Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Examining the Case of the Magpie...

Let's file this under 'Whimsy,' shall we? :)


In A Discovery of Witches, we learn that William Shakespeare often "borrowed" words from others. The specific incident we are speaking of here is the quote:

"Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?"

Good Ol' Will!
Most lovers of medieval prose will recognize it from "As You Like It," a comedy by William Shakespeare.  But originally it was featured in the poem "Hero and Leander," by Christopher Marlowe1.  Shakespeare has been famously criticized by scholars and literary publications for not only using Marlowe's lines, but also borrowing from other writers such as Edward de Vere and Francis Bacon.  How can this be?!  'Plagiarism', you say!  'People would never get away with this today', you exclaim!

Actually friends, it does happen today!  Probably not in the ways you're thinking of.  Yes, there's the much-covered and controversial fan-fiction argument.  Ms. Harkness' take on the subject at one of the tour events this year (heavily paraphrased): "Any author who writes a story about a strong woman and a love-interest who happens to be broody, troubled man could easily be accused of writing Jane Austin fan-fiction."  Good point!  But no, we are actually talking about different types of "borrowed" art, not just writing. You'll notice it in the ads you see, the websites you visit, the fashions people wear, the songs you hear on the radio.  Clothing and hair styles, words, camera angles, sounds, and even colors presented in a certain way.  When the initial work is positively received, similar works will emerge and the cycle is repeated.  Sometimes a work (whatever it may be) is actually improved upon after other artists come up with different techniques and put unique spins on their interpretation of the original work.  They make it their own.

An example this Daemon can come up with is Bruno Mars.  I love his music!  Why?  Because I love Sting/The Police.  I also love late 70's-early 80's Funk (OK, I'm aging myself here.  Meh.) Two of Bruno's biggest hits are so reminiscent of the aforementioned music, that of course Bruno Mars has a new fan in me.  Even his dance moves!  You cannot be a child of the 80's and not recognize a distinct Michael Jackson influence.  I suppose I can take the other route; I can gripe and loudly point out to anyone listening that he's merely benefiting from the hard work of struggling artists before him.  Honestly, I'd rather just tap my foot to Bruno Mars!  I think it's safe to say that most people would, no matter what music they are into.  Seriously, just listen to Uptown Funk one time...

My particular wheelhouse in our Daemon group is working with the websites, images, and graphics.  That's the area where I notice the trends.  Right now, 'flat design' is all the rage!  Just look at your phone as an example (especially if you have an iPhone).  If you've had an earlier model, you may have noticed that the apps used to be beveled and designed to look like actual buttons.  Today's iPhones have app icons with a simplified 'flat' look.  The trend doesn't stop at your phone, it carries over to your computer and the web!   New or newly re-designed websites/blogs usually display the flat-styled social media icons that originated from the design departments of different social media/tech companies.  If you have a Mac/PC at home you will notice the new operating systems are the same way!  Windows 8.(?) and Apple's Yosemite boast the same type of flat design.  Are we going to blame Twitter for copying the look from Facebook?  Or Microsoft for copying Apple's interface (or vice-versa, depending on which computer enthusiast you talk to)?  Nah.  It's just the current style.  Someone made something, someone else liked it and recreated it for their own use.   Lather, rinse, repeat!

Did Apple, Facebook and Twitter
all copy each other's style?
We Daemons were discussing this the other day while wondering about Shakespeare's "magpie" tendencies.  It was after listening to a podcast covering Marlowe, and we loved how they handled the Shakespeare issue. This analogy came up: 'Is it any different than when we see graphic styles copied in one form or another?'  Well, not really. . . (?)  I hesitate to compare graphic/web design to writing plays, but it's only real comparison to the creative process I've got.  I'm rolling with it!

I can truthfully say that there are times when I sit down to make a graphic or web design, that I can't pinpoint how I got an idea, or know where exactly the source of my inspiration came from.  But I can guarantee I picked up cues from something else I enjoyed looking at.  It doesn't necessarily come from looking at other designs, either.  Sometimes it's just a color, a mood, an element placement, or a font I saw (I am freakishly fond of fonts! —> alliteration alert!)  Something will trigger another thing, and next thing I know Photoshop is open, and ta-da! A new thing exists that I can claim as my creation!   Can the same can be said for William Shakespeare?  Is it like the other cues I mentioned above?  Certain things have a way of weaving their ways into people's minds.  If you are a creative, some of that will reflect in your work.  Maybe Shakespeare really enjoyed Master Marlowe's poem and subconsciously acquired the words for later use.  Could that be the reason for the duplicate verse?  Perhaps.  Alas, unless we morph into witches with powers to talk to the dead, we don't have the option of asking him.  The shame of it all!

