Spiderwater

“But now I shall never get out,” said Floralinda, in tears, “there is no solution to my problem that isn’t a prince, and I’m all out of princes, and I don’t want to jump out of the window and die. This is the worst conundrum I ever heard of.”

(rolls down a dusty hill through open window) Boy! Not much has happened since I last posted on Tumblr (laugh track) but every so often I amble on to tell you, three followers and my boyhood friend Christopher who still hasn’t read any of my God damned books and yet makes fun of me ceaselessly, about all the wild things occurring:

Gideon the Ninth is now available in paperback. This provides warm nesting material for winter, and also contains a new appendix of material, including an in-universe essay about how thinking the cavalier-necromancer relationship is ‘horny’ is an evil idea that nobody should ever commit to in fiction, which is how you know that in-universe fiction commits to it constantly; it also has a dossier compiled by Cpt. Judith Deuteros about how Coronabeth Tridentarius is NOT a babe. Talk about a challenger for Tolkien’s appendices

Harrow the Ninth arrives in less than a month. I received my hardback copies of it (author’s privilege) and flipped through it. It landed open at a scene where Harrow gets told the whole plot of a romance novel. I write only the hardest action scenes

My novella, “Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower”, has been announced for November 2020! That’s this year, if we live! It’s a VERY long novella. My first reader, whose name rhymes with “A.K. Farkwood”, described it as “Enid Blyton meets Slay the Spire”. If you were forced at gunpoint as a child to read “Pip the Elf” and wished dreamily that Pip would fall off a cliff already, this is for you! It’s about an awful princess who meets an awful fairy, and their adventures in being forced into the same small space together eating the same damn meal over and over (NOTE: I wrote it BEFORE lockdown).

Subterranean Press specialises in very beautiful hardback editions and the end physical product will be very specific and lovely, but for those of us with limited shelf space it WILL also be out in ebook (that’s just not available to pre-order).

Today is the 14th of April and you can go and read the whole first act of Harrow the Ninth! 

I finished Harrow long before Gideon ever went to publication and it is extremely weird having it now be in the pipeline to be read. I’ll have also finished Alecto before Harrow is out, which will be weird in the same way. Alecto is a very different book to Harrow and Harrow is a very different book to Gideon. Gideon was about two girls crammed into a bloodstained get-along shirt; Harrow is about, as stolen from A.K. Larkwood, two girls who are not enjoying this Duke of Ed residential very much; Alecto will be about girls being annoyed that it is legal for their exes to talk to each other. The tomb is open. The get-along shirt is empty.

Naturally I had a hell of a lot of fun writing Harrow and it is very personal to me. It is about a girl staggering over the finish line with all her limbs ground down to stumps only to discover that that was the start of the marathon. It is about another girl who owns thirty thousand stupid outfits, and wears them. It is the hideousness of being a grown-up and discovering the protagonist of your sequel is some emo kid with Disney hair who hangs around Goofy and Donald. It is about meals.  

Really it is a book that, at its heart, is the bit in the Homestar Runner music video for TMBG’s Experimental Film where Strong Sad falls hard out of the sky and the spectator stand announces that it is a lion. 

I hope you enjoy. Take care out there.

Raven Rock baked ash yams

Ash yams are the staple food of Raven Rock, and the locals have gotten creative over the years with how to use this hardy and simple vegetable. These baked ash yams are served under a blanket of delicious white meat ragout, preserving the heat for cold winter meals. When shopping for yams, be sure not to confuse them with sweet potatoes. Yams can be either orange or purple, but both taste great!

You will need: 4 medium sized yams, washed and scrubbed Olive oil Garlic salt ½ brown onion, diced 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped ¼ cup butter 2 chicken breasts, cubed 2 cups chicken broth 1 cup heavy cream 1 cup white wine 1 tbsp mixed herbs Salt and pepper to taste

Method: Preheat oven to 220C/425F and line a baking tray with foil.

Baste the yams liberally with olive oil and sprinkle with garlic salt. Bake for 45 minutes and prepare the ragout in the meantime.

In a pan, brown the onions and garlic in the butter. Add the chicken breasts and continue cooking until golden brown and cooked all the way through. Remove from heat.

In a pot, combine the chicken broth, cream, and wine. Cook on medium heat, then add the chicken, onions, garlic, herbs, and salt and pepper. Stir well and cook until the chicken is soft and tender, about 8 minutes.

So when analyzing music, one of the tools you can use is a spectral analyzer. A spectral analyzer maps out the frequencies and intensities of those frequencies into an image that you can view to compare one song or recording to another.

Here’s a violin concerto spectral analysis:

And here’s your average rock song mp3 spectral analysis:

….and HERE is Aphex Twin’s song, “[EQUATION]”, spectral analysis:

Hahah, holy shit, right? Aphex Twin encoded a picture of their creepy smiling lead singer/songwriter into the industrial noise of this song.

This 7-year-old boy is making light-up Pokeball badges to keep kids safe while playing Pokemon Go in the dark.