Sasha Soren
Quizzle Me This Which "Random Magic" character are you? Click on the image above, to find out! "Random Magic" Trivia * The name of the artist, Rasa Oddvilla, is an anagram for Salvador Dali. * The Floating City is completely allegorical. * Only 2000 copies of the first edition of “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland” were printed, then discarded as waste paper. * “Two fathoms” refers to Mark Twain. * Anagrammatic homage to Doug Adams in -- Ch. 42, of course. * Ergot-tainted rye can cause hallucinations. Historians suggest that ergot-tainted rye was the spur for the Salem Witch Trials in 1692. * Guédé is a voodoo entity; he guards the gates of the cemetery, and is privy to all the secrets of the dead. He's also known as Baron Samedi. Although he is a much-feared entity, he has a wicked sense of humor. He is fond of children, and will sometimes intervene to spare the life of a dying child. * The invention of the word game of "doublets" is attributed to Lewis Carroll. * Hypatia of Alexandria was a mathematician and the victim of a political assassination -- she was torn to pieces by a mob in 415A.D. * Professor Literati's eyes are the color of absinthe, a drink which was popular with artists, writers and poets in the 19th century. Absinthe is also referred to by the moniker "The Green Fairy." * Gone is the feline retort to the paradox of Schrödinger's Cat. He's rumored to be related to the Cheshire Cat, but we can find no definitive proof. * The nickname "Wiggy" refers both to Beethoven and to Ludwig II of Bavaria, a/ * Mort = la mort (death, Fr.) * Nyx is the goddess of night. * Charon is the ferryman of the dead. The ancient Greeks buried loved ones with a silver coin under their tongues for Charon, to ensure safe passage. * Moirtha the cook (one of the Wyrd sisters, related to the Norns) is one of the Moirai. * Nevermore is named for the well-known poem, "The Raven," by Edgar Allen Poe. * The book Winnie and Henry read in the library is "Struwwelpeter," a ghastly/ * The woman in the Garden of the Nine Muses is actually a tarot card representing hidden knowledge. For industry or press queries, contact: Lyrika Publicis *Thanks to the good folk at Wikipedia for providing the excerpt from “Ecclesiastical History,” in which Socrates Scholasticus describes Hypatia of Alexandria. The full quote is: "There was a woman at Alexandria named Hypatia, daughter of the philosopher Theon, who made such attainments in literature and science, as to far surpass all the philosophers of her own time. Having succeeded to the school of Plato and Plotinus, she explained the principles of philosophy to her auditors, many of whom came from a distance to receive her instructions. On account of the self-possession and ease of manner, which she had acquired in consequence of the cultivation of her mind, she not unfrequently appeared in public in presence of the magistrates. Neither did she feel abashed in going to an assembly of men. For all men on account of her extraordinary dignity and virtue admired her the more." For agent kit or sample chapters, contact: Lyrika Publicis |
Random Magic“Random Magic”: It’s a lot like our world, only...completely different. Click on Nevermore, to hear a random bit of trivia about “Random Magic.” Cover blurb Darkly comic (“The Addams Family”, “Kind Hearts and Coronets”) literary tale for intelligent readers; adults and in-betweens. Best for: anyone with a sweet tooth for the eerily fantastic, book lovers and folks who prefer their -- rather offbeat -- humor black as coal. When absent-minded Professor Random misplaces the main character from “Alice in Wonderland,” young Henry Witherspoon must book-jump to fetch Alice before chaos theory kicks in and the world vanishes. Along the way he meets Winnie Flapjack, a wit-cracking doodle witch with nothing to her name but a magic feather and a plan. Such as it is. Henry and Winnie brave the Dark Queen, whatwolves, pirates, Strüths, and fluttersmoths, Priscilla and Charybdis, obnoxiously cheerful vampires, Baron Samedi, a nine-dimensional cat, and one perpetually inebriated Muse to rescue Alice and save the world by tea time. Reader pre-reviews “Brilliant! Roald Dahl meets Hayao Miyazaki”, “Alice in Wonderland meets Monty Python!”, “in line of Pratchett or Adams”, “a delightful chase to locate Alice”, “great dialogue”, “LOVED it”, “it’s Lewis Carroll and Roald Dahl and Monty Python and...it all works!”, “zany, off-the-wall laugh riot”, “inventive and fun”, “vastly entertaining”, “tomorrow’s classic, today”, “sly dialogue…exquisite punning”, “fun dialogue banter, constantly turning words on their head to make sense of the non-sensical. And the imagination involved in the scenery and the wild characters strewn throughout Henry's journey are top notch, if perhaps drug induced,” “amazing gift for dialogue, especially comedic dialogue”, “wildly and wonderfully imaginative”, “lots of fun”, “quirky escape for children and parents”, “extremely creative”, “keeps building into funny, twisted nonsense!”, “an original spin on mythology, folklore, and fairy tales”, “the right director could have a field day with this”, “thoroughly enchanting” and “madly in love w/ Ask the Fates a nosy question... In "Random Magic," the mysterious woman they meet in the Garden of the Nine Muses is actually a tarot card, representing hidden knowledge. Would you like to have your fortune told, for free? Please enter your question above, and may the cards speak true...You do know this is for entertainment