The Zoo over Ambuscade Street

Articles like this make me want to throw my arms out wide and shout MY PEOPLE! According to Erik, guns are banned in Australia, so more and more home invasions are being done with swords. Apparently, the Australian government is trying to make it so that you need a permit to own a sword.

Plus, I wanted an excuse to point out that I just updated most of my userpics, because they are awesome. I think my paid time is running out soon, I really should check on that.

[EDIT] *grumbles* I have TOO DAMN MANY avatars I want to use! And most of them are incredibly awesome! *steals extra user picks from Kethylia*

Reading a story that I've already read before, yet is completely different this go-around is a really strange feeling. It's simultaneously familiar and new - I know what's going to happen, but at the same time...I don't. Or I don't know how, exactly things are going to play out, because while the bones of the story are the same, the flesh is new and different.

What's even more unusual is that there are actually two different stories that fall into this category for me right now. One is, of course, the Gankutsuou anime. I adore The Count of Monte Cristo, and know to a fair degree of accuracy what is going to happen to each of the characters. But the execution is so different that it makes things hard to predict. It's almost like being a passenger in an out-of-control car.

The other is Shadowmarch, by Tad Williams. It originally started out as a neat sort of experiment - twice a month, on the first and the fifteenth, Tad would post new chapters to the story. The first five or so were available for free - after that, they were for subscribers only. The wait for new chapters to come out, the sometimes breathless pace, the frenzy of speculation and interpretation in the forums - it was a remarkable experiment. Sadly, it wasn't exactly a successful one, since Tad wasn't able to make enough money to pay all the bills, and it sucked away too much time he could have been spending on the books that make most of his money. Del Rey decided that they liked the story, however, and opted to publish it.

But a story that works well in short, bi-monthly chapters doesn't necessarily work well as a novel, so it was reworked quite a bit. The bones are still the same, but the way things play out has been altered ever so slightly, things have been added, detail has been sharpened, giving new insight into the hows and whys of the world and the story...but it's still an almost indescribably strange feeling to read it.

I've been taking my time reading this, savoring it a chapter at a time, delighting in the new and old alike. But....

Where's the rest? Where's the sequel? The story isn't finished, can't be finished in one book no matter how much editorial reworking there is. There's just too much story for even a single Tad Williams book to contain. And I haven't been able to find anything about any works-in-progress, books coming soon...nothing. No Shadowmarch sequel, no War of the Flowers sequel...it makes me sad.

My husband's unerring nap-radar apparently works even when he's in the same house with me. It never fails - I start falling asleep, and he calls and wakes me up. This is mostly significant because sleep and I have never been happy friends, so I really need all of it I can get.

Like today? I didn't fall asleep until sometime well after 3AM. And then I woke up at 7AM, and couldn't get back to sleep. Sleep seems to be a one-shot deal for me. If I don't actually go to bed and fall asleep when I start getting sleepy the first time, that's it. It's pretty miserable.

But I got to finish my nap today after flinging couch pillows in the general direction of the back of the house, so it was all good.

Any graphically-talented people feel like making me an icon? With a lime, and the phrase "it was doing the best it could." Because that would be awesome.