- Oh great. @p_morwood 's computer's monitor just blew up. 20:48:17
- classictrek: Some of comic book icon John Byrne’s best work of the last few years … http://t.co/AhtOTpMi2f #startrek 23:35:27
Administrivia
- "Teacher suspended for allegedly touching girl with a banana" http://t.co/q3tMU7don7 21:10:44
- Wut. (EYEROLL) RT @owillis: Drudge's pal Alex Jones thinks a "weather weapon" may have been used in Oklahoma http://t.co/X0aqBIz7NO 21:25:43
- "Drunken moon blamed for car rollover" http://t.co/SsmYzI7IIT 21:32:04
- Woman tweet-brags about hitting cyclist with her car. Discovers that police also use Twitter: http://t.co/AtaYVY5mCs 22:10:36
- Oh CRIPES. "Quarrel with girlfriend caused man to cut off his penis and flush it down toilet" http://t.co/xVfNFfc9OG 22:22:37
- Yay! "Russian space lizards return to earth" http://t.co/kVHOJzyueZ 23:34:38
- It was kind of you to think of me. Thanks for that. 🙂 http://t.co/SFe27IyF4D 06:17:54
- Dairine repeatedly gets her comeuppance later in the series; a big flashy start doesn't necessarily imply that a… http://t.co/waot7SMW6E 06:20:29
- The latest of the New Millennium Editions of the Young Wizards series is out! Extensively revised an http://t.co/vRA3KvS5oV 07:35:26
- Want to send a #haiku to #Mars? Details here: http://t.co/YWkyR1r31I #space 08:01:02
- Aww! Thank you. 🙂 http://t.co/F5MTOgTctF 12:20:20
- Hmm… RT @PJhaarsma: Evidence of the existence of ‘multiverse’ revealed for the http://t.co/Md7j9ct1gM via @prismatic 19:21:10
- Ukraine wood nymph uses up eastern European dry ice quote. Also, big guy in filched plaid. #eurovision 20:45:17
- Whoops, X-men White Queen look. #eurovision 20:51:24
- Think these two may need benefit of clergy shortly. #eurovision 20:57:48
- Ok. Go Ireland! #eurovision 20:58:49
- Visit Ireland. We have Knotwork. 🙂 #eurovision 21:00:37
- Tight pants, oiled tats, fountains of fire. Visit Scenic Ireland. 🙂 #eurovision 21:02:32
- Wait, is Westeros in Europe? – #Eurovision http://t.co/rjSe1VDOe4 21:16:43
- Ah me. Mark Lenard. http://t.co/lwnCkKKr2K 21:27:20
- An outsider's thoughts on #eurovision: http://t.co/vGJoXrtfCd 22:16:32
- Did #StarTrek Give Rise to #NASA's 'Space Shuttle'? http://t.co/br6SvorNHM #space 16:38:45
- Booked into the Dublin Savoy for #StarTrekIntoDarkness tomorrow. SO buzzed. 🙂 #stid #startrek 16:53:31
- "'Smart guns' could be next step in gun control": http://t.co/nCqUQjN1vg #skyfall 17:03:33
- Egad. RT @BoxOfficeFacts: IRON MAN 3 is on track to gross $1 billion dollars worldwide by Friday. 17:33:13
- A certain amusing resonance in the way they removed him, too. RT @ryanfarrr: I hope someone filmed this http://t.co/P2luQ6x0nA 17:49:10
- 🙂 RT @ChrisDunne29: Reckon we should do a compromise with the eurosceptics whereby we stay in Europe but leave #Eurovision… 19:15:35
- Oh, crap. "#NASA’s #Kepler #space telescope malfunction may end hunt for planets": http://t.co/ppMIzaqWGS 20:00:27
- It's out now! The revised New Millennium Edition of A #WIZARD ALONE: http://t.co/YJBlshjvig #YA #fantasy #youngadult #sf #wizards 22:35:03
- "Broomstick-flying #witches to be brought down in Swaziland" http://t.co/yu4bHrNMow 00:17:06
- Available now: the revised New Millennium Edition of A #WIZARD ALONE. http://t.co/dFBY5jRcuD #fantasy #sf #YA #wizards 01:30:18
- "Man run down in dispute over #duck" http://t.co/Cdpa1P3HXV 02:40:14
- "Woman accused of slapping police officer so she could be jailed and forced to stop #smoking" http://t.co/ltrNQ4Jgws 03:25:31
- "Man blew up family home after wife and children went on picnic without him" http://t.co/5tQFIlRiwi 04:35:07
- Hey, thanks. 🙂 http://t.co/Qr6SrJSIJW 08:38:50
- #Ebooks Direct mailing list folk — sorry for store downtime this morning! All discounts have been extended one day. http://t.co/yXP816ckZa 08:46:20
- What's the next frontier for Chris Hadfield? http://t.co/CpPHvCvPyz .@CmdrHadfield #space #Canada 10:12:48
- The Argents' Bestiary: Phallic Unicorns, Ball-less Beavers and Dirty, Dirty, Intersex Hyenas: http://t.co/58MophYcrA 11:52:36
- CRIPES I am so furious right now – I need to go for a walk. http://t.co/edNsQxjI1H 15:44:51
- Hey, it's out! The New Millennium Ed'n of A WIZARD ALONE: http://t.co/TIYQ9RhhMS #YA #fantasy #autism 20:56:05
- Hard-launching today! A #WIZARD ALONE, the #New Millennium Edition: http://t.co/29sVg9xBDP #youngadult #ya #fantasy http://t.co/hAlBZ5o3Ca 14:53:32
- & he should know. 🙂 RT @p_morwood: Fake movie blood recipe from Mark Gatiss, with an extra suggestion from me. http://t.co/HxmYB4UP4f 15:02:00
- (bemusement) Why the hell have I been watching the #Eurovision?? 20:49:56
- Oh god, we made the #Eurovision finals. We’re doomed. We’re going to win and have to run it AGAIN. 20:51:27
- YAY URSULA!! RT @mythsoc: 2013 Mythopoeic Award finalists announced: http://t.co/twAtLZkJOH 20:54:54