Poor Ol' Kit.
When I spot graphics similar in style to mine in our different circles around the web, I'll admit that it is frustrating. I spend a lot of time on some of these projects.  There are things I work on that don't cooperate with me at all!  The web design for this site is a prime example. Had it cooperated, it probably would've been online in April!  I call these my 'jerk-projects' (I'm using the word 'jerk' as a replacement for another word.  To the 'seven dirty word'-averse: you're welcome!)  With these troublesome non-starters, I have to save/close the project and come back to it later — much later.  Ironically, most of these jerks seem to come out the best!  To later see a modified version of them elsewhere after all of the proverbial  blood, sweat, and tears?  Yes, I do get a temporary case of Kit's daemon-rage.  Not just because I think someone copied my work, but that I'm no longer the sole creator of something unique. Or worse - this thought occurs to me: "was my idea even unique to begin with?!"  Do you know who gets even more upset?  The people closest to me.  People who know what I go through in my attempts to nail down a fickle muse. It's not unlike Kit when we (and The School of Night) watch him constantly trying to mold, sculpt and perfect Dr. Faustus.  We can empathize with Walter when when Matthew mentioned his disapproval of Will's command of meter, or Kit's own assertion of Will being a 'hack and a thief' in Shadow of Night.  One of Kit's deliciously bitter, but hilarious quotes: "...If you want to be immortalized on the boards, talk to Will.  He's always hard up for ideas."  No, The School of Night in Deborah Harkness' tale was not a big fan of Shakespeare.  Considering everything I learned about him in my impressionable years, researching Shakespeare's controversial legacy after reading Shadow of Night was a real eye-opener.  It forced me to not just to see the legend, but the flawed person that he was . . . that we all are.

In the end, when the dust settles, I know that imitation is mostly complimentary.  While I wouldn't recommend the practice of blatantly copying others work — whatever it is — without permission, I can certainly accept and appreciate the idea of an artist possibly being inspired by another's work, because I am inspired by others.  This quote from Pablo Picasso,"Good artists copy, great artists steal," was as true back then as it is today!

You are forgiven, Will.

Until next time,
feed your daemons!


(Specifically, one of us, today.  I'm not sure that the others willingly claim the same Bruno Mars love!)

1. The poem Hero and Leander was written by Christopher Marlowe, however the work was unfinished at the time of his death in 1593.  George Chapman completed the poem for publication in 1598.

P.S. The .Gif and this post were not only inspired by AST, but also by a podcast!  This was the episode: Addendum ii: Christopher Marlowe, featuring Matt Gourley.  It was the catalyst that drove me to open up Photoshop and force me to empathize with Kit (it is difficult to do in SON!).  Thank you Dead Author's Podcast, for being a source of my inspiration today.

P.P.S. About Bruno Mars? Don't judge! #DaemonOut

Thursday, July 23, 2015

A Ridiculously Random Recap! - Issue 2

Ah, the Ridiculously Random Recap!  Why the name?  Because it's a recap.  And it's random (ridiculously so).  There is no rhyme, reason or rationale, reference the timing of it's recurring release.  Also, alliterations are almost always adored by able, yet addled daemons!

We have quite a few things to report in case you missed them on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram etc (so many venues), etc!  Let's do this.  Starting July 10th, 2015 through today...To the business!


1. Fandom news

AllSoulsCon:
If you plan to buy a ticket, time is running out to purchase at the discounted price!  You have until 13 August (Diana's birthday!)  If you want to submit a fan-panel you have until the 31st of July!  Last but not least,  ASC is holding a Human Myth-buster Giveaway!  It's a good one, too.  Prizes pictured below!

Check out these awesome prizes!  Perfect if you are new to the series!

Ashmole 782:
Seems like the site (like the book) has come to life after some dormancy!  A new post has gone up, and the ladies of Ashmole 782 promise great things in store, including a possible read-along (from what we see, that's the conclusion we came to!)  You can check that out here: "It's A Discovery of Witches Season".

