The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Eirin:

It strikes me as if the 'selling services to authors' (aka vanity publishing) is nowhere near as potentially successful as the 'sell books to the public' model.

It's more reliable, though. Authors will unfailingly buy their own books for resale, when that proves to be the only way to get the stories in front of readers. Not as many as an even just halfway decent commercial sale, but that doesn't really matter since the author already paid up front. No risk.

Commercial publishing has all that risky business of initial investment, being able to spot a good seller, all the work of getting the trade to notice it...

Of course, in this case, it's obvious that HQ is trying to have their cake and eat it too.

Harlequin books will still be eligible for the Nebula, provided SFWA members vote them in.
I vaguely remember a truly horrible self- or vanity-published book that actually made it to the long ballot. I can't recall the title, but Macdonald reviewed it once upon a time.

Xopher, you'll be shooting off in no time.

I'm gonna go look for some sense now.

Sarah S. @ 28

Well, you keep beating it.

Erik Nelson @24

One that might blow up in your face.

Macdonald @ 53:

I gotta say, Xopher, that I only know of one unclean use for a spoon. Are there many others?

I feel like such a naïf. I don't even know one unclean use for a spoon.

Farewell to Hiro, and welcome Aggie Maggie.

Essi @ #51:

So perhaps the biting has something to do with that, but Agnes just hasn't learned what's the approriate force to use.

Going out on a limb*

With the exception of certain dwarf hamster species, I think hamsters are solitary animals. Apparently they can be quite vicious toward each other.
It would be strange for them to have a bond-with-grooming instinct outside of mating rituals, if then.

Serendipitously connecting blood-thirsty hamsters to Buffy in a roundabout way, I've recently been watching a show called Talking to Animals, featuring Anthony Steward Head's partner, Sarah Fisher. She has a quite amazing rapport with animals, but she employs techniques that can easily be tried at home as well. With small and/or excitable animal, a feather on a stick seems to be particularly effective. It appears non-threatening to the animal, and the light touch is soothing and pleasurable. And if the critter bites anyway, at least it wont be your finger. That's always a good thing.

*It's been years and years since I worked with animals and I might misremember about hamsters in particular.

Thanks. I was thinking of all the sufaces and things one really can't help touching during the day, such as doorhandles, money, the neighbor's adorable puppy...
Thus the importance of careful handwashing, of course. Sensible vigilance and hygiene will have to do, since I can't really see myself carrying a can of Lysol around, spraying random surfaces and stray change.

How long is the contagion active outside the host's body?
I've been trying to find some information on this, but I'm unsure of how to formulate my search. Maybe we don't have that kind of detailed info about this particular strain yet, but is there a quick'n dirty guide for flu viruses in general?

I find myself consumed by a morbid fascination regarding binding in human skin.

I can imagine this was supposed to imbue the text with dire powers, but it's possible the idea came to me from fiction rather than fact. Hmm, must research now.

Lila @ 3 and Fragano @ 5 re. weather.

I'm just now in the middle of Elizabeth Bear's Hammered and had a dizzying blurring-of-realities moment when I read your posts.
Are there dikes going up around New York?

Congratulations to the U.S.

The rest of the world is celebrating with you.

Call me Pippin. Some years ago - never mind how long precisely - having little or no money in my purse, I stole a plum.

Never mind. I must have goofed.

Is Absolute Write gone again?!

The Large Hadron Collider.

Is there a little one?

Mary Dell @ 188: his full black hair flowed from his face like a crest

Paranormal werecocatricewolf romance?

Drat. Make that Mary Dell at 108.

Vef @ 69: Every mention of 'High Lord Kevin' sent me off into giggles anyway.

I know. I think many a SF/F writer go a tad overboard with contrived names, but...Kevin?!

I quite enjoyed his Gap-series and Mordant's Need though.

Mary Dell @ 198: Excerpt from Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

I rather like this sentence: My body was her chariot, and she drove it into the sun.
The rest is gloriously something.

P J Evans @ 112: One ought always to have a tempestuous Welsh housemaid at hand, although I believe a tempestuous handmaiden is an acceptable anternative.

Terry Karney @ 47

Natural Flavor hunted almost to extinction in Hard Cider. The Sulfites and the Sorbates called in to protect, Naturally Gluten now driven from shore. Send more.

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