And Now Back to Our Regular Programming...

[lydamorehouse]

I dropped Mason off at school today, and so now I'm sitting at Cahoots Coffee shop (the wireless at Amore wasn't working) writing to you, which I hope to be able to start doing every day again.

xochiquetzl reminded me that I forgot to mention the BU Rapid-fire Reading in my con report. It was awesome. Because this was WisCON, I decided to read from Resurrection Code, the prequel to Archangel Protocol. There was much squeeing from the audience, which was both a bit surprising and amazingly gratifying. Since Tate's latest book Dead If I Do is currently at Kinko's being photocopied for shipping to New York, I actually started doing some thinking about the plot for Resurrection Code last night. Shawn pointed out that I really need to re-read my previous books, and so I started reading Archangel Protocol last night. Wow, is THAT a strange experience. I have to tell you that I don't regularly re-read my books, except when I have to find something to perform at a reading. The first chapter, which I performed a lot, was tough. But, there were things I'd totally forgotten in the second and third chapter which gave me that strange feeling of just... reading, you know? I actually got sufficently into the book that I was no longer hyper-aware that I'D WRITTEN THIS CRAP.

Anyway, I'm making a notebook Bible of all the important events, so I can actually not screw up my own timeline. Wish me luck.

Even though I have the rudiments of a plot, I wanted to ask you folks out there... is there anything you really, really, REALLY want to see in a new book in the AngeLINK universe? Let me reassure you that there will be plenty of Mouse, Page and angels (probably even Morningstar, even though I'm fairly explicit in Messiah Node that Mouse has never met Morningstar officially before.) This book is going to take place after or during the Blackout Years in Egypt when Mouse is a teenager (although I may fudge with that, since I'm not sure I ever say exactly how old he is in any of the books...and I'm not sure I want this book to be YAish). But, what questions are burning in your mind to be answered? What characters will you miss if I don't include them? 

Also, this is just so cool, I had to share! One of the editors of Many Bloody Returns, Toni L. P. Kelner, forwarded a picture of our anthology's German edition. Though I have to say "vampirgeschichten" sounds like some kind of noodles to me....


 

Comments

[ladylahatiel.livejournal.com]

Squee! I'm being asked for input!
I've always wondered what it would be like to actually SEE a Medusa bomb drop and glass a city, especially if the observer didn't know what was going on. Also, I think the only first-hand account we have of what it's like to be bitten by the Medusa virus is Amariah, and hers wasn't exactly typical, so a description of that slow process would be fascinating to me. I am a bio-nerd. And of course, I'd adore seeing more of Morningstar. He's SO awesome.
Yay, now I get to re-read the books and lend them to my dad again so he can re-read them, because we both love them so much. This makes going back to work after 2 weeks vacation totally worth it.

[tiernsshadow.livejournal.com]

Oooh, ditto the Medusa bomb being dropped (if you can work that in). That'd be really interesting to see.

I think that having a teenage Mouse as the protagonist wouldn't necessarily make it YAish. It depends on what issues he's dealing with - and from what's been hinted at previously in the series, it sounds like teenage Mouse was dealing with some pretty grown-up stuff. He seems like the kind of guy who'd act older than his age.

Also, I'd like to see what happened to Mouse's mother/family. That may not be in the cards, since it sounded like he was pretty young at the time, but it piqued my interest when he mentioned it in Apocalypse Array.

[xochiquetzl]

What she said re: teen Mouse not being YA, and also re: Mouse's family.

The angel Moroni.

[plaidder.livejournal.com]

Seriously, I've often wondered: had the AP series not been killed, would the Angel Moroni have eventually turned up? What could be more of a party than Mouse taking on Moroni?

That, or the Gorgons. I always had a soft spot for the Gorgons, and wished that Athena would turn up once in a while to take an interest. If you're going to be in Egypt anyway, you'd be close enough to her stomping grounds...

C ya,

The Plaid Adder

[xochiquetzl]

Hmmm, let me think...

Well, obviously, I want to see the moment Mouse figures out Page is sentient, since he said he didn't mean to do it in Fallen Host. I'm also curious about the British chick that Page remembers as Mouse's first kiss. (I've found myself wondering how much Mouse was censoring what Page saw, actually.)

If you're looking for references to that time period, probably the most explicit are pages 297-298 in Fallen Host and page 74 in Apocalypse Array. You do say how old he is in Fallen Host:

I go back into the file and retrieve my father's first kiss. He is fifteen, but already living on the streets of Cairo. Mouse.net is little more than a BBS shared by a number of squatters throughout North Africa.

Let me dig around and see what else I can come up with.

[xochiquetzl]

I asked my SO, and he said he'd really like to see Dragon. That's possible. Dee called Mouse "barely legal" in Archangel Protocol (p. 48). Mouse says he was in prison for a year ("I leave that boy for a little over a year, and he goes freelance for everybody." p. 302.) That would make Mouse and Mai about the same age, I think, since I read her as early 20s (do you ever say? is Mai slighty older than Mouse?). Since Mai created Dragon as a small child and Mouse created Page when he was 15-ish, Dragon came first and would be available if you wanted her to be in your book. Mouse also clearly knows Dragon but not Mai on page 244 of Fallen Host, although he could have met Dragon any time.

Random aside: I want to scoop up Mouse and hug him on page 245 of Fallen Host when he says, "If Page were here, I'd know what to do."

As for Morningstar, Mouse meets him on page 293 of Archangel Protocol, promptly forgets (and isn't reminded by Morningstar) when he meets him on page 33 of Fallen Host, and runs into him again on page 50 of Messiah Node, where he seems inordinately interested in Morningstar's sexual orientation.

[xochiquetzl]

That was kind of an awkward segue. What I meant was, I've found myself wondering how much Mouse protected Page from the full horror of those years--if he disconnected when he expected something truly awful to happen, and if so, was it entirely noble or was it partly that he didn't want Page to know some of that stuff?

[xochiquetzl]

He does say in Apocalypse Array that his mother was beautiful and smart, and that he's attracted to smart women.

[xochiquetzl]

I dunno. I figure that if you're as smart as Mouse, anyone as smart as you are is rare and exotic. But maybe that's just me.

the prequel

[(Anonymous)]

Throw in another vote for at least a look-in on Mai and the Dragon, though you may want to hold back most of that story for the next book...

And in an aside, I think "vampirgeschichten" is a blood sausage; "mit knopfli" is with noodles...

Frank

PS Denise and I are passing thru Mpls in July; any chance of a meet?

Re: the prequel

[lydamorehouse]

Please stop by! We're almost always around now that I'm a lady of lesuire/full-time writer... so just give me a call. Email me at my gmail account: lyda.morehouse@gmail.com and I send you my cell phone number.

Yeah, see, this is why starting this prequel is so HARD. There are so many people I'd like to have as cameos, and I'm just not sure they're going to work in terms of the timeline. Still, the Dragon is one of my personal favorites, so if I can get her in there, I will.