I just went ahead and ordered a copy for myself—so next time we see each other at a Gathering, I'm going to make you sign it. Muahahaha.

A wild pile of cookies has appeared in a random HQ hallway!

At the very least, I'm curious about what said zip file actually contains

The two conflicting reviews of DND are hilarious. Of course one of them would take issue with the liberal lore-bending in service of Shakespeare ;)

Still making my way through the script but goodness you've outdone yourself hS. So much applause.

What are you, some kind of Troupe apologist/hater [delete as appropriate -E.C.]?! I bet you're in league with the magazine/other tabloid [again, delete as appropriate -E.C.] that stole our name! You probably think Dafydd Illian is [I've gone ahead and deleted this one for you -E.C.]

Will the MM staff ever get things right, or stop their fights against windmills? No, and that's why we love them.

I actually supplied the eBook to Amazon in - if you can believe it - .docx format. The other option was to download and use their Kindle Create app, which seemed like a lot more work given that I'd already cleaned up the .docx for the paperback. When I tried to download a copy of the eBook for testing, it claimed to be in HTML format and landed me with a .zip of 49 files, mostly HTML, some images, and a handful things like .json or .ncx. That did not load onto a Kindle, if you're wondering.

In theory, I can transfer the eBook file manually from the physical Kindle (not the browser version) to a computer, but that will wind up with it in whatever format Amazon use for Kindle eBooks - AZW or KFX apparently. I'm not sure if that will even work, and I think it's what you were trying to avoid anyway. ^_^

I'll email you to discuss details; if I manage to space it, ping my Board email in a few days and I'll go "oh bother, sorry, I got distracted!".

hS

Happy solstice! Apparently Midsummer's Day is actually a totally separate event to summer solstice, taking place on the 24th June, but stuff that, we're doing midsummer today.

~

The PPC's resident Shakespeare theatre, A Troupe By Any Other Name, have a long history of setting Shakespeare's plays in canon worlds. In theory, this does nothing more than informing the costuming and the production nickname (see, for example, Julius Caesar of Gallifrey/Rassilon Caesar); the words remain pure Shakespeare.

In practice, particularly at their dress rehearsals, they do a lot of mucking about.

The Troupe has a cozy relationship with the New Multiverse Monitor, the vaguely-classy news magazine which has been running for about a decade now. Almost all of their plays are first reported in the NMM.

Almost. Until they made the mistake of casting Agent Estelnar Celebduin, of the REAL Real Multiverse Monitor, in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Nobody knows for sure who leaked the HD video recording of the dress rehearsal - by which we mean, nobody can prove that it was Estelnar, despite the fact that it's hosted on the RRMM's servers and they were the first people to write about it. The point is, the situation has enough uncertainty to let them get away with it, and that's what matters. Regardless of who is responsible, the RMM have taken full advantage: they have penned an entire issue centred on the distinctly unfaithful adaptation of Shakespeare referred to as A Doriathrin Night's Dream:

Multiverse Monitor, June 2023

We've got it all. Articles! Adverts! Horoscopes! Unsubstantiated rumours! Page Three! A rather naff cover! Truly, you could want nothing more out of your local tabloid than this. The REAL Real Multiverse, available now wherever we can set up a stall without the Flowers noticing.

~

The Monitor issue is written to be a standalone piece, but... back in 2014, I wrote some excerpts of Rassilon Caesar and had fun doing it. I know MND a lot better than any other play, so I decided to take my "excerpts from the dress rehearsal" concept and run with it. Again, it is not required reading for the tabloid issue, but if you happen to want to read an entire Shakespeare play transposed into Middle-earth by an irreverent gang of PPC agents:

A Doriathrin Night's Dream: The Script

Starring a bunch of Middle-earth natives and their buddies, and a distinct lack of reverence for either the immortal words of Shakespeare or the immortal elves of the First Age of Middle-earth. I'm not saying you will find Luthien Tinuviel at the centre of a love quadrangle magically induced by her father in the course of making her mother fall in love with Turin Turambar - but I'm not not saying that, either.

(This is the document linked several times as the "transcript" in the Monitor. Given that it runs to 22,500 words, I figured it was worth calling out separately.)

hS

While I don't know that I'll be able to buy it, at least at this time, I'm so glad you were able to do this. Congrats!

-Ls

The ending, though, whyyyyyyyy?

I will just have to wait nine more months.

In any case, I'd love to mission a Spiderverse badfic. And yeah, it is rather unclear about the morality of its leader.

And is it in the same multiverse as the MCU?

-Ls

P.S. I've actually heard less-than-stellar thibgs about Loki, in that the TVA (and I guess the Spider-People, possibly???) kinda gets rid of the idea of free will in the MCU? Which is not exactly a good thing.