- It’s out now: the New Millennium Edition of A #WIZARD ALONE. http://t.co/TIYQ9RhhMS #youngwizards #YA #youngadult 21:34:05
- Bloody #Torchwood again, no doubt. “Council refuse to investigate reported vortex to another dimension” http://t.co/R1qFD4HnsJ 23:34:15
As some of you may have heard, this has been an unusual week in this corner of county Wicklow. At some point in the recent past, someone skimmed my bank card — whether during the pre-Christmas period or more recently, we’re still not sure. In the last few days, someone started playing around with a clone of the card, using it tentatively in a few Dublin-area locations. Then, having determined that the clone was workable, they immediately used it to empty the household joint account that Peter and I share.
Ouch.
I should say that I’m no stranger to identity theft, though it’s been a while since it happened, and that was in the literary mode. That set of events*, though it dragged on over a number of years, was far less annoying. This… this feels more like discovering that someone’s not only broken into your house, but gone through your underwear drawer. And then you sit up late into the night, trying to retrace your steps for the last three months, and thinking: That balky cash machine when you last went into Dublin for the six-weekly haircut, the one you had to try to get the card into a few times — was that actually a skimmer, and you weren’t just holding your card upside down, as you thought? If not that, then when? You’re always paranoid about covering up your PIN. When did you slip? Or…surely it can’t be one of the machines down in the shopping town — in places you trust? The local supermarket? The good friendly pub with the free wifi? Argh. ARGH. And how much other stuff were the skimmers able to find out about me, us, every time they stuck their card in that damn machine? AUUUGH….
In the fifteen minutes or so after I discovered that the account was empty, and had the bank staff cancel my card… well, I was not a happy woman. But miserable turned quickly to the desire to Do Something Useful to solve the problem. So I did this and this.
And folks responded. I had no idea how many folks were going to say “WTF?!” and respond. You people, to be brief, ROCK. You rock very hard. Many of you chose to forego the offered discount (and said as much in the clear). Many others said you didn’t know I had an ebook store and were happy to find out, even if it had to be this way. There were tons of other kindly messages of support, on G+ and Twitter and elsewhere.
Can I just say THANK YOU?
Good. THANK YOU. You folks have made the difference, and the household problem is thoroughly solved. If you were contemplating a purchase, please note that there’s now no urgency about it at all at this end: please feel comfortable about standing down. But, regardless, thank you for being concerned. And of course, feel free to stop by the store over the next month or two and see what new things there might be.
I also want to thank — at the risk of starting to sound like a denizen of a runaway awards ceremony — our online colleagues and friends and fellow writers who didn’t have to boost the signal personally, but did so, through your own blogs, and Tweeting, and even through listservs and such. You guys too rock (and though you should know it, you probably don’t spend your days thinking about it: you’re too busy writing). If you have a moment to update your posts to point back to this one so that people will know the situation’s now under control, please do so.
And to you, and all the others who shared or passed the message on, or stopped in and bought something, however large or small:
Thanks again. Those flowers up there? They’re for you. (And to the Swiss contingent: Merci vielmals: mwah, mwah, mwah.) Peter thanks you (he’ll be blogging about this in his own place shortly), and I thank you, and Mr. Goodman, the White Cat, thanks you. Mostly by demanding fish, but that’s how he rolls.
(…Oh, also: Some of you have let us know about formatting problems in one or another of the files you’ve downloaded, particularly the first chapter of Stealing the Elf-King’s Roses. Thanks for that: one thing we’ve been missing has been more comprehensive info about how our conversions have been working on devices besides the plain-vanilla Nooks and Kindles, and codes that produce no-problems text in some readers have been causing others to have conniptions. Our staff are compiling your notes and will be getting to work on the affected files in short order. If you notice a reading problem with a file, please use your download link to pick up another copy of it in four or five days and see if the problem has been solved.)
