May 22, 2010

Pegasus II  coming in 2014
Shadows coming in 2013

Final Pegasus ARC Contest Countdown

Public Service Announcement by Black Bear

Ok, folks.  If you’ve not entered the contest yet, but still want to, it ends at midnight EDT tonight. Not that you shouldn’t feel free to keep telling Robin your favorite quotes from her books, but it won’t get you a shot at the Pegasus ARCs.  If you want a refresher of the rules, they’re *here*.

The winners will be announced here on the blog on Sunday, at the usual posting time.  The winners will then need to contact me (instructions will be provided) and I’ll get your shipping information* and pass it on to the proper authorities, who will then ship you your book!

As Robin remarked earlier this week, it’s been entertaining to see the quotes people have picked to share. I note with some glee that Harry’s orange juice, the unwitting target of her scowl, is a highly popular subject with many of you.  And also like Robin, I was really pleased to see the wide variety of sources for favorite lines—Sunshine and Blue Sword are neck and neck for most-quoted, but we also had quotes from those Robin was expecting to be overlooked, Fire and Water, and Outlaws and Knot in the Grain. Every one of Robin’s novels and short story collections got at least two shout-outs, by my rough count, and that’s pretty fabulous.  So thank you, all and sundry, and good luck!  I’m looking forward to pulling the winners.

I’d thought I might do a quick mod-review of Pegasus here, to make this a proper guest blog and tie it up nicely with the topic of the contest, but I find I’m pretty terrible at writing book reviews—especially when I have to be careful of spoilers.  I’m one of those people who is completely oblivious to spoilers; 99% of the time I couldn’t care less if I know how the book/movie/show ends before I see for myself.  This is probably because I’m fairly absentminded; you could tell me all the intricacies of the last season of “Lost” and I’d have forgotten them by the time I got the DVDs from Netflix anyway.  As a result, I’m always a little baffled when I idly mention something about the ending of a book or movie in passing and my friends who do NOT like spoilers make a sound like a fire engine going off a cliff and then kick me repeatedly in the shins.  So I think it’ll be best for all concerned if I don’t write you a review of Pegasus, because I’d just give something away by accident and then I’d have hundreds of angry people coming all the way to Indiana just to kick me in the shins.  Good for the travel industry; bad for bears.  Suffice to say, it’s a fantastic book and you’re all going to enjoy it a lot no matter when you read it.

Or else.    So, spoiler-free hellgoddess review:  there’s this princess and she has a pegasus, because that’s the way it works in her country.  And they have adventures, despite their various parents, courtiers and advisers telling them to behave, because that’s the way they are.   And the book stops in the middle of one of their adventures because I am an evil cow, no,  no, no, no, it wasn’t my idea, I HATE where it stops!!! **  Oh yes, and there’s an evil magician, because what’s the point of a story about a princess and a pegasus that didn’t have an evil magician in it?  No, wait, this isn’t a review, okay, here’s the review part, it’s REALLY GOOD!  REALLY!  GOOD!*** 

And because I really am an evil cow I thought I’d give you a favourite quotation from PEGASUS.  I’m so bad. 

                      He looked at her at last.  Syl . . . what are we?

                      She could think of nothing to say.

And here’s another one:

                        He didn’t answer for a moment, and she was afraid he would not–and that she had gone too far.  He said, I drank water from the Dreaming Sea, and Redfora told me to let you come.

And now here’s a teaser:

                          How big is your Sea, do you know? said Sylvi . . . Has anyone ever crossed it?

                          If they have, they haven’t told us about it, said Ebon.  The legend is that it’s another world wide.  That if you managed to cross it, you’d be somewhere else than this world.  That the only way from our world to get to the far shore of the Sea is to cross the Sea–and you can’t do that either.  Although there’s another legend that says the Caves extend under the Sea and come out on the other side.  And that you could walk it–if you lived long enough.  He paused.  There’s another legend still that says that before your King Thingummy showed up with his troops–

                         Balsin.

                         And started killing taralians, our King Fralialal was thinking of taking who remained of us and trying to cross the Sea–underneath, by the Caves.

* * *

* Be sure to mention if you want it signed, and if so to whom

** Those of you who read a lot of suspense and cliffhangers and things are going to get to the last page of PEGASUS and go, what?  This is the big awful terrifying dreadful end?  What?  But I don’t read a lot of suspense and cliffhangers and I’ve certainly never written one before and I didn’t enjoy it at all.

*** All eight of my mods think it is!  They told me so!  Not that they’re BIASED or anything!  Not that they wouldn’t lie to me to make me feel better about the cliffhanger and the Volume Two and everything!^

^ And if I sound even more wound up and nuts even than usual this evening, you’re right, I am.   Chaos staged a complete–COOOOMPLETE–melodrama in three acts plus prologue, epilogue, ballet  and intermezzo, over the eating of dinner–it was so complete, magnificently performed and detailed I was briefly distracted into thinking he must be illAAAAAAAAUGH.  WHOSE IDEA WAS DOGS?  NO, WHOSE IDEA WAS HELLHOUNDS?

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