Our Weird World: an intro

Want to check out something weird, but true?

Maybe you do, but maybe you don’t. I’ve found that a surprising number of people are on board for the first part— the weirdness— but not so much for the second. They hate it when miracles get debunked. They act as though, by pointing out the real-life explanation for some uncanny phenomenon, you’ve stolen something from them.

I never understood this. Some time ago I even summed it up in what I thought was a witty little aphorism: “Who needs the supernatural when the natural is so super?”. I’m not sure why that didn’t catch on. I think it’s pretty damn slick.

But anyhow. For me, learning that something astonishing has a mundane explanation doesn’t destroy its beauty. In fact it does the exact opposite— it demonstrates that our world does indeed contain wonders. And my books reflect that. The slang of Granny Almantree’s criminal crew, the flight of the cranes over the Breathless Heights, the hundred-plus towers bristling up out of the plazas of Spireburgh— all have counterparts in our own world.

So. Avid connoisseur of curiosities that I am, I thought perhaps I’d use this space to start sharing such things. As I go about my business, if it happens that I turn up a nugget of the real-life Stuff of Magic, I can post a link to it here. What do you think? Would that be fun?

Here’s one now: that bit about “Spireburgh”. The City of a Hundred Towers totally existed.