ASTDG:
'Creature Challenge' is on-going.  From our vantage point on Twitter, it appears as though there is sort of a character head-to-head bracket system in place.  To check terms & details, click the their link! (it will take you to their FB group).

Fetch Goody Alsop:
"There's nothing behind you, honey.
And the book hasn't gone far..."

*click image to enlarge*
The All Souls Podcast
If you haven't yet listened their 2nd episode, do it!  Ginger discusses her adventures in Seattle, and the highlight of the episode: a segment where she has a face-to-face Q&A with Deborah Harkness: Episode 2.

The Tenth Knot:
Laura has been traveling abroad (Oxford/London) and walking in the footsteps of Matthew and Diana!  She's just recently returned and managed to fight her jet lag with some lattes and this post: Part 1 - The Bodleian.   She promises to share some really beautiful pictures of places featured in The All Souls Trilogy.  We've already gotten a tempting preview on Twitter (see below).  More to come on The Tenth Knot!

As seen on Twitter from Laura:

Photos by Laura Ventura.  She'll have some pictures of better quality for you to view!
We kind of just chose three and squished them together for spacing!


The All Souls Game Night Giveaway!
What we Daemons are up to:
Here at Daemons Domain, we have published our first Weekly Geek (subject: 'The Discovery of Witches'), are hosting the Game Night Giveaway, and we've opened an Instagram account (?!) — ok, we weren't planning on it initially, but after playing with it and getting comfortable, we thought "why not!"—> That was the same attitude that got us into Tumblr a few years ago.  It never ends! :)

We also held our first "Flash Giveaway!"  Congratulations: @CAcatlady!  Sarah's witchball is on her her broom headed your way!  How quickly just depends on the wind. :)
 
Over at Armitage4Clairmont's FB page we were having great fun looking at some new SDCC RA pics. That jacket, though! :)

All in all, it's been pretty calm here with us.  Well, the main giveaway is really exciting.  Did we mention it?  ;)  The All Souls Trilogy board game (plus a signed book, a t-shirt and a gift card) is nothing to sneeze at!  We are going to go with the cliché, 'you've got to be in it to win it!'  Yup.  We said it. #NoShame - Ends MONDAY!

2. Other points of interest around the web 


The Magical Mont-Saint-Michel: an Island once more at high tide by NormandyTourism on YouTube

Do you remember Diana and Matthew's journey to France in Shadow of Night?
This was their first stop!
  
Addendum ii: Christopher Marlowe, featuring Matt Gourley
We found this podcast fun and informative!  Thank you, @CAcatlady (coincidently, the winner of our Flash Giveaway) for sharing!  What a riot!  This was an interview with 'Christopher Marlowe' - it touches upon his atheism, his thoughts on Shakespeare, his sexuality, his works, his questionable death, and his time spying for the queen.  'Marlowe' also talks of his play, Dr. Faustus.  We've actually listened to a couple of different episodes, and already we know we will eventually enjoy the entire catalog!  We recommend subscribing if you love literature, theatre and humor! Here is the YouTube intro to this particular piece:

YouTube promotion for the podcast - Paul F. Tompkins on YouTube

Download this podcast (warning: labeled as 'explicit') here: The Dead Author's Podcast - iTunes

3. Author/Series News

The Book of Life
has been honored by being a finalist for the Southern California Independent Booksellers Awards!
 

Penguin Books Reading Challenge: Celebrate 80 years of Penguin Books!
Checklist located here: Reading Challenge .PDF (you'll notice ADOW and SON are included!)

Release-Day Anniversaries!
We cannot believe how time has flown!  It's been over a year (15th of July 2014) since The Book of Life was released! And over 3 years (10th of July 2012), since Shadow of Night's release!

Book Cover Reveals:
We missed these in the last recap, so we made sure we included them today!

From left to right: O LIVRO DA VIDA coming to Brazil in October 2015 from Rocca.  The Italian translation of THE BOOK OF LIFE, appearing as IL BACIO DELLE TENEBRE (The Kiss of Darkness), coming October 2015 from Piemme.  Romanian cover for THE BOOK OF LIFE (Cartea vieţii) from Editura Litera, June 2015. Traducere de Ana Dragomirescu.
4. Book Tour and/or Event Dates

Boston Area!
From Deborah Harkness' Facebook fan page: "Boston Area Residents: Save the Date! I'll be in town for a special event on October 27 2015. Further details..."

Nashville Area!
From Deborah Harkness' Facebook fan page:  "Nashville Residents: prepare yourself for a Halloween treat! I'm spending Halloween with you thanks to the people at Parnassus Books and Salon@615. Mark your calendars for October 30 2015 at 6:15. This salon is a free, ticketed event  [...]"

Well folks, this concludes this random recap!

Do you know of anything going on in the AST world that you'd like to see included in these recaps?  Feel free to contact usWe love to hear about news, events, contests, videos, websites, or articles as long as it has to do with the All Souls Trilogy!  If you enjoy these recaps or our other features, why not subscribe to Daemons Domain? Our posts will come straight to your inbox to be read at your leisure. You can unsubscribe at any time!

Until next time,
feed your daemons!
 

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Flash Giveaway!

We are holding a flash giveaway on Twitter!

Since our main giveaway is for the U.S. only, we figured we'd take the sting off of that and offer this one to everyone, including our international friends!

Update: 22 Jul 2015!
 
We have a WINNER!  Congratulations @CAcatlady!
 
PRIZE RECEIVED:

 

*1 random winner was drawn using Random.org.  Winner was notified via Twitter Direct Message.

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Weekly Geek! 'The Discovery of Witches'

Weekly Geek - Installment 1: 'The Discovery of Witches'

Welcome to our first installment of "Weekly Geek!"  For this installment, we decided to start at the beginning - the very beginning.   Today's adventure in this trilogy touches on one of our geekly themes - the importance of names - and in turn, it provides us with our first Easter egg!

The title of the first volume of our beloved trilogy "A Discovery of Witches" is an egg in and of itself, and it's packed with meaning!  The book that we all know and love—about a reluctant witch who is forced to come to grips with her powers and accept her destiny—actually borrows its title from a 17th century tome called The Discovery of Witches*.   The Discovery of Witches is a witch hunter's how-to guide by Matthew Hopkins.  What?!  A book about about the hunted named after a guide targeted to their pursuers?!  Wow!  Why hello irony, your name is Deborah Harkness! :)
Matthew Hopkins: Witch Finder Generall - click to enlarge

Matthew Hopkins was the son of a Puritan minister who was believed to be younger than 30 when he died in 1647.  It is thought that he may have had some training as a lawyer (based on the manner in which he presented evidence at trial), but there's been nothing to support it in the records.

Hopkins launched his career as a witch hunter in 1644 in Eastern England.  Get this—villagers would actually hire this guy (and his team) to find 'witches', coerce confessions from them, and then afterwards obtain material evidence to prove that these people were 'consorting with the devil'.  It worked!  They managed to convince the townspeople and obtain their convictions.  It is said that Hopkins successfully convicted over 230 people who were subsequently executed in three years.  He was certainly efficient, that's for sure!  We wonder if he put those stats on his resume?  We digress.  Carrying on...

Hopkins' interrogation methods were kind of torturous (well, very torturous) and were outlined in detail in his book, complete with the justifications behind them.  They included the practice of pricking any skin deformities found on the accused that was thought to be an 'extra pap for suckling imps'.  Such parts on the skin, if they failed to bleed or cause pain, were undeniable proof (according to the 'Witch Finder Generall' aka Hopkins) that the accused was indeed a witch.  Another tactic of his required forcing the accused to walk around all night.  This was to keep the witch from resting.  Why couldn't the witch rest, you ask?  Hopkins had an answer for that! He explained to his readers/potential witch-hunters that witches—in the state of rest—would have the ability summon their familiars and possibly frighten their interrogators (well, that certainly clears that up!)  One of his tests had hunters flinging suspected witches (fully bound) into water.  Why?  Because according to Hopkins, witches float.  That's why.  Of course!  So simple.  Ah...the good old days! ;)

All kidding aside, this does offer a weirdly fascinating look into the culture, rituals and mindset of the time, as well as a glimpse into the attitudes and beliefs Harkness' creatures were combating not long after Matthew and Diana's time walk in Shadow of Night.

That's it for installment 1 of Weekly Geek.  We hope you were entertained!  If you were informed, as well as entertained, that's the happy cherry on top.  :D

If you feel the need to do a deeper exploration of Master Hopkins' work, look no further!  We are full-service Daemons!  You can download The Discovery of Witches by clicking the following link: The Discovery of Witches*
*Available for free at Project Gutenberg

Until Next time, friends...
feed your daemons!