I'm entirely willing to pay up, I just would prefer to not deal with trying to wrangle the ebook out of Amazon for format-shifting purposes.

I think you've either got my email or it's available by clicking (I don't know if the email I have for you is still good).

- Tomash

We have a few of those around (they've been repurposing the old red phone boxes in the villages near us); maybe I should get a bunch of author copies and just spam the local area. >:-D

hS

Chapter 15: The Trio say goodbye to one innocent soul, and hello to another.

and Chapter 16: All is revealed, and plans are made.

Congratulations, Huinesoron! I will order two at my earliest free moment. (One to read, and one to stick in the take-a-book-leave-a-book mailbox, to find its way to a bonus reader!)

—doctorlit, proud

As I get older, I seem to be turning more and more into a Hobbit, and I feel like hobbits would really enjoy a cozy mystery. (Probably not with murder, they're funny like that.)

Good luck with the move!

hS

I mean, when your Boggart is your friends turning on you and calling you racial epithets, it's... not exactly as easy to turn that into something funny as, say, a giant spider!

Ron in the books actually did take over the appeals process! But I did want to lean into the strategy smarts he's got, and maybe start laying groundwork for Ron/Hermione, so that's why he's so gung-ho about it in my rewrite. He's also got a keen sense of justice; he's just much slower to get there than Hermione!

Lily is aware that Crookshanks has Kneazle ancestry; she bought him off his breeder, Mrs Figg, directly!

Yes, pay no attention to the gun on the mantelpiece...

Cosy mysteries are the best! I'll check this out when all the drama to do with my impending move in August has died down ;u;

I will tell you what I think once I've read it. It has to go through the mail first, alas.

And published a book! And, and, and [hyperventilates]

~

A Dragon at Llanelli

Being a tale of mystery on the coast of South Wales, during the seventh year of the glorious reign of King Edward VII.

It is perfectly proper that Miss Arianrhod Ellis, acclaimed author of fantastical novels for children, should be invited to visit Llanelli. Cadoc Bevan, owner of the grand house at Plas-y-Dun, is after all an old friend of her father; why should she not call on him and his family?

The brutal murder which follows is entirely improper. A lady author would be forgiven for taking to her bed after such a shock, but Miss Ellis would much rather dedicate herself to solving the riddle the murder presents. For Miss Ellis is a mystery author...

Available in paperback & Kindle eBook format: Amazon.co.uk & Amazon.com (also on Amazons DE, FR, ES, IT, NL, PL, SE, JP, CA, and AU, though at least some appear to drop one format)

~

A Dragon at Llanelli is a 20,000-word novella. I genuinely have no idea why I - reader and writer of sci-fi and fantasy - have turned out a historial-fiction cozy murder mystery, but... there it is? Slightly tarnished thanks go to Amazon's Kindle Direct, which really does pretty much let you upload a (properly-formatted) manuscript and just push the button. (Kindle Direct does have a Criticism section on Wikipedia, but it's more about the kind of things they allow to go to print than about them ripping off authors. Amazon is an omnipresent Problem.)

And, and, yeah.

aaaaaaaaaaa [runs around flailing]

hS is happy to answer questions, and also aaaaaaaa

Man, this is a hella rough exam period. Hermione’s not sleeping enough, she’s bad with Boggarts, Harry’s surrounded by Dementors, fighting with a friend, Ron thinks his pet has been killed while dealing with Buckbeak’s trial, plus someone keeps trying to blow up one of their professors . . . and they’re expected to STUDY? This is outrageous, those poor kids. I am impressed by Ron stepping out of his comfort zone and taking some of the weight off Hermione. Then again, he seems to be going at it more from a strategic point of view than an academic one, so maybe not so far out of his wheelhouse after all? Poor Hermione; that Boggart is nasty, and I’m glad we’re hitting the end of the time-turner arc. Figures it would take her messing up some exams to finally realize her schedule was unhealthy . . . And kudos to Harry for quick thinking during that exam, but uh. Wow, an exam that potentially requires a student to bite themselves bloody to complete is. Something.

Hey, nice save on Crookshanks’s part! Ten points to Kneazlecat House! Incidentally, do Prince and Lily know Crookshanks is part Kneazle in this timeline?

—doctorlit is certain Hermione’s anti-Animagus runes won’t have any impact on the rest of the year’s story

Yeah, that bit's based off the semester in uni where I took 5 classes instead of the recommended 4 because i wanted to do both playwriting and screenwriting, and ended up so burned out that I could only submit mediocre final projects :P

Nothing like some chocolate truffles for a good detente!