Caitlín R. Kiernan

Yesterday is a vicious blur of words. I did another 1,113 words on "The Maltese Unicorn." I'd hoped I'd be finished by Friday. I'm going to Boston on Sunday (the long-delayed birthday dinner), and I very much wanted to put this puppy to bed beforehand. I fear, however, I won't be finishing until maybe Tuesday. I've already spent twelve days on this story, not counting all the research I did back in May. It is becoming a vast and moody thing, this tale.

My thanks to everyone who bid in the most recent round of eBay auctions. New auctions will begin very soon, maybe as early as this afternoon.

My author's copies of The Ammonite Violin & Others should be along any day now. If you've not yet ordered a copy, I hope you'll do so.

What else to yesterday? It was such a long stretch of writing (as was Monday), I wasn't up for much when it was over. I signed contracts for a reprint of "The Bone's Prayer." I proofed the galleys for the author's note section of the forthcoming The Red Tree mass-market paperback.

I read a paper in the new JVP, "A new basal hadrosauroid (Dinosauria, Ornithopoda) from the Turonian of New Mexico." After dinner, Spooky and I watched an episode from Season Five of Deadliest Catch (because I'm a crab-fishing nerd), and then she trimmed my hair, which was very badly in need of a trim. Then we played four hours of WoW, and Gnomenclature and Klausgnomi both reached Level 26. I think when they reach 30, we'll be switching back to our blood elves, Shaharrazad and Suraa, to finish up Lich King. Then we'll likely spend the summer on our space goats...um, I mean our Draenei...before switching back to our blood elves in the autumn. It's good to have these things planned out, I think. Later, when I tried to go to sleep, all I could think about was work, and I had my first bout of insomnia in a couple weeks. I finally had to take an Ambien, which i am increasingly loathe to do. I read Patton Oswalt and Patric Reynolds' Serenity: Float Out, a nice one-off from Dark Horse. And finally, about four, I got to sleep (only to be awakened before ten by construction noise).

Last night, someone wrote to thank me for my part in the documentary Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown (2008). But he also brought up the fact that I was the only woman interviewed in the film, and the way that, in general, women are scarce when it comes to Lovecraft criticism and Lovecraftian anthologies. There's no way to not agree with this. The problem is readily apparent, and, in fact, I was a little uncomfortable watching the final cut of the documentary, the absence of female commentators is so conspicuous. This is one reason I was very pleased with ellen_datlow's Lovecraft Unbound. There are stories by twenty-two authors, and eight of the authors are female, which is far more than average for an anthology of Lovecraft-inspired stories. Consider, The Song of Cthulhu (Chaosium, 2001): twenty authors, one woman (me). Or Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth (Fedogan and Bremer, 2005): twelve authors, only one woman (me). Or The Children of Cthulhu (Del Rey, 2002): twenty-three authors, three women (including me). Or Cthulhu 2000 (Arkham House, 2000): eighteen authors, but only three are women. Or Black Wings: Tales of Lovecratian Horror (PS Publishing, 2010): twenty-one authors, two women (myself included). I could go on, but I'll wait until another time. This is a very complex subject, and one I should return to some day when I can do it justice. However, yes, I do see a definite gender bias at work here.

The platypus is eager, so...I should get to it.

The last few days have been...well...crap. Almost complete and utter.

Today Spooky dragged me out of the house for a fairly wonderful day Outside (which I will describe, with photos, tomorrow). At the end of it all was a package from David Kirkpatrick (corucia), and in that package was a copy of William Stout's new book, Dinosaur Discoveries (2009, Flesk Publications). And that would have been enough, right there. But turns out, it's #420 of a signed limited edition of 500 copies. And as if that still wasn't cool enough, it was inscribed to me, with a mosasaur illustration! Now, if you aren't in the know, me and mosasaurs, we go way, way back. All the way to the Santonian, in fact. Anyway, yes, this is grand, and thank you David and Bill for giving me something to smile about on this day when I very much need something to smile about.

Oh, and Spooky even took two nerdy photos:

( My Own Private Mosasaur )

I've been trying to find more images online of the new sauropod dinosaur from Spain, Turiasaurus riodevensis. I came up with three. The first two aren't so hot, quality-wise, but do give a sense of scale. The third, from CBS, is of the forelimb that was found articulated, and it's quite nice. They're all behind the cut:

( Turiasaurus riodevensis )

We are undoubtedly living in a new Golden Age of dinosaur discoveries. Largely, this is the result of extensive field work in parts of the globe that were previously poorly explored. Just the last couple of years alone, there have been so many new taxa I can't keep up (though I try). Just among the sauropods! For example, there's the extremely weird short-neck dicraeosaurid Brachytrachelopan mesai from Patagonia. There's the dwarf sauropod Europasaurus holgeri from Germany. There's the extraordinarily long-necked Erketu ellisoni from Mongolia. And there are others, some not yet named or formally described. And that's just the sauropods. Never mind the new theropods and ornithischians.

Awesome stuff.