FANG

Okay, so big thanks to
johnnyk and
kensaro for helping to sell FANG Volume 1's new pocket editions.

johnnyk went to Eurofurence and flashed that pretty smile of his, foisting an impressive number of books on unwary citizens.

Then
kensaro took a bunch of copies to Feral, sitting down at a quiet little table to do some hawking (both of chicken and of books, nudge nudge, wink wink).

And you know what?

Forty minutes later he walks away from an empty table. Sold out.

You guys rock my world.

Oh, and to lay the question to rest...

BDB logo designed by:

BDB.com, FANG. Yeah!

So, www.baddogbooks.com has just been updated.

FANG Volume 1, pocket edition, is available now for $29.99 from http://www.lulu.com/content/406016.

A Mysterious Skydiving Cheetah may be lugging a bunch of the books to Feral. I could give you more clues about how to find him, but that would take all the hardship and misery and failure out of the event, and those are exactly the experiences that Feral attendees, as I have understood, obscenely crave.

Seriously though, check the site. Much toil and hard went into it, and it even has a *forum*, which means it's *real*! Yeah!

Logo get!

A very talented and hideously underpaid artist has been working for these past weeks to meet the cruel, tyrannical demands of his latest abominable client, yours truly. The result has stunned us all. BadDogBooks.com update to follow soon. Books soon after.

It Lives.

One year ago to the day, an enterprising, ambitious, ballsy (and gorgeous and brilliant, ed.) publishing visionary pestered you -- yes, you -- with the announcement that FANG was happening, and proceeded to babble about what this FANG was, anyway.

Or rather, what it was going to be. It was going to be a breath of fresh air to fan the flame of furry fiction. It was going to be brilliant. It was going to be gorgeous. Oh yes. Yes, yes. Yes indeedy. Of course it did indeed turn out to be all those things, and shame on you if you doubted that. And to prove itself better than so many other ambitious undertaking in our fuzzy little fandom that fizzle after the first issue, there was a second after that, with a third in development.

That last phrase is not the normal English idiom, but rather the ominous curse Microsoft mutters when asked about Windows Vista. Well, not very long; progress was made... and then halted due to the deterioration of the fingers on my paw, and boo hoo, some of you might sneer cynically. Honestly the majority response has been thoughtful concern and sympathy, and to answer that most common question: it’s a more or less permanent condition that will get better and worse as my life drags on.

Life!

Life is what was breathed into FANG with the unexpected intervention of a humble, hardworking furry author called Ben Goodridge. I’d been impressed with this individual when he submitted a very fresh, crisp story that impressed me so I demanded he write too more, and then a whole damn novel. And then he up and mails me, asking whether I’d like to let him run FANG.The gall! The sheer gall. “My daughter is sick -- Oh really? Would you like me to take care of her for you?”

My baby, suckling at another’s teat? I passed the test, though, and my possessive ego did not overrule my sense and dedication, and Ben, patient soldier that he is, whittled away at my insecurity and doubt until they were crumbs, For those of you who have experienced the force of my, say, affection for FANG, you understand what a monumental task that was him, and it was that chutzpah that finally convinced me he was the man for the job. We started hatching dreadful plots for world conquest when the sudden arrival of Anthrocon and the simultaneous anniversary of FANG’s first announcement took us completely by surprise. Who knew there were only so few days in June?

Like madmen we worked on some little things that every good launch needs: a new name (Bad Dog Books -- badass, huh?), a new site (www.baddogbooks.com -- fucking metal, yeah!) and a semipornographic postcard distributed at Anthrocon. Check ‘em out. So what’s the great news? Let’s see. FANG is now finally ‘the little book of furry fiction’, because the printer I use has developed the ability to print pocket-size books. The current and coming volumes are being reduced in size to be actually pocketable.

How awesome is it to have that sticking out of your back pocket. Just look at our fabulous lupine model Owen Zelazny; that’s how awesome it is sticking out of your back pocket. FANG is more expensive -- yes, yes, boo hiss, I know. Zip it. If it weren’t necessary I wouldn’t do it, and if you think I’m a liar and a money-grubbing charlatan you ought not to be reading this website anyway.

FANG is renamed, or rather renumbered. Volume 1G becomes Volume 1, H05 becomes 2 and confusingly 2FG becomes 3, finally arriving at logical numbering. See? Don’t I never take others’ advice. FANG continues. FANG Volume 3 (nee 2FG) is being finalized by yours truly, while Ben is primed to take charge of the new, fourth issue. So what comes next? Well, in a few weeks the revised edition of FANG Volume 1 is published, Volume 2 and the long-awaited Volume 3 (remember, that used to be 2FG) following soon after.

All the while, Ben Goodridge will be hatching the science-fiction-themed Volume 4 while I give the first few novels in the FANG Presents line (two by Badger, one by Teiran and another by Ben -- the dude is tireless) some much-needed attention. So yeah, it lives. Want to know more? Check out www.baddogbooks.com and sign up for the newsletter; cool stuff’s coming up. Oh, if you’re on the Osfer.com newsletter: technical inadequacy on my part means you have to sign up on the BDB website separately. Sorry! And I’m sorry I had to make FANG cost more, but dagnabbit, you know it’s worth it!

Shilling! Vote ends May 6!

No time to explain:

FANG has been nominated for the Ursa Major Awards. Booyah!

Problem is, very few people know that and voting ends this week. Ohnoes!

You people can help. Break out the red pencils, take five minutes’ time and vote for the Little Black Book of Furry Fiction. Imagine if FANG wins! There’s a million scenarios you can imagine in which my receiving such an award works out in your favour. Just think!

