Like I've Never Been Gone

1. Back from Fuerteventura.
2. Read 6.5 books (Hiaasen, Ings, Jensen, Kay, half a Link, Mantel, Bolt)
3. Wrote ~30 (A5) pages of fiction-scraps.
4. Visited many beaches; swam 3-4 times a day.
5. Pros of solo holiday: grabbing the last slice of choc mousse without guilt; using MP3 player to block 'ambient' noise of Irish bar next door to hotel*; buying (halfway decent) wine for 1.35 euros without mockery from companion; sandy beaches FTW.
6. Cons of solo holiday: wine sold by the bottle in hotel restaurant, and a bottle a night is too much; nobody to help apply sun lotion to awkward spots; have to carry all one's reading instead of 4 (previously-decided) books each; nobody to help one resist temptation to do nothing at all. Plus, most important, holidaying with ladymoonray is more FUN.
7. Holiday camera fail #675765: now it thinks the card cover is stuck open, which it isn't. Bloody cameras.
8. ozymandias_cat loves me very very much.
9. Yesterday morning (8:30) I was swimming in the sea, alone on beach, gently scorching: 22 degrees.
10. Yesterday afternoon (4:30) I was walking across the tarmac at Stansted in a blizzard. -1 degrees.


*'no nay never no more / will I play the wild rover' is a LIE, one evening they played it four times

when direct marketing goes awry

Am doing email catchup. Delete-delete-delete-delete-star-delete ...

From Amazon:
"As someone who has purchased or rated books by K.J. Parker, you might like to know that Untitled 2 Parker is now available."

I might. But I would much rather be informed that The Folding Knife is now available. How fortunate that they show the cover!

Lazy, Amazon, lazy. I note that 'Untitled 3 Parker' (a.k.a., at a guess, Hammerfall -- which is listed separately) is available next January.

Kage Baker

I've just, belatedly, read of her death on January 31st. She was only 57.

I liked her writing a great deal; she was one of the handful of authors whose works I regularly bought in hardcover.

'The Bohemian Astrobleme', possibly one of her last short stories, at Subterranean Press (via John Scalzi).