I assume all True C.L. Moore Fans already know about Jirel of Joiry, "Vintage Season" and "No Woman Born," but I'm grabbing this opportunity to plug "Judgment Night" if you haven't read it already--it's a terrific, dark, romantic, apocalyptic space opera. I was stunned when I first read it, both by how good it was and how I hadn't read anything about it in any of the commentary on Moore.

It doesn't have Jane Yolen's "Mama Gone," which is another terrific vampire short story, about grief.

Ooh! I love Jane Yolen. I never read that story, I don't think, but I read this great book of hers called Wizards Hall, which was like Harry Potter before there was Harry Potter.

I sent Teppy a collection of all of C.L. Moore's Northwest Smith stories.

I was thinking about that earlier today, during the conversation in Minearverse about sci-fi authors.

In high school, my English teacher assigned short stories from his personal collection of an out of print supernatural anthology, and there was one about a man and a vampire being the only survivors of a shipwreck. They were trapped in a lifeboat for some time, and developed a symbiotic relationship in order to survive. Does that ring any bells for anyone? I've wanted to look up the anthology for myself, but can't remember the names of any of the stories.

The shipwreck story sounds like "Life of Pi."

I haven't read Life of Pi, but Kat once told me the plot, and I think that's when I started wondering about the vampire story. It's the only story from the anthology that really made an impact on me, particularly the vampire's argument that humans were the vermin because we eat dead things, rather than getting nourished from life like vampires. Unfortunately google searches for "vampire + lifeboat" are not only fruitless, but boring.

There was something missing on Christopher Moore's website, so I wrote to him and got this tidbit back from him during an email exchange:

... the turkey bowling anecdote comes from my experience in grocery stores in the late 70s. Incidentally, I'm about to write two more San Francisco books, the second is the sequel to Fiends, called You Suck: A Love Story. Even though ten years have passed, I plan to have the book open the next day after the first one ended. (I've been trying to sell this book for nine years, but it was only the success of Lamb that allowed me to do it.) Since Tommy and Jody live in the SOMA, I guess there will have to be a discussion something like this:

Tommy: What happened while I was out?

Jody: Well, there was this dot.com thing that happened yesterday and all of the rents in the neighborhood increased ten-fold, but it went away last night and now we have a Pakistani restaurant next door.

Something like that should bring us up to date.

Speaking of vampire books, has anyone read "Sunshine" by Robin McKinley? I've ordered it from the library and was wondering if it was good. Seems somewhat different from her other stuff, hopefully it's as good as the rest. The review intrigued me (esp. the ref. to Buffy):

'Buffyesque baker Rae "Sunshine" Seddon meets Count Dracula's hunky Byronic cousin in Newbery-Award-winner McKinley's... adult-and-then-some romp through the darkling streets of a spooky post-Voodoo Wars world.... Most of the charm of this long venture into magic maturation derives from McKinley's keen ear and sensitive atmospherics, deft characterizations and clever juxtapositions of reality and the supernatural that might, just might, be lurking out there in "bad spots" right around a creepy urban corner or next to a deserted lake cabin. McKinley knows very well — and makes her readers believe — that "the insides of our own minds are the scariest things there are."' — Publishers Weekly

There is also an exerpt here , which is where I got the review as well.

Read two books on my trip to NYC yesterday.

Read another tonight.

Have rather blown through the stack I bought at the used bookstore last week. Sadly, it's my only good usedbookstore source, and is thus tapped out for at least a few more weeks. Augh. Need better used bookstores here. (Any DCistas have suggestions? I'll tell you where mine is...)

However, I also have realized I have a free afternoon next week in Portland. With a rental car. Also, the obligation of lugging my stuff back to DC. How much self-control will I need in Powells?

L I B R A R Y meara. Pick what you want online and put it on reserve. They send you an email when you can go pick it up.

Powell's is so cool. So's the public art around town. And Coffee People! Machismo Mouse!