In all seriousness, though, as much as I’m trying to shill votes, do be honest. If you think Heat was cooler than FANG, or you’re a bigger fan of Tai-Pan, vote for them. That said, if you don’t know what to vote for, you could always copy my sheet (Volle, Digger, VGCats and the Volle cover by Sara Palmer).

Go here: http://www.ursamajorawards.org/Voting.htm, then Enroll. You'll get a registration key. Then you can click VIEW THE NOMINEES and VOTE HERE!, copy-paste that page into an e-mail, fill in your details and registration key and submit your vote :)

Voting ends May 6, hurry!

Country and Eastern

Any fan of Firefly or Serenity should have some appreciation for Abigail Washburn, who mixes country music with Chinese language and styling -- amazing!

Cost/benefit

In reference to the previous post, specifically the duds, here’s a cost breakdown in euros (you know, since I work at a bank now):

(investment period: 1999-2006, piecemeal)

Blazer: 60
Shirt: 15
Pants: 25 (three-for-one day at expensive shop; two pairs of fancy trousers and one gorgeous long-sleeved shirt for 75 euros!)
Shoes: 29 (cheap-ass, but to quote Shawshank Redemption, how often do you really look at a guy’s shoes? specially when they’re doing filing or sitting at a desk)
Gilet: 20 (special offer two-for-one)
Longcoat: 25 (Waterloo Plein market; there’s a 50/50 chance that somebody died in it, it was stolen, or it’s a genuinely good deal)
Tie: free with other shirt
Haircut: free, courtesy of Mum
Earring: free, courtesy of some gutter in A’dam (was carefully washed before insertion)
Glasses (shaded): 60
Glasses (regular): 250 (and those were cheap ones)

Attitude: million fucking bucks.

Photitos!

Pictures were requested, and pictures there now be. Some attempt at anonymity has been made for bloody obvious reasons!

It was suit & tie day today at work. Of course I was overdressed, but I didn't care. I love dressing up, always have.

	I am a God damn rock star.
	Suit and tie 1
	Look at that chin!
	Tied it allll by myself.
	The world doth spin.

Woo hoo!

GAINFUL EMPLOYMENT GET!

Some investment bank, four or five months of administrative slavery. I’m so pleased! Bought new trousers (special offer, real nice) and shoes. Going to be one smart puppy when I walk in there tomorrow.

Appreciation

While I understand the delightful buzz of a good review or the surprised elation at hearing that someone you’ve just met is aware and appreciative of your work, I’ve never fully understood how sensitive some people can be regarding their work.

I have a love of pulp, be it fiction, art, cinema, music... Pulp is mediocre, but competent. Good enough, but not really good.

Modern media, starting with publicly affordable photographic journalism through radio, television and nowadays teh intarwebz have poisoned our ability to appreciate works on a less absolute scale. While we were in Paris last year, my boyfriend drew a delightful sketch of the back of the Louvre while I sat beside him reading and taking notes, the two of us swapping pencils occasionally because my mechanical pencil has an eraser and his has a better tip size -- since then he hasn’t done much sketching since he wasn’t pleased with the results.

We saw very different things in the same sketch. He saw flawed proportions, crooked angles and clumsy detailing. I saw straight lines and a surprising resemblance to the actual building. He saw a drawing that would be sneered at in an architectural office, I saw a drawing that showed immense promise, especially since it was his first try.

Excellence is freely available to us, or at least, the knowledge of it. You can see pictures or films of the most beautiful and artful things ever devised by the hands of man for free after a few seconds of Googling. You can buy CD recordings of the most sublime music of the last few centuries for a few bucks in the drugstore bargain bin. In school, Shakespeare and Multatuli are thrown at young folk with such force they have to try to dodge them -- a few hundred years ago, in the town where I now live, the sight of a horse meant for riding rather than ploughing was news that kept buzzing around the area for months.

I’m not trying to argue that we should lower our expectations or worse, aspirations, simply that we re-evaluate the process by which we judge works of creativity. The movie Serenity didn’t change my life or my expectations of cinema, but it was good fun, well-written and, gorrammit, it had a hover-craft chase in it. Compare a product to its goal rather than its pinnacle, and all of a sudden mediocrity switches from being ‘less than good and much less than excellent’ and becomes a genre of its own.

Things I have that I didn't have in 2005

- New credit card (nice colors).
- Extra yera of age (free).
- Soot on my kitchen ceiling (microwave mishap).
- Dent in my living-room ceiling (champagne cork-popping mishap - not mine).
- War of the Worlds DVD (2-disc edition, birthday present - yay boyfriend).
- A freezeburn above my left ankle (torpedo-shaped, caused by a friend spraying compresed air from a can held upside-down so the prpellant sprayed out in liquid form - healing, currently purple).
- New interest in alcoholic beverages (currently girlishly obsessed with sweet or fizzy drinks that successfully mask the taste of alcohol).

Can’t think of any more. Pick this up as a second-generation meme and see how far you get :)

Resolutions!

1. Stay classy.
2. Enjoy my new age -- I’ve always preferred odd-numbered years, and this one’s a second power! Yay!
3. Never again make home-made cakes with cake mix and put them in the microwave/hot air oven combo for an hour -- on microwave, instead of hot air, then open all the windows in the entire house to get the smoke out. The result was a black basalt brick that continued to smoke even after liters of water were poured over it and which subsequently couldn’t be demolished even with huge amounts of fireworks.
4. Spend stupendous amounts of time with my friends. I love you all, you beautiful people.
5. Learn to drink (maybe).
6. Learn to enjoy being stoned (maybe).
7. Reign supreme in Soul Calibur (go Kilik!)
8. Write more.
9. Read more.
10. Keep flyin’.