Rolling along

Messing about more, I've uploaded a couple of icons, including this new one. Yes, I did mess about with that icon-maker that was circulating a little while ago, and saved it for a rainy day. I don't actually normally go around with my hair out like that, but it's hard to convey long hair in a ponytail with that thing, so I thought this was better.

Sadly, I found, stupid me, that the polls are as useless as watervole said; they're only open to LJ folks, which doesn't include all the people I'm interested in asking things of. (sigh) Unfortunately most of the polling software I found on freshmeat.net requires the use of a mySQL database, which I figure is overkill and a nuisance. Ah well, back to the drawing board...

Iconage!

Whee! I have made myself another animated icon! It's a pity the size is limited, because I would have liked to blend it, but I guess you can put up with a jerky image-change. One thing that frustrates me is people who make animated icons, and have them run at such a fast pace that one can't read the captions. Another frustration is icons where the caption is so faint and in such small letters that you can't read it either. So I am trying to avoid both those problems here. What 'cha think?

Yippee!

I've just heard that Merlin's Wood by Anne Hamilton is available to purchase! At last! The book has actually been in print since the end of last year, but I couldn't point anybody to it, because the distribution was lousy. But there's now an e-commerce site which has it, so I can point people there. Yahoo!

Oh, why am I so excited? I admit the chief part of my excitement is that it's the first novel published by one of my best friends -- but it isn't so much that I'm excited because a friend is published, but because this friend is published -- the very talented person who taught me everything I know about fanzine editing, for one. High time she was published.

Okay, the reason why you might be interested is that it's a really good kid's science-fantasy novel. She packs a heck of a lot of plot into a small space; with twists and turns and intriguing mysteries and interesting world-building and good characterisation (I love the way the two main protagonists complement each other in their weaknesses and strengths). Please ignore the hype on the site. Every man and his dog compares children's fantasy with Narnia and Harry Potter, so it's just meaningless. But it is a good book, anyway.