A Rousing Roundup of Writeups!

I have not blogged here in the past few days because I'm doing it elsewhere. To wit:

---My regular Forces of Geek column, wherein I milk the Amazon thing for all it's worth. Well, going for a different take by comparing books to donuts.

---I have a piece in the latest SFSignal Mind Meld. I swoon a bit because I'm up there with Mike Resnick and a number of other fabulous authors. What's it about? Um, Amazon. . . .

---I am now totally NOT writing something about Amazon! I am working on "The Last Flight of Chimeric Aetherlines." Away, e-books! Hello hobnailed boots & homunculi with dry wit! here's the opening:

He loved the sound of hobnailed boot on pristine, polished teakwood. He loved it even more when it was the only sound reverberating through a vast space, as it was now. He descended the traverser sprily for his size, the clunk of his boots remarkably resonant on each unmoving step. He remembered when the bass thrum of the moving stairs would set your bones a'singing and drown out the footfalls and slithers of passengers heading down to the gates. They would have to raise their voices to be heard over its sonorous workings, as woodsprites and kami were urged on by the drone of a cajoler to make the ligneous workings hum and spin.

He jumped down the last three steps, landing heavily on the reception platform. He was briefly irked that it did not splinter, and that the dig of the hobnails vanished immediately. The wood of the floor, and all around him, was still saturated with charms and wards. Possibly the most magical place in the Worlds, one pedantic hag had told him. She was right; the place stank of spell and scrawl like chintzy maquillage on a Red Court dame.

Have a lovely day.