Open Road Media promo offer

 Tuesday, Sept. 28, George Effinger's "When Gravity Fails" will be on sale through Open Road Media, $1.99, digital, US and Canada. It's one of his best. He always claimed it was his attempt to channel Raymond Chandler, but in truth, it was his desire to write about the French Quarter as he knew it in the '70s and '80s, but in science fictional guise.

In other news, I'm wrapping up Benjamin January #19 - "Death and Hard Cider". I thought about calling it "Tippecanoe and Murder, Too," but suspect that too few people even know about that whole Presidential campaign: the first campaign to use modern hoopla, marketing, and publicity stunts, including the campaign slogan, "Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too!". ("Old Tippecanoe" was the name the Whig party chose for their candidate, William Henry Harrison. John Tyler was his VP).

I've spent the past several months shaking my head over the research on the Election of 1840. They put campaign-song words to the tunes of "Star Spangled Banner" and "Auld Lang Syne." Badly. And they did actually roll giant balls of rawhide covered with the signatures of voters. As my friend Laurie says, You can't make this shit up.



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