Had a weird thought while doing a little Amber-based Collaborative Writing with Felicia.

Miles Vorkosigan is a distant shadow of Lorius.

I really need to read more of Bujold's books. The ones I do have definitely come with me to California.

Moving a little closer to Amber matters today...the allure of cousins in Amber.

A fair number of games and campaigns explore to varying degrees the idea of relations between Amber Royals, and most of these are between first half cousins. On the other hand, some GMs and players are very uncomfortable with the idea. It's definitely a case of your mileage may vary.

The genetic consanguinity, however, in a recent study, has been shown to be less of a problem than one might think. Yes, there is an increased risk of birth defects and problems, but that risk is not much more than strangers, or at least not as much more as you might think. And in Amber, its rarely full first cousins who wind up having sexual relations, at least to my experience...its usually half first cousins, which reduces the risk further.

An interesting MSNBC article talks about all this (the cousins, not the Amber part). The writer has a definite POV but the article is definitely worthwhile.

Even the great Ursula K. LeGuin has gotten rejection letters.

Go ahead and read this rejection letter she received for what many consider one of the best SF novels (or novels period) of all time, The Left Hand of Darkness.

Just goes to show you aspiring writers out there that even superlative talent can be missed.

The Date, by the way, for my move to California has been set at 5/2/2002.

Work has eaten my free time terribly as of late. I've barely done anything for Bete Noire, much less my own poor blog here.

Some food for thought, though for you, Gentle Readers.

I thought of a party game today at a relatively stressless Sunday at work. It's a variation on a theme.

I'm sure you've heard of the idea of "Desert Island books"...if you could only take five books with you on a desert island, what books would you take and why? My idea is "Desert Island People". Suppose you had to be exiled to a desert island for, say, a year. You can take five people that you know with you. Who do you take? All sorts of subvariations come into play--just co-workers, just friends, the island could require you to need to survive and so you would need survival oriented types, or it could be a comfortable exile, and it would be people you could stand being with for a year with no one else.

Interesting, no? At work, we mainly focused on co-workers, since that was the original inspiration. There are no right or wrong answers, and its fun to debate things back and forth "I'd want him, he's strong. I'd usually pick her, but a year of her sense of humor would get on my nerves."