The Return Of Painting With Shotguns

It’s Monday, and Monday cares little for order. Monday is a child of chaos.

Monday is a typhoon. Monday is birdshot. Monday is broken glass.

Here, then, is just a crazy slapdash pile of things shoved into a cannon and shot into your midsection.

CHOOM.

• Bait Dog: An Atlanta Burns Novel is available. Did I tell you that already? I did, I know. Shut up. No, you shut up. No, your blouse is ugly. Pssh. PFFT. Anyway. You can check out the buy links here, and the book will only be $2.99 until Wednesday, so, get it now. Or I’ll send Atlanta Burns to your door with her squirrel gun. Oh. Also. If you’re interested in a softcover copy of the book, lemme know in the comments, yeah?

• I made a “golden syrup” the other day. Two cups of sugar (good sugar, like demerera or turbinado) in one cup of water. Boil. Throw in the juice of one squozen lemon. Boil for five minutes. Then scrape into it the seedy figgy floral delight of one vanilla bean. Take the bean hull, shove it into a jar of sugar to make vanilla sugar. Pour over own hand. Eat own hand and revel in the delight. Or, y’know, waffles and ice cream instead. WHATEVS. I don’t own you.

• This is a super-lovely review of the next Miriam Black book, Mockingbird. Graeme’s Fantasy Reviews gives the book 9.5/10 stars, and says of the book: “Wendig plumbs real depths of bleakness and horror to bring us the world that Miriam must negotiate. It’s a world that we all know is there and one we are secretly glad that we can put down when the book is done; no-one would want to live with what Miriam has to. The way Wendig presents it though makes for nothing short of compelling reading, a book that eclipses ‘Blackbirds’ in its determination to head to new depths for the sake of a good story. Wendig knows that his readers deserve nothing less. If you’re waiting for ‘Mockingbird’ then take it from me, you’re in for a bit of treat. If you’re not waiting for ‘Mockingbird’, well… you should be.”

• I’m closing in on the final third of Gods & Monsters: Unclean Spirits. I’ve since had one god lovingly describe the vagina of his goddess lover, and I’ve had another character describe the versatility of his penis. It’s now clear that something is wrong with me. Or oh-so-right. But probably really, really, wrong. Oh, the book’s up for pre-order and has a cover.

• The ever-lovely Dawn Nikithser of the Bookshelf Bombshells tackled the Double Dead sequel, Bad Blood, in this review, saying: “I am pretty sure that, if given the opportunity, Coburn would smack the shit out of Bill Compton with Eric Northman, puree them both into a nice slurpy snack, and then pick his teeth with the smoking shards of Edward Cullen.” Best description of Coburn ever.

• Updated Worldcon/Chicon schedule: Friday (31st), New Pulp panel at 10:30AM; Friday, a book signing at the Book Cellar with Gwenda Bond, Kim Curran, and Adam Christopher at 7pm; Sunday (2nd), a Mockingbird reading at 10AM, followed by a signing at 10:30 (lasts till noon). And for the rest of the time, I’ll be tottering around drunk and confused.

• I quite like this review of Blackbirds, in which Ivan Ewert says, “I found it to be a story of redemption, of the triumph of human effort; although that triumph is painful and hard-won.” And, “Wendig writes in car-crash prose, swift and sharp. The sentences hook you and pull you along at a breakneck clip.”

• Books I’ve read recently that you may want to read? Paul S. Kemp, The Hammer and the Blade (which made me want to run out and get wrapped up in a D&D game post-haste); Greg Rucka’s Alpha (uhh, hello, Die Hard at Disneyland?); am in the middle of the very delightful The Rook by Daniel O’Malley (supernatural spy happenings both very scary and quirkily funny). Oh, also, John Hornor’s This Dark Earth, a very literary zombie novel — though, still piled in heaps and bundles of delicious gore.

• Hey, Stephen Blackmoore’s Dead Things is up for pre-order. I read this book last year and it was one of my favorite reads. If you’re a fan of Jim Butcher — or, perhaps, of mine — then you want a copy of this book.

• New Mockingbird excerpts are releasing up at This Is How You Die, but I’ll pop the first week’s up here, below. Check ’em out, won’t you? (Features light Blackbirds spoilers.) Click to embiggenate!

• Aaaaand, finally, the Mockingbird fan-art contest has its first three entries. Remember: looking for anything at all. Fine art. Photography. Cooking. Music. Video. Craft. Graphic Design. The visuals: