of different titles you can’t find here! I found Barbara HamblyHamilton’s Abigail Adams murder mystery series! I got Michelle Sagara’s CAST IN FLAME (which is my new favourite of the series, OMG, the action! OMG, the end!)! I got new Jack Campbell books (I love them. they do exactly what they say...

thinks to do in august

- print up & proof STONE’S THROE

- make fudge

- go to loncon

Loncon Schedule:

Autographing 1 – CE Murphy

Thursday 13:30 – 15:00, Autographing Space (ExCeL)

THERE MIGHT BE FUDGE. :)

The Superhero-Industrial Complex

Thursday 18:00 – 19:00, Capital Suite 7+12 (ExCeL)

The creation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been one of the most exciting pop culture developments of the last decade — and contradicts the decades-long strategy, followed primarily by DC, of keeping superheroes in their own worlds for...