P.S. If you have something you'd like us to explore on Weekly Geek, contact us!  You may find your curiosities addressed on one of our future geekly posts!  

Sunday, July 12, 2015

All Souls Game Night Giveaway!

The giveaway includes the items pictured on the left.  *Sizes not to scale
You can host an All Souls game-night!  Of course, your guests will come bearing gifts!

The Witches, in hopes to gain favor with you by appearing to give you an advantage in your game-play, will bring The Book of Life!  What a wonderful, rare gift this is!  Unfortunately, they forgot to devise a spell to disguise the book!  This is not in fact the mysterious Ashmole 782, but merely a signed copy of the paperback novel carrying the same title!  They couldn't get a hold of the real one...it seems that one is missing.   Someone in the coven has dropped the ball!

A signed copy of the novel The Book of Life
is as good as the real one, right?

The Daemons, never afraid of hiding their "crazy," want you to display yours as well!  They will bring you this t-shirt that says "Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know" on the front, and "Feed Your Daemons" on the back.  What has this got to do with game night?  "How else would one show team spirit?!"  Daemons!

Daemon T-shirt.  Front - 'Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know'/Back - 'Feed Your Daemons'

The Vampires...well, they will do what they always do—throw money at the situation (they do tend to have a lot of it!)  The vampires will bestow upon the host a gift of cash—in the form of a $10 gift card.  "For your warmblood game-night snacks," the card says...

Those vampires just love showing off. being generous with their money.

The Humans, specifically the ones employed at Penguin Books, will bring the host the elusive "All Souls Trilogy" board game!  Oh, right!  Of course you'd need the board game for All Souls game-night!  Well, leave it to the humans to pick up on what the rest of us overlooked.  Humans—we often underestimate how intuitive they can be!

Front & back view of The All Souls Trilogy board game *click image to enlarge*

You guessed it.  This elaborate tale was a set-up for a giveaway!

It is fun imagining all of the creatures hanging out and playing a game together in harmony (sort of), isn't it?  Reminds us of the last days in the Bishop house in A Discovery of Witches when the lofty 'conventicle' was formed!  If we've learned anything from the trilogy, then we know that it is theoretically possible! ;)

Included in this giveaway:
•  1 signed paperback copy of the Book of Life
•  1 "Mad, Bad, & Dangerous to know" T-shirt
•  1 $10 gift card
and from Penguin Books:
•  1 All Souls Trilogy board game

Only one requirement is mandatory, and that is the simple trivia question based on the book "A Discovery of Witches" - All the rest are bonus entries!  Answer the other two harder questions for more points.  Don't worry, it's all open book! The most challenging question has the largest point value of all of the entry options. All of the membership/follower-ship ones are optional!   Twitter users will have the ability to enter daily.

U.S. Residents only.  This contest is co-sponsored by Penguin books; they can only ship promotional items to the U.S.  To our world-wide friends, we have planned international giveaways for the future, no worries!

Enter today!
(Please read the terms and conditions at the bottom of this post.)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Terms and Conditions:
•  Contest ends the night of the 27th of July at 11:59pm.  Clock is set for EST.  Check for time zone differences!
•  No purchase or membership is required for participation.
•  Please know that we will never use your information to spam you, nor will we sell it to another agency.  We hate that, we know you do too.  :)
•  Twitter users will have the opportunity to enter daily. 
•  Social media entries (with the exception of Facebook): if the entrant follows on social media, or joins the forum, they must be a current member/follower at the time of the drawing.  Following/joining to enter, then unfollowing/withdrawing membership will disqualify the entrant.  Following/joining is an option and is not mandatory.  This is why we assigned the highest point value to one of the trivia questions!  We want you to want to follow us and/or join our forum.  If you don't, no worries and no hard feelings!  You are still welcomed to enter!
•   Point system correlates to how many entries you are given.  Example: if you respond correctly to a trivia question worth 3 points, you will be given 3 entries.  Yes, we check the answers! ;)
•  We reserve the right to disqualify entrants to who do not meet the specified criteria. 
•  Winner will be chosen by random drawing (using the Rafflecopter app) at contest end.  Provided all the entry requirements are met (U.S. resident, trivia answer[s] are correct, or social media entry verifies), the winner will be contacted via email within 72 hours of contest end, and will have an additional 72 hours to respond afterwards. If there is no response, or the selected entrant fails to meet criteria, a new winner will be chosen and notified using the same method mentioned above.
•  This promotion is sponsored by Daemons Domain and Penguin Books.  It is in no way sponsored, endorsed, administered by, or associated with any of the social media venues (Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, & Pinterest) we use to publicize it.  The aforementioned parties are hereby released of any liability. 
•  This contest is open to U.S. residents only (again, we apologize to all of our worldwide friends!)  If you are entering from another country (vacationing/away on business) and are a U.S. resident -- meaning you have a mailing address that has a valid street address, and it is where you reside, attend school, or work...no P.O. boxes -- please send us an email explaining your situation to avoid disqualification.  Email address listed below.

