Bloggers and supposed to blog ---

--- and I fail to do so for months on end. What a loser!!

"The Island of Mad Scientists" is now out, sort of. I think the official date is Sept 1 in Canada and Oct 1 in the US. but I may have this wrong. Either way, when I was in Toronto last week there were copies in the shops, and I signed them. It's amazing how people in repsonsible positions (i.e. book store clerks) will accept my claim that I am, in fact, this "Howard Whitehouse" who has his name on three books on their shelves.

I thought of asking if I could sign the Tom Clancy novels next, but I didn't ----

My best work yet!

My wife says that "The Island of Mad Scientists" is the best yet of my Emmaline and Rubberbones books. This may be true - after all, after three books I may be approaching a level of basic competence.

Then again, it may be because there's a tortoiseshell cat in it. A heroic tortie cat.

The Island of Mad Scientists!

My wife never reads my stuff before it's published. That's fine, as I don't read hers in advance either (and never in the case of her PhD dissertation, fine piece of work that I am certain that it is). But now - since we have ONE copy - she's reading "The Island of Mad Scientists" - and gives it a thumbs up (so far - it may take a sudden lurch towards mediocrity).

There's a seance scene in it that I think is the funniest thing I have yet written.

I found this blog --

-- and it's mine, dammit!

I just haven't actually done anything with it since, er, a very long time.

The next book, "The Island of Mad Scientists" is out in August. I received the first advance copy and it looks great. It has a map of Britain in it and everything - although it features places that don't actually exist.

I promise to write more from now on.

Well, I could hardly write less!

The musketeers all have cell phones

I took the church youth group to the New York Renaissance Fair today; it seemed the right thing to do, and the kids wanted to bring friends, so ten of us crammed into my co-leader's van and drove to the RenFair's permanent site in Tuxedo.

The thing about a RenFair is that it isn't a historical re-enactment of any sort, or even really a coherent excercise in fantasy, but simply a chance for geeks to dress up and eat funnel cakes. Oh, and buy stuff. Oh, and get their hair braided and faces painted. The level of historical accuracy makes 'Braveheart' seem like Clarendon's History of the Great Rebellion.

My writing cohort Devon was looking out for inspirational material for our joint project, "Seven Kinds of Awesome". That and a new fake fur tail. This is the sort of fine retail merchandise you can find there.

There's a drinking game that you can play at the RenFair. Every time you see someone in costume using a cell phone, drink a shot. An imaginary one in this case. I'd have been legless by four o'clock.

Good fun, prithee sirrah forsooth etc etc --

Editing makes my brain rot!

It does, it does --

I have taken the next book, "The Island of Mad Scientists" first draft from 71,000 words down to a shade over 59,000. A chunk of the bits taken out will return, in slightly modified form. That's to get the whole thing to 63-65,000 words, which fits within the publisher's budget for production. Basically, the original is too long not for artistic reasons (hoot! guffaw!) but because it costs too much to have the extra pages. Practical stuff, which I understand.

Still, re-wording sentences to lose a couple of words here and there again and again is hard work. Not ditch-digging hard work, but still ---

A really smart review

Here's a review from Zubon, who makes 'The Faceless Fiend" sound very deep and complex.

I wish I really was deep and complex.

http://zbooks.blogspot.com/2007/09/faceless-fiend-by-howard-whitehouse.html