Letters Column in January 2012: “Quivering, Lurching Fridays full of Shame”

Posted on January 6, 2012 by Jenna

← Previous | Next →

It’s Friday! HI FRIDAY!

Is it a good friday-widay-woogums? No! It is not! Good Friday comes only once a year! The remainder of the Fridays must cringe and hide from the company of society, like Igors lurching from week to week in an unsatiated quest for normal brains.

“Thank God it’s Friday,” we say, but we really mean to thank the Devil. The Devil, who lives alone and keeps a fire. The Devil, who has given to us idle hands that we may scandalize the ancient Puritans and play extremely well upon the holophonor. Why is Friday’s child loving and giving? Igor stole their brains from the virtuous unliving!

Wait, that’s a rhyme, not a punchline. I mean, why is Friday’s child loving and giving?

Rebellion.

**

Also, Why the Monster Laughs at God (1 of 1)
— Xavid, on Vincent and the Devil

Here’s a bit from “Jack o’Lantern Girl,” which’ll probably be out for Kindle in a few months unless I hear back from a publisher before it reaches the top of my stack:

**

In 2004 the monster will be terrifying. He will come to the Gibbelins’ Tower and he will fly on wings of pain. He will shatter the hero and the angels and hold chaos in his hand. He will be a creature out of legend, then, a terrifying power, worthy of standing against Martin and his crew; and more: if the Lord Himself were to see the monster’s work, in that later day, and rise up in wrath and fury from his throne to send the lightning down, then the monster would only catch that thunderbolt in his hands and cast it back and shout:

The monster laughs at God.

We won’t show you all of that — not this time — but that’s the way that it will be.

In 1973, though —

In 1973 — well, he’s still the monster, then, and you’d be well advised to stay away, but he is also young; and he is ignorant and intemperate; and such a very clumsy man.

**

//There are things, in Hitherby, that seem that they do not entirely fit within the paradigm we usually look at, the one of gods and monsters and djinn. Which is an odd world, an occasionally uncertain one, but one that we have come to know.

This is one of those things that seems to come from outside that context.

Here there be dragons.//
— Eric, on Vincent and the Devil

Yeah, the Devil’s story is probably a ways off. He’s been around, here and there, in Hitherby, for a long time, but you’re right, he’s a bit outside the usual context.

**

//Unclean Legacy had me expecting the Devil to be one of the Kings of the Unforgivable Dominions, but that leaves me with more questions than I started with. If he’s so old, where has he been all this time?

I also feel that the Devil ought to be related to the Serpent Chaos Woman discussed judgment vs. bliss with, since it parallels the Eden myth. But that Serpent was a future version of Chaos Woman, killed by her grandchildren, whereas the Kings are older than the Round Man’s world. So I’m completely lost.

On a tangent, the only serpent I know in Hitherby to have died is Ophion. If Chaos Woman is somehow Uri’s mother, that would make Cronos her grandchild, and he killed Ophion. This leads me further away from any tie-in between the Devil and the Serpent.//
— dave.o, on Vincent and the Devil

He’s a bit of a busy man, I think. He isn’t really involved in Jane and Martin’s story right now. He’s got a fire to keep.

I mean, we all think our stories are the most important thing ever, but that doesn’t mean that God and the Devil are lurking around every corner waiting to jump in. What was the Devil going to do in the Island of the Centipede, exactly? Tempt one of the isn’ts? Send Martin into fits of hysterical giggling? Carry Jane to a high place and throw her off? The last is the only one I can really imagine him doing, and frankly, considering how well Ink Catherly handles falling, you can pretty much trust in Jane to handle it. She was the template! I think. Unless it was Emily. But I thought it was probably Jane. Anyway, something would catch her. A rainbow, maybe? Or she’d reconstitute. Or something! Anentropic zombies are awfully tough to kill, even if you’re the Devil, particularly when they work in theater.