If you have any additional questions re: this giveaway - feel free to send us an email!  Email us at promosA4C@gmail.com - Subject: "Game Night Giveaway"

Good Luck!


Thursday, July 9, 2015

A Ridiculously Random Recap!


Starting June 19th through today...

First, about the "Ridiculously Random Recap"....
We were doing a variation of this based on the Summer book tours at Armitage4Clairmont ('Remember the Past/Await the Future'), but that was so scheduled that sometimes one week would be pretty light on news, and the next week was a post jam-packed full of information!  For this site, we wanted to build up enough news for a decent sized post...and it won't necessarily be on a schedule.  This works out great for us since we all do have hectic real-life jobs, schedules, and responsibilities, we won't have the monkey on our back of a set post date!  The name 'Ridiculously Random Recap'?  Do you remember the literary rule: "Always Attempt to Avoid Alliteration?"  Here, we blatantly ignore it, because rhyming and alliteration makes language lovely! <---See what we did there?  Thus, the name.  Daemons do what they want! ;)

So what's happening in the world of the All Souls fandom?

AllSoulsCon
  *Hurry!  If you plan on going (or live-streaming), now's the best time to purchase your tickets! Tickets are are 20% OFF thru August 13 — Diana’s birthday.
http://allsoulscon.org/participate/attend/
  *Newly Announced Renaissance Music Workshop: The Music of Matthew & Diana’s Wedding
http://allsoulscon.org/music/ 

ASTDG
 *The ladies of ASTDG are holding a Creature Challenge. On Twitter, they are advertising "#FunandBling"... well, who doesn't like fun or shiny things?!  Could be diamonds!  Could be gold chains!  Could be bedazzled jeans!  Check it out here: AST Discussion Group

Fetch Goody Alsop

She describes this as a "little doodle duel w/ our favorite AST boys"... in the hay barn

The All Souls Podcast
  *Episode 2 is up - what a coup for them on episode 2!  An interview with Deborah Harkness.  Great Q&A...go listen! All Souls Pod episode 2

The Tenth Knot
  *Is OPEN! Post debut was on the 21st of June: "Dear BBC", and another post on the 26th - "The #AllSoulsWatch Survival Guide".   Laura is currently in Oxford sending back some great shots of the places we love in the All Souls Trilogy!  We cannot wait to see them all!

What we Daemons are up to...
  *Daemons Domain opened on the 19th of June 2015...
For Armitage4Clairmont, that means a more focused campaign as we wait for news and us focusing on our pure AST love here.  See our post there: Notre Raison d'Être.  As for Daemons Domain: Pinterest, Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook are now up and running fully!  We do have cool plans for YouTube in the future...stay tuned for that!  We've published a preview for our series: Weekly Geek. As we said above in our post intro, Daemons pretty much do what they want so it may not be weekly, but it will be "geekly!" (Ok, it sounds really funny when you say it in your head!) 

The forum 'The All Souls Gathering' is in the 'soft open' state.  All Souls are welcomed to join!  We are posting trial posts and playing with the controls (one of the posts is pretty juvenile, but absolutely necessary...so please excuse our silliness!)  The Grand Opening will be in the fall!  In the meantime, come by, be one of our very first members, and post away!  We are only talking to ourselves at this point, so don't be shy!  We love discussing the trilogy.

Coming soon: More giveaways, more 'geekly' posts, more news & more whimsy!  These projects have been fun for us, so we hope this has been fun for you so far!  Any questions for us?  Have a website or events you'd like included in our recaps?  Contact us!