purposes, only, right? If you get bad news, kindly refrain from tossing yourself off a handy parapet, because traffic's hell as it is. Thank you so much. Random quotes For folks who love to browse through new books right there in the aisle -- and you know who you are, over there perusing your interesting-looking selection plucked from the shelf while we make a valiant but doomed effort not to snoop over your shoulder -- a random sampling of quotes. No spoilers, as far as we can tell. Please note: The app used to generate quotes for this section, Quogr.com, is currently in beta; it's a cute little widget but they're still working stuff out for display and formatting, so you might get the occasional wonky-looking character in the quote set. We can't do anything about that, alas -- and obviously the text in the actual book is flawless! -- but Quogr is a useful app, and the quickest, simplest way to share random quotes online, for now...hopefully their next build will look cleaner than a spring window, but, like all good things, that just takes a bit o' time... Just hit reload for a fresh quote. If, on the other hand, you prefer to browse casually, without the words jiggling about on the screen, an excerpt is hanging around below, right about...aha, here it is: Excerpt: (c) "Random Magic" “Right,” Winnie said, pulling two pond apples out of her knapsack. “Almost there.” She tossed one to Henry. “This isn’t…” “Nope,” she said, looking over at Henry. She took a bite out of her apple and crunched away meditatively. “I’ve never seen that before,” she said, apropos of nothing. “Seen what?” Henry said, and then he saw. The bridge was gone. The only thing in sight were two cliffs, and they were on the wrong side. “Don’t tell me we’ve got to get to –- “ “Yep,” she said. “Now...what’s going on?” Two figures had appeared where the bridge should have been. One was a man with a pointy hat. The other wasn’t. It was a woman with a healthy head of blue hair. No. Snakes, Winnie thought. Wrong again, she realized, as they got closer; it was just concentric coils of...night sky. The woman’s skin was pale, the surface interlocked like the scales of a fish. Her eyes were wrong, somehow. Perhaps because they were missing. Ah. No. There they were. All ten of them. Embedded in the hairline at the top of her forehead like a chain of stairs. Her partner kept jiggling his leg under a long, dark cloak. Jitter, jitter. Tiny red frogs emerged from the ground near the man’s feet. His companion, by contrast, was so self-possessed, she might as well have been a statue. Winnie walked towards the edge of the cliff. Testing the waters. Young pointy hat cleared his throat. “Ne oll,” he said. “othrer’s gld.” “What?” Winnie said. “Speak up, I can’t hear you.” “Sorry,” he said, blushing shyly. “It’s my first day.” He cleared his throat. “New toll,” he said, “Sorcerer’s Guild.” “Is that right?” Winnie said coolly. “Mmhmmm.” “And what does that have to do with me?” “Well,” he said, looking terribly young, “if you want to carry on, you have to pay the toll.” “Which is?” “A riddle,” he said, sniggling in delight. “Life is a riddle,” Winnie said sarcastically. “This is just a toll.” “Funny you mention that,” the woman said. “Why’s that?” Two bridges had appeared over the chasm. They sparkled about as much as grey bones can sparkle. “Yes, well, that’s one of the choices, really,” the woman said. “Life or death.” Winnie narrowed her eyes. “What d'you mean?” “Right, well, one of the bridges is life, one is death. You’ve got to choose the right one, you see.” “Or?” “Or. I leave it to your imagination.” “Don’t have one. Spit it out.” The young man shuffled uncomfortably. “Well, you, er, this is extremely awkward, but...you – pfffft -- die, you see. Right off the...” He thumbed over his shoulder to indicate the cavernous depths below. “Pffft,” he said again, “whoo-hooo...clck...” “Okay, I get the picture.” “I feel just terrible about this, sorry,” he added apologetically. “Only way we can fund the annual Gee Whiz Ball, I’m afraid.” “Grmph,” Winnie said. “Well. Get on with it.” What a day. Well, what a half a day. What a half an hour - no, it was more than that -- “Hey, wait,” she said. “Let me just get this straight. We can either take the left bridge, or the right bridge?” “Yes.” “And they’re both magic?” “Yes.” “And one – exists...” she said carefully. “Temporarily,” the pair said together. “Right. We can walk across it,” Winnie said. “Just so.” “But the other one looks just fine, but...” “Halfway across, it will dissolve and you’ll fall to a horrific death.” Who’d said it? Winnie couldn’t tell. Seemed like they were finishing each other’s sentences. “Uh-huh,” Winnie said. “Maybe I’m wrong, but that doesn’t seem like a very logical way to go about collecting tolls.” “Ah.” he said. “No, it’s the lisp, you see. Souls.” He meant souls. “Euw.” Winnie said. “Well, Henry...” She turned around. Henry had turned a shade of pale that looked unnatural outside of London. “Can one play for two?” Winnie asked casually. The pair of riddle-asking gits looked at each other. Winnie sighed. “Look, we haven’t got all day. Double the stakes just means you’ll get your toll quicker – two for the price of one, yeah?” “Yeah.” “So,” she said. “Let’s get on with it. That okay with you, Henry?” Henry’s teeth wouldn’t stop chattering. “I think that’s a yes,” Winnie said. “So...” Henry fainted. “Huh,” said Winnie. “What a time to take a nap.” For agent kit or sample chapters, contact: Lyrika Publicis. |
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