The first chapter in a subscription-based ebook from Diane Duane, a popular author of young adult fantasies, is online.
Back in February, I posted about Diane Duane's vow to write the last volume in her Feline Wizards trilogy as a reader-supported open ebook. She's soliciting donations from readers, who get early access to her chapters as she posts them and a hardcopy of the book from Lulu.com once it's done.
Diane posted her first chapter for her subscribers last week and has just opened it to the general public — now it's time to sign up to subscribe to chapter two!
Four-thirty on a Sunday morning is about the closest the City that Never Sleeps ever gets to turning its name untrue. Midtown Manhattan, in particular, is quieter then than at almost any other time except when it's snowed. But there was little chance of that happening today. It was the third of June, and though New York's wizards can do unusual things with their weather when the need arises, right now the busiest group of them had far more important business on their minds.
The light at the corner of Eighth Avenue and West Thirty-first Street changed from red to green, without any other visible result: no cars were waiting to move on either side of the intersection. In fact, nothing at all could be seen between Eighth and the River but various parked cars – not a single pedestrian, not even a stray dog. The only thing moving down that way, down at the far end of Thirty-first, was the Hudson River – seeming to slide slowly with the inward tide from the Great South Bay just now swinging, and the surface of the water gone the color and texture of tarnished beaten pewter in the pre-dawn twilight.
Sitting at the corner of Eighth and Thirty-first, watching the river, watching the paling sky, was a small black cat. To human observers, city cats often look furtive or nervous: but this one sat there like she owned the street. This morning, she did. The most senior worldgating technician on the East Coast of North America let out a long breath and turned her attention away from the placid slow roll of the river, looking uptown along Eighth.
(Thanks, Diane!)