And well.. thanks again.
*The earlier ID-theft perp was a woman who knew Star Trek really well, and knew my works really well, and started going from convention to convention in the mid-80’s impersonating me, able to do so because up until that point very few of my books had my picture in them. Her impersonations of me stretched literally from sea to shining sea. I first heard about her setting up signing sessions for herself in Hawaii; she then had a flirtation with the East Coast before settling down in Omaha — I kid you not, at the Strategic Air Command base there: a vital part of her modus operandi was impersonating military personnel.
After a few years of her playing stay-one-jump-ahead with the MI people, fans finally caught her — in particular, fellow fanzine fans who knew I wasn’t living in the US any more; though the catching did involve some truly surreal scenes. One was the long phone conversation I had with USAF military intelligence officers while sitting on the stairs at Peter’s Mum’s house outside Belfast (and they were most confused about WhyTF they were calling Belfast). Another was when I heard from my Trek editors that the FBI had called the Pocket Books 1-800 sales number to find out whether I really existed, or was just one more figment of this woman’s imagination — her pseudonym, as she often told those she was scamming. Janet Kagan, God rest her, was also one of her “pseudonyms”.
…Short version of the rest of this story: a fellow fanzine-friend heard from a bookstore’s assistant manager in Omaha (also a fanzine person) who had a brush with the woman. She notified me: I notified the MI people: and though they were dubious about whether she’d still be on site when they arrived, they swooped and (much to their own surprise) caught her, and sent her away to do time in one of the five or six states where she’d been perpetrating identity thefts on both military personnel and civilians. When the MI folks picked her up, they found shopping bags full of fake ID and applications for more, including — the MI people told me later — a passport application on which in the “father’s name” field she had listed “Leonard Nimoy.” …All of which just goes to show you: don’t screw with the fans.
Fortunately this woman’s antics cost me nothing but repeated annoyance as I attended conventions where she’d previously passed through, and found people looking at me suspiciously, plainly wondering if this was actually the genuine Diane Duane, or whether another one might be along shortly. However, there are some hints of late that she might have finally gotten out of stir and started up her old game again. So if I do Google myself a lot, it’s mostly to find out if I’ve recently been somewhere that I wasn’t…
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Just a few things in passing
Work day, busy busy. But first:
At the Ebooks Direct store we now have Microsoft Reader versions (the .lit format) of The Door into Fire, The Door into Shadow, The Door into Sunset, and the Tale of the Five Omnibus. (I was holding off on the conversion to .lit because I didn’t have the reader and wasn’t sure how they’d convert. Seems they look OK, so here they are.) Just use the pulldown menu on each page and the .lit version will reveal itself. …We’ll start rolling out .lit versions of the Young Wizards international editions and the various other books shortly. Also: in couple of weeks we’ll be putting up the revised edition of Stealing the Elf-King’s Roses, with a cover that more accurately supports its identity as an urban-fantasy police procedural (yes, with a love interest, but what do you call Gil Grissom and Sara Sidle, then? Chopped liver?).
BTW, Microsoft: what is this dumb stunt of emailing me a video about “how the Declaration of Independence would have looked if the Founding Fathers had had Word”? They had something way better than Word, people. They had the words. Here are a few of them for you: Consanguinity. Usurpations. Conjured. Despotism. Inestimable. Perfidy. And possibly the best one in that document: Unalienable. …Seriously, someone over there must have sent that email out before their blood caffeine level got high enough for them to realize how witless it would look in retrospect.
And by the way: WIL WHEATON IS NOT A DICK. Pass it on. (frowning at some people’s behavior) Seriously: there’s no excuse for it. And it doesn’t have to be like that. I remember how when George Takei came out for a Trek/media convention in Dublin some years back, he was briefly astounded at not being dogpiled at breakfast even though he was surrounded by a breakfast room full of eager fans. It was explained to him that nobody was going to bother him as long as he was obviously eating and reading his newspaper. When he stopped one or both of those behaviors, then people would approach him. And that’s just how it happened, though he wasn’t mobbed then, either: folks came up and visited him by ones and twos and threes at decent intervals. …A pity this kind of behavior can’t spread westward. In any case, Wil did exactly right. And good on Felicia for having been proactive.
Meanwhile: the main Young Wizards website has had a makeover. There may be a few pages that haven’t been optimized for the new layout yet (mostly in terms of images having their background colors changed, etc.) but Lee the Web Lady will hunt them down and sort them out over the next couple of days. Final issue: how to get the slider to fade rather than slide, if possible. (Probably some fiddly little jQuery thing. To be handled sooner or later…)
And finally: the Door into Starlight issue — bumping this a bit so that I can be sure everybody interested has had a chance to respond. If you’ve seen it already, apologies: please ignore it. (And thanks again to all those who have responded.) If you haven’t, leave a note in the comments, or Tweet with a link to the original message, or share it on G+ or Facebook. Thanks!