A little while ago, I got a very kind email from a book club in CA who had read Mechanique and enjoyed it, which is just the sort of flattery an author likes to hear. However, one reader had been inspired enough by the book to actually sculpt Alec, the Winged Man(!!), and that is too damn cool not to share.

(The group in question, posted with kind permission! I smiled a lot when I opened this picture, I can’t even pretend otherwise.)

The artist, Talitha Sherman, writes, “They are made, as is only right, entirely from things I had laying around,” which I could not love more. (I also really dig the very early-Gothic icon-y Alec against the sweep and movement of the wings – just awesome!)

Thanks to Talitha, Shannon, and the whole book club for pretty much making my week!

Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate. I have a lot to be thankful for, not least for all the amazing people I’ve met via the magic of the internet.

I’m taking a break from stuffing my face to report that, in a move I can only assume is a Thanksgiving present made exclusively for me, the BBC has announced the full cast lineup for its four-movie Shakespeare cycle airing next year, encompassing Richard II, Henry IV (Parts I and II) and Henry V.

I had known about some of the cast (Ben Whishaw, Jeremy Irons, and Tom Hidleston as the kings, alongside Michelle Dockery, Lindsay Duncan, and David Suchet, among others), but the full cast announcement has just been made, and I’m slapping it here because there’s too many names I like to even bother with excerpts.

Take a look under the cut for some Awesome Actor Camp Gladiatorial Games!

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I found out this morning that my story “Light on the Water” has been nominated for A World Fantasy Award, alongside some seriously amazing work.

I am still reeling a little, but I gotta say, news like this has a way of making one’s morning.

It’s not just a sub-par Moby lyric, IT’S ACTUALLY TRUE.

(That is an actual thought I had at Launchpad, while we were learning about the most common substances in the universe. It’s easy to dismiss Moby for everything after Play – not only easy, but probably a good idea – but the dude got some factual information about science at some point, that much is clear.)

Meanwhile, the Hubble, which is determined to show us how much we’ll regret letting it just fall apart in space, is taking pretty pictures just to spite us.

Dear Earth,

You know what? I am just taking pictures out here because it’s pretty and I feel like it. Don’t think this is about you, Earth, you hear me? Because I am over you. I don’t want you to worry about me, or feel guilty about just giving up on me forever, or anything like that, because I could not care less. You have fun with your James Webb Space Telescope, okay? Because I don’t even know what I ever saw in you, and I’ve got better things than you coming up.

No love,
HST

P.S. SEE ATTACHED, SUCKERS.

(Not pictured: filename “neenerneener.jpg”)

Also, yes, I have probably turned into one of Those Kids Who Won’t Shut Up About How Fun Camp Was*, and you’ll be regularly hearing about astronomy alongside movies and costuming. (Uh, fair warning for those who hate the night sky, I guess?)

As a kid I loved staring at whatever stars I could see (mmm, suburban light pollution), and I knew the mythology of the various constellations without having a sense of their real scope (or, let’s face it, knowing where many of them were). Launchpad really filled in some of the handwavey places in my brain and rekindled that little-kid love affair with the sky. It’s like I’m a kid again, only now I’m a really tall kid who knows terms like “visual binary” and pays taxes and has realized planes are not actually fun to be on like your parents always said they were!

* To be fair, I have not, nor will I ever, like an actual camp. I was out on Vedauwoo for less than three hours and I managed to wound myself and have an allergic reaction. The best thing about astronomy is that you can do it anywhere where you can look up, like penthouses with skylights. This will involve making new friends who have skylights in their penthouses, but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.

Okay, I have not even begun to settle back in from Launchpad, where I spent a week learning about space with some unspeakably awesome people, but I have a lot of updates and not enough time to write thoughtful intros for them (or for anything, ever). So, we’ll do this list-style and then I promise to bore you sometime later this week with the awesome details about making s’mores with people using only starlight for heat and marshmallows we harvested ourselves.

(This did not happen. Wyoming has no marshmallow trees, as they only thrive in the Pacific Northwest.)

1. First, fiction news! My short story “The Zeppelin Conductors’ Society Annual Gentlemen’s Ball” is up at Lightspeed Magazine!

2. I saw Inception opening weekend. I had to wait until I was in New York to do it – I dropped my suitcase at my apartment and went straight from there to the theatre – but I saw it. I will be writing more (a lot more) about this movie later, but for now, my SPOILERY review is up at Tor.com. SPOILERS. It says so in the cut-tag, but I’m direct-linking, so SPOILERS. SO MANY SPOILERS. THE TITANIC SINKS. DARTH IS LUKE’S DAD. SO MANY SPOILERS.

3. Launchpad was great. I wrote up an intro post here, with some handy links, and followed it up with Four Fun Things About the Universe, for values of “fun” that include the knowledge that if you get close to a black hole you’ll be torn to shreds by gravity. Whee!

Tomorrow I should be caught up and ready to blog again. I hope. (I might just go home and sleep 12 hours. It’s reverse altitude sickness!)