What you all really want to see: New pictures of River! Great batch this week.

Hey, kids. My story "Pale Dog" has been offered up as a free download on the Bantam Spectra Facebook page. Go, befriend Spectra, and read the story.

Poison Sleep will be available for sale next Tuesday, so pre-order and it'll arrive lickety-split. I'm currently reading through page proofs of book 3, Dead Reign, and I'm about two-thirds of the way through writing the fourth book. (Yesterday I wrote an awesome scene involving Bradley Bowman, an infinite forest, and a slow-witted nature magician.) So there's your State of the Marlaverse!

So how's the real-'verse? Well, River's surgery has been scheduled, after much drama and uncertainty and annoyance, for next Wednesday. Taking him for surgery will require us to cross the picket line of the striking nurses, something I'm loath to do, but my respect for unions is less than my desire to keep my son from going blind, so that's that. (For those reading this at livejournal, I'm obviously ignoring the LJ strike, too, but despite its name it's actually a boycott, not a strike, and I don't feel too bad about it. Boycotting a company for being money-grubbing is a bit like boycotting the sun for shining, but whatever makes people feel better...)

Otherwise, you know, life goes on, and it's a pretty good life, overall.