Two Final Things

[handful_ofdust]

Obviously, I don't hate all my fans, or characterize them the way I characterized the H.G. Wells types in my last entry's first paragraph...but then again, those "types" weren't actually my fans, were they? And you know how I could tell? Because they treated me/my books like I/they were a very dead fish, which was difficult to take without even a smidge of rancour, hour after hour after hour. So there you go.

Secondly, at the risk of alienating some of my Steve Irwin-hating friends, I don't really find the spectacle of a passionate albeit occasionally annoying man in the prime of life, with two young children, dying in a freak accident--however assiduously courted--funny, per se. More like very sad, a pity, a bit of a blow to Australian wildlife conservation, etc. Which means I'm definitely not looking forward to the moment of his death eventually turning up on YouTube, any more than I'm willing to sit still for Entertainment Tonight running endless clips of him bonding with his daughter Bindi, in the hopes of making me break down in tears. Both seem equally grotesque, in their own way(s).

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Hello Gemma,
Michael Ripley here. I read Every Angel last-night and enjoyed the ride. There is something oddly New Crobuzon-ish about the Toronto you've painted. Though I've read a bit of Lovecraft and Barker - even some Stephen King in my teens - I haven't read much of what one would term horror. Your writing has whetted my appetite and inspired me to look into the genre again. One question about the plot: Is the conceit that the blue lady heard Bob pray and let herself be caught? Did she feel the Gaoler v Prisoner dynamic was needed for her and Bob to "connect" in a way he would find authentic? Did he need the illusion of control in order to confide in her? I found myself wondering why she hadn't just come crashing through his window one Sunday morning and dragged him up to the erie for a chat.

BTW: I would have bought one of your collections, if I had the money. As it turns out, I gave you my very last dollar. Your pitch was nicely delivered though. I only felt slightly duped. Given I enjoyed the story, I'd gladly be duped again.

Hey, Michael--

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

--the angel in "Every Angel" is a very specific one, part of my personal mythology and one of the background characters of my novel-in-utero Blood From the Air. Part of her motivation is that she goes out of her way to ruin human beings' faith in Faith the Concept, so to speak, by giving them what they think they want (confirmation that things like her do exist, yet do not actually/automatically wish them well). So yes, she was definitely attracted by Bob's desperate flailings towards redemption and went out of her way to fuck it up for him, 'cause she's like that.

At any rate, thanks for liking it! Will look to dupe you again, sometime soon.;)