September 2011
11 posts
I just posted chapter two of The Serpent Sea as a teaser for the book. The direct link is here. Chapter one is there too, but if you use the direct link, you need to scroll up to see it. Basically, it’s early in the morning here, and what I’m trying to say is that chapter one and two are both there. Also the currently active preorder links. *** I will be out of contact with the...
Some links for Friday: The Myth of Easter Island’s Ecocide Few historical tales of ecological collapse have achieved the cultural resonance of that of Easter Island. In the conventional account, best popularised by Jared Diamond in his 2005 book ‘Collapse’, the islanders brought doom upon themselves by over-exploiting their limited environment, thereby providing a compelling analogy for...
I’ve had real problems writing this week, partly due to sinus headache issues, and partly because I had an attack of the “I can’ts” and I didn’t realize I was having it. It’s kind of like imposter syndrome, where you’re convinced that you’re just faking your ability to do your job, despite massive piles of evidence to the contrary. The “I...
The Serpent Sea is starting to show up for preorder! It’s on Barnes and Noble, Amazon US (doesn’t show discount yet but probably will soon), Amazon UK, and Amazon.ca. It shows up in a couple of other places, but there’s a distributor glitch that has weirdly conflated it with The Tyranny of the Night by Glen Cook. If you’re in doubt about what you’re ordering, the...
It actually rained here last night, a heavy storm that lasted about two hours or so and left two inches of rain. We’re still over two feet short of rainfall for this year, but this does help. The state is getting sporadic rain in a lot of places; it’s not enough to put out the wildfires, but it does make them spread much more slowly and makes them far less likely to get started from...
We actually got rain yesterday! Not a lot, but enough to make puddles. And it’s 70 now and only supposed to get up to 92! This is a huge cold front, I may need a sweater. Actually, after months of 100+ days broken up only by killer-low humidity which helped spark gigantic fires, this is a huge relief. I’m mostly writing and have nothing interesting to report. tingler asked for more...
Fire: The totals for Bastrop (the biggest fire) are 36,000 acres destroyed, 1400 homes burnt, still 30% containment, according to the Austin American Statesman, but I don’t think it’s been updated yet this morning. The DC10 tanker is supposed to start dropping fire retardant this morning. There are more flare-ups in the county next to us, but nothing closer. The smoke was apparently...
Fires are still going. Is the national news even reporting this? When this is over, if it’s ever over, I’m afraid we’re going to be living in a green island surrounded by Mordor. It’s sickening to watch what this is doing to the people, the homes, the pets, the land, the trees, the wildlife, the livestock. The Leon county fire, the one nearest us is at 70% containment,...
The wind has died down though you can smell smoke in the air all over town today. I don’t know the totals, but the Bastrop fire alone is at 29,000 acres. Here’s the fire map this morning: The Red Cross is taking donations, plus if you here in state, various places are taking donations of food, clothes, etc for the 1000s of people who’ve lost their homes, donations of hay and...
It’s cooler today, but there’s no rain in sight, and the dry wind from tropical storm Lee has set everything on fire again. There was one nearby in College Station yesterday: Large grass fire under control in CS So many trees are dead, when we have high wind it blows them down into power lines. And it’s worse towards Austin: Catastrophic fires burn thousands of acres, force...
It’s my birthday today, and I am 47. I probably won’t do anything but work as usual, though I may go out and buy a Pepperidge Farm chocolate cake at some point. I was craving sugar like crazy last night, but that may have had something to do with the fact that Top Chef: Desserts was on. Thanks to nightwalker for the virtual gift on my LJ profile! I love those things. links: After...
