Sean Gibson > Recent Status Updates

Michael Chabon writing about Sherlock Holmes? Commence series of a million tiny literary orgasms...now.

Fun fact: Victoria once bent Kaiser Wilhelm II over her knee and spanked him with a frying pan. He was 34 at the time and enjoyed it greatly.

I feel about Michael Chabon's writing how Penny Belding felt about Screech impersonating Zack Morris: it makes my teeth sweat.

Fun fact: In an effort to be provocative, the Queen wore nothing but a bonnet trimmed with lace to the jubilee celebration marking the 50th anniversary of her ascension to the throne. Because the prudish Victorians refused to acknowledge that nudity was a real thing, however, no one noticed anything amiss.

I'm not really buying Constance's Robocop turn here...

Fun fact: in private, Victoria referred to the position of Prime Minister as HMB, or “Her Majesty’s Bitch.” The lone exception was Benjamin Disraeli, whom she preferred to call “Big Uncle Snugglecakes.”

You're right, Bill--excremental waste product DOES hit the ceiling-affixed air circulation machine every time Pendergast shows up...

Fun fact: John Brown invented sliced bread and served it as his own funeral.

Diogenes is to creepy what "The Middle" is to annoying pop song earworms.

A long overdue dive into a seminal classic...

(I'm pretty sure that, even when I'm 80, I'm still going to giggle when I use the word "seminal." Let's all just accept that I'm immature, okay?)

Fun fact: Publicly, William Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli were referred to as "The Lion and the Unicorn." Privately, they called themselves "Ace Shootdown and the Milkman" for no other reason than they (erroneously) thought it made them sound cool.

There's STILL time to get a FREE copy of The Chronicle of Heloise & Grimple--until July 30!

If you're in the US, click here to enter the giveaway.

If you're not, go here instead.

Note to self: if you ever find yourself incarcerated in a federal penitentiary with Pendergast, do NOT try to make him your bitch. Also, don't forget to get milk on the way home today.

Fun fact: John Brown was not a real person. Fearing that the revelation that the Queen had a very intimate imaginary friend named John Brown would lead to speculation that she was going mad, the royal physician hired a burly, kilt-clad Scotsman named Angus Macintosh to pretend to be Brown. Given that John Brown was rumored to be hung like a zebra, Macintosh never went out in public without a prosthetic enhancer.

Incredibly thankful to Ivana for featuring an interview with lil ol' me on her blog, talking about The Camelot Shadow, writing influences, and my favorite book. Check it out and see if I manage to avoid saying something embarrassing (spoiler alert: I probably don't).

https://diaryofdifference.com/2018/07...

I love that Banshee is shocked and all mouth agape when he finds out that Moira has a husband (whom she hasn't seen in 20 years), but he's totally chill and accepts with equanimity the fact that she has a crazy mutant son she's hidden from the world and who's now trying to kill him and his friends and possibly all of humanity.

Fun fact: Prince Albert's premature death was caused by a combination of overwork, Crohn's Disease, and eating too many green gummy bears. Three were found hidden in his mustache when the mortician prepared him for the funeral.

Friends outside of the US: your day just got better!

(What? No, I'm not quitting Goodreads...how would that make your day...never mind, don't answer that.)

Seeing as how you can't enter the Heloise & Grimple Kindle giveaway, here's a way you can still get the book for free: https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...

Share the news!

Not that I'm complaining, because it's both a real-life place and fictional setting that I love, but going back to the Museum of Natural History again, guys...jeez. I feel like being a curator there is getting to be a little bit like being the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts.

Fun fact: Among the many things Bertie, the future King Edward VII, did to embarrass his parents, perhaps the most egregious was the time he accidentally propositioned a highland cow at a costume party. To be fair, Bertie was really drunk, and the cow looked really good and turned out to be an enthusiastic lay.

A few days ago, I made a crazy promise that we'd celebrate my finishing the first draft of a new Heloise book with a giveaway of the first one. And when I make a crazy promise, friends, I DELIVER: https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sh...

Enter early, enter often, entertain. (Folks outside the US: I'm going to figure out a way to get you free books, too--don't worry.)

So, I just finished the first draft of a new Heloise book--huzzah! And now all the editing and querying. *Groan*

But, methinks we should celebrate with a giveaway of the first book--details to come in a few days.

In the meantime, check out the blog post that started it all: https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...

Fun fact: The Crimean War was the second-leading cause of death for British soldiers during the 1850s. The leading cause was testicular combustion resulting from an inability to quickly and efficiently remove corsets and petticoats.

Fun Fact: The ostensibly animatronic giant mice that greeted visitors to the 1851 Great Exhibition were actually just orphans in costumes that were sewn directly to their skin. Recent labor law changes did, however, humanely limit them to 16-hour days.

Fun fact: the ostensible reason Louis Philippe of France was deposed in 1848 was civil unrest in the lower and middle classes; the actual reason was his factually erroneous and utterly absurd assertion that the best song on Bon Jovi's eponymous 1984 debut album is "Runaway" when it is, in fact, "She Don't Know Me."

I totally feel like I could rock Conan Doyle's mustache. I'd make that thing look GOOD.

Fun fact: amongst their many notable performances at the annual Buckingham Palace Christmas Karaoke party, Victoria and Albert's duet of Endless Love was, perhaps, the standout. Due to her smooth baritone, Victoria took the Lionel Richie part, while Albert's yearning, soaring tenor enabled him to simply crush the Diana Ross part.

I love how square Conan Doyle was. He was definitely the kind of Victorian who was simultaneously mortified and aroused by the sight of a bare table leg.

Fun fact; Victoria's first-born daughter, also named Victoria, was affectionately known as "Pussy." After age 18, she took to wearing a Guy Fawkes mask that she only removed when engaged in various foot fetish activities with her occasional paramour Joseph Merrick.

(Bonus fun fact: unlike most of the fun facts I've posted for this book, this one is 50% true.)

It speaks volumes about me, I think, that I've loved every second of this so far, but my favorite part is probably the fact that, in the parlance of Victorian Scotland, one might describe acting in the capacity of pimp as "improper housekeeping" from a legal perspective.