Author news
  *Deb has posted this 'Thank you' video:


A video message from me. #gratitude #inspiration
Posted by Deborah Harkness on Tuesday, June 16, 2015
If you have trouble viewing this video on page, click the link above to view (some browsers have trouble with FB embedded videos.)

And finally... 

Tour stop! 
  *July 8th, Pages: A Bookstore - Manhattan Beach, CA
As we mentioned in our post on the Seattle tour stop, this stop at Pages was rescheduled for the 8th of July.  There were two other stops that were cancelled on tour, but Deb has stated on her Facebook page that they are currently working on rescheduling those.

Big thanks goes to Karen Mendez (co-producer of AllSoulsCon) for being our eyes on the ground!

Photo by Karen Mendez
*  One of those "squirming puppies" she described at her other stops has allowed her to reach out and cuddle it!  She's finally got a muse, and she's gotten about 65 pages written.
*  It's fiction.
*  Not really a continuation of The All Souls Trilogy...so not a sequel.  Not a prequel, either.
*  No Gallowglass appearances so far.  She doesn't think he'll show up for this one.
*  We'll recognize some names—and we'll meet new characters.
That's what we know!  As we said above, there are only 65 pages of raw material written.  So REALLY early days.  We'll all hear more from her as the story progresses.  She advises that her muses don't follow rules...so she's on a journey to see where they take her!  She's calling this her "Work in Progress."  We can't wait to see where it all goes!


Photo by Pat Sullivan - from this tweet (@patsu449)

Until next time, friends!
Feed your daemons!
 

Thursday, July 2, 2015

Before we go all 'Geek' on You...

A FEW GROUND RULES . . .
Deb has made a point of weaving history and myth through the All Souls Trilogy. She has mentioned on several occasions in interviews, speaking engagements and in online interactions, that she has intentionally done so as part of her secret plan to teach and inspire her readers.  The series is riddled with moments, people,  facts and asides designed to make the reader think "did that really happen, or is she making it up?" and hopefully, get on Google and Wikipedia and delve a little deeper.  References to "Easter eggs" are to these little hidden gems of history and literature.  Being daemons, we've taken the "delving deeper" admonition to a ridiculous extreme - and will be sharing those results as an ongoing feature.  We'll title it 'Weekly Geek!'  Stay tuned!



In writing fiction, our author admits that she never completely takes off her historian's hat. What that means is that she won't change any known historical fact, but she's not above exploiting gaps in the historical records.  As far as we Daemons are concerned, the gaps are where the magic happens!  Whether they be in the historical record, or the de Clermont family history, we have been exploring the questions created by these gaps, formulating theories, wildly speculating and occasionally getting confirmation from the author over the past few years. When we talk about these kinds of issues, we will be sure to let you know whether our conclusions have been confirmed by Deb, or it's just daemonic speculation! Oh...by the way, there's lots of 'daemonic speculation'—there may or may not be a 'Work-in-Progress' or WIP timeline for Matthew and his family amongst the crazy projects we've started.  We've started many!  We aim to attempt to explore them all.

Also, so you know, Deb holds her readers to pretty high standards when it comes to formulating theories.  She admonishes us to stick to the evidence whether it be from the text itself or the historical record. Expect to see a lot of book quotes, citations and links. We go a little crazy in laying out our theories (this Daemon admits to being an extra-credit glutton in grade school).

"Names are important" is an AST mantra. Ysabeau says it repeatedly, and Deb loves to remind her readers of this. Names can be important for one, some or all of these reasons: the meaning of the name; a real life person who shares it, or a family connection.

Some of these name may lead to real people or mythic figures.  In these cases, keep in mind that our characters aren't actually the person the name may be connected to. Rather, in the case of a real historic person, our vampires may have assumed the identity for some period of time. Think "I'm not a doctor but I play one on T.V."  In the case of mythological beings, our vampires' "real" lives may have inspired some, or all of the myth.  In AST, we will delve into Greek, Roman and Celtic mythologies to name a few.  Dust off you Hamilton's mythology, and find your copy of Homer!

In conclusion, know this—in our discussions/mad ramblings about the All Souls Trilogy, we will try our best not to lead you down too many rabbit holes without warning you ahead of time.  That doesn't mean that we'll avoid them though!  Over the years, some of our rabbit holes  have been the most fun and we hope to find new ones with you.   Sometimes, being wrong is the most fun of all!  Get ready to 'feed your daemons.'