Great animation

Not Hallowe'eney, or dancey, but slightly monsterey and definitely good.

Had The Mighty Evans bringing her London ways to Cornwall this weekend, adapting admirably to the, um, gentler pace of life down here with only the occasional murmur along the lines of "Why are the queues here so slooooooow!?"

And, after having made an ill-advised late-night trip to the bathroom.

"There were one, two, three, four FIVE SLUGS IN THERE!"

Which unfortunately was hard to take seriously, as it sounded a bit like something from Sesame Street. She had a point though. And she barely screamed at my driving at all, which was impressive.

Am I the only person who didn't know the inspiration for the wardrobe from "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" actually came from a Nesbit short story called The Aunt and Amabel? And therefore, in continuity terms, might well be the same wardrobe? Intertextual crossover children's literature ahoy!

Neither did I know that Puddleglum was a reference to the Aeneid (see further down in the same article). Fortunately the editing process on the Cabinet begins in earnest this week, so I get to fold all this stuff back in (what with Marsh-Wiggles and Wardrobes and indeed some Nesbit creations making cameo appearances). Just talked to m'colleague Alex who's also on his first kid's book (though his is now with a publisher, well done) and he's on his fifth edit. Crikey.

While I'm doing random stuff, I was delighted to see that Michael Swanwick's seminal genre-skewering fantasy novel The Iron Dragon's Daughter has finally been reprinted in the SF Masterworks series. I'm bad at synopsising novels, so I'll just say that if you like Neil Gaiman's stuff, you'll love this, as it includes all the worn-thin trappings of fantasy (dragons, elves, magic swords) and twists them into something rich and dark and strange. Funny too, in a bleak, icy sort of way.