Welcome New Readers, and Mermaid gets Klausnered

I wanted to say hello and welcome to all of the new readers who’ve found this blog over the past month or so.  Please make yourselves comfortable, and feel free to say hello or to just hang out and lurk if you prefer.

It’s interesting to see the pattern play itself out.  I’ll post a rant or weigh in on a current controversy in the genre, and the readership grows.  A few days later I’ll post a day-to-day update on the writing, and the friends list starts shrinking back down.  C’est la vie.

To be clear, this is not an all-rants, all-the-time blog, and I hope people will feel free to friend or defriend, and read or not as the mood strikes.  The only real theme here is “Stuff Jim Felt Like Writing About.”  That might be sexism in the Hugo Awards or it might be a kick-ass LEGO wheelchair.  With my next book coming out in a month, I’ll probably be talking about that too, because even though it’s my fifth book with DAW, I still get excited and freaked out about this stuff.  I hope to keep things interesting and entertaining most of the time, but if you don’t think so, that’s okay too.

So hey, speaking of The Mermaid’s Madness [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy], I’ve seen my first public review of the book, courtesy of reviewer savant Harriet Klausner.  It’s a pretty standard Klausner review, which means spoilers, strange details that don’t completely match the book, and one or two spots where she tries too hard to be clever.  (A “regal coma”?  Really?)  Review is here if you’re interested.

On the other hand, it’s the first review of the book.  Klausner is kind of like the first robin of spring.  Her song might be a little off-key after the long winter, but that doesn’t matter because you know there will soon be an entire flock chirping up a storm outside your window.  (Or, to extend the metaphor, leaving their droppings all over your beautiful book.  But I’m not going to think about that today.)