As part of my obsession with monkeys, I’d like to include the odd bit of simian news.

Schroeder, Gordy and Togo (residents of the Como Zoo, in St. Paul) got an unexpected visitor last January, and he brought treats!

You can find the story here. (via) Thanks to Katy Silberger for the photo.

In Episode Four (Part II – The Human Ideal – chapters one, two and three), Rob meets the “threateningly slender” Ariadne, friend of Hippolyta Shute, unhappy worker at the Consume-It! drugstore, and a beautiful person. Then we see Spider and Seedy as they plan a caper (badly). And finally, we learn more about the a-hole Shute (who you may not be surprised to learn drives a Porsche.)

An excerpt from chapter one:

Ariadne Thipirous worked at the Consume-It! drugstore near Bland Street and Dead White Guy Avenue. I think it would be fair to say that she hated working there as much she hated the idea of needing a special cream for toe fungus, but despite that, she was polite and pleasant with almost everyone who purchased something from the store. It was not their fault that they needed genetically modified foods, mood drugs, panty liners, jock itch cream and many other useful items that kept the minor evils of life at bay. Well, it was their fault, but she could hardly blame them for it without feeling like a hypocrite, particularly as she was working there.

You can find Episode One here, Episode Two here, and Episode Three here. Or you may want to subscribe via iTunes. I’ll be listing all the released episodes here, and when I’ve got five done, I’ll be joining Podiobooks.com.

You can buy the book at the publisher’s website, because surely you don’t want to wait until the Fall, when it will be in stores?

Marvellous Hairy - a novel in five fractals -

Make the most of your inner monkey!

I am just sick enough to enjoy this book trailer:

You can find it here if the embeddy thing gets its arm chopped off.

You can find out how to order this absurd masterpiece book at the website for Etcetera and Otherwise.

One of the best panels I attended at WorldCon this year was the one on “New Media”, despite the tendency of all the panelists to conflate the media form with the method of delivery.

What I liked about this panel was that the authors saw no problems with the advent of the Internet and the one non-author loved the idea of merging media to tell stories.

The participants were (below, from left to right): rock musician Melissa Auf der Maur (formerly of Hole), authors Neil Gaiman, Ellen Kushner, Tobias Buckell, Steven R. Boyett, and Cory Doctorow.

(thanks to Dr. Amy for the pic)

First of all, I have to say that Ellen Kushner did a fabulous job of moderating this panel, which could easily have spun out of control. She’s a radio host, in addition to writing “choose your own adventure” books and other fantasy stories.

Secondly, I was impressed by all of the panelists, but none more than Melissa (the rock musician) for her unabashed Ludditeness and love of the mash of media. There’s something very cool about the way that she is interested in telling the same story in multiple forms. Of course, that is easier said than done because many media have their own sets of rules and regulations, which are not always easy for one person to grasp.

Which leads me to the other neat part of this panel, which is that even the die-hard authors in the group understood how liberating it can be to work in concert with other artists. Neil Gaiman told a great story about how the experience of watching an Off-Broadway production of Coraline affected him (in a good way).

I also loved his anecdote about Twitter, in which he asked for help in doing a Latin translation from his (I’m sure legion) followers: “The signal was tiny and the noise was huge.”

Apparently, most of his followers thought that Neil did not know how to use Google, but luckily, an old classmate of his become a Classics scholar, and could provide a worthwhile text. (And shall henceforth, if what Gaiman said is to be believed.)

The other person who really stood out at this panel was Steven R. Boyett, who’s written a couple of SF novels and who has had a storied career in podcasting, notably as Podrunner, who understands that in the digital age “the unique experience becomes the commodity.”

Ultimately, this is why I was there. I wanted to know how an author of novels makes the same kind of leap that many musicians have been able to make: i.e., your [album/novel/publish work] is your calling card and your performance is the thing that makes you money. But for those writers who are writers precisely because they’d rather sit in a room and type rather than “perform”, what hope?

Alas, there was no (viable) answer.

In Episode Three (chapters six, seven and eight), we are introduced to the bit players in the novel — Seedy, Spider, Blossom and Hippolyta, Ted Shute’s giant-booted emo daughter. The narrator, Rob explains what The Cult of the Claw is all about, and we learn what Nick is thinking as he writes his e-journal in his beloved Titania3000.

An excerpt from Nick’s journal:

In the lab they asked me questions. Deep questions and I hid the answers. Like I do every day, except with you, my lovely Titania3000!

Happily, the scientists decided to proceed. And they swabbed the lower end of my spine with Novocain, stinging, then numb. And in went a deep needle, fushed my fish, mealed my monkey, and deeper went the vile liquid that they wanted to test on me. It did no harm, except to say that now there is a large, swollen bump there, very near the base of my spine. It is tender. And red. Delicate like the prose in monkeyjoy!

It proceeds in another file, a digital brother to this record of my transformation. Who knows, perhaps someday it will be done and we can all have soup for our souls – and not just of the chicken noodle variety!

Mulligatawny ho!

You can find Episode One here, and Episode Two here. Or you may want to subscribe via iTunes. I’ll be listing all the released episodes here, and when I’ve got five done, I’ll be joining Podiobooks.com.

You can buy the book at the publisher’s website, because surely you don’t want to wait until the Fall, when it will be in stores?

Marvellous Hairy - a novel in five fractals -

Make the most of your inner monkey!