A few things:
THING ONE
Over the last couple of weeks, Holly Black and I have been blogging over at Babel Clash, discussing Zombies Versus Unicorns, mostly. Here are the last four posts we did:
“The Meaning of Versus,” by me.
“Passing Between Worlds,” by Holly.
“Ten Reasons Why Robots Are Better than Monkeys,” by Holly.
And of course “Ten Reasons Why Monkeys Are Better than Robots,” by me.
THING TWO
I didn’t attend many of the Forum meet-ups last year, but I want to do better this year. So this Saturday, January 22 at 7PM, Eastern Time (in the US), I shall be at the Forum! That’s 11AM Sunday in Australian Eastern Time, and midnight between the two days in London. (Sorry.) Come and ask questions and hang out!
THING THREE
Via BoingBoing.net, some cool footage of an actual thylacine, like Tazza in the Leviathan series.
As you know from the Afterword of Leviathan, Tasmanian tigers are real creatures, or were until they went extinct in 1936 or so. So when writing Tazza, I had to use old footage like this to figure out how they would act and move. It’s kind of wondrous and sad, watching a movie of an extinct animal.
Yay! My first forum meetup and you’ll be there! How excitingful. Full of exciting! I should probably be studying for midterms but oh well.
Awwww…it’s so upsetting to know that that’s the footage of an extict creature. On a lighter note, I loved you list of reasons for Monkeys vs. Robots.
Yay forum! I’ll be there! I love videos of Tasmanian tigers. It’s eerie because it’s extinct SO recently, I mean, there’s VIDEO footage of it. I know people that could have been alive then…:-/ sad making.
But it’s a gorgeous animal 🙂 and I’m glad you keep it alive in writing.
I have a pup named Tazza and she certainly isn’t extinct! She is, however, curled up on my bed asleep.
So sad they are extinct TT~TT
But beautiful, that we at least have videos
To bad for the thylacines.
But how did they go exinct?
I find it strange and sad when I see that video, since you know you’re watching something that doesn’t exist anymore.
@Aron,
They went extinct due to overhunting.
But why? There skin? Meat? I don’t see why they would go extinct for anything like that.
When I first read Leviathan I actually looked up the Thylacine to see what it was like, It’s sad.
Tazza has a huge mouth! And he is rather quick of his feet. 🙂
Ahhhhhhhhh!!! I haven’t checked on here for almost two months if I’m correct. I’ve been hung up on this new website, http://www.figment.com, and it absolutely rocks! Well, I was on today listening to music and I thought, “Hey, I wonder what’s up with my favorite weird author?” So I jumped on and read up on what I missed, and voila! I am here talking to all of you!!!So, did any of you miss me?? ‘Cause if you didn’t I will feel very sad and left out…
First time ever seeing a thylacine outside of Wikipedia (and of course, your books).
SoOoOoOoOo AwEsOmE!!!
And yes, Mr Westerfeld, zombies ARE better than unicorns.
HEY! My 16th Birthday is this Saturday!!!! I’ll try and be there! But I have rehersals, and Winter Formal’s that day (even though I’m still not sure if I’m going or not). Well, I guess we’ll see what time brings us! :S
What I find odd is to see footage from that time in such good quality. Most footage from that time is really damaged. It is sad to see a video of such a beautiful creature and know it’s extinct.
However, I have been noticing more footage and news reports that the thylacine may not be extinct after all, but has been hiding in the remote and uninhabited regions of Southern Tasmania. I’m not saying the reports and blurry videos and photos are true (most show silhouettes or the markings, but never the whole creature), but it’s interesting to note.
Thylacines went extinct because people were scared of them. They looked like wolves, so sheep farmers shot them, and the government paid hunters a bounty to kill them. There isn’t much evidence that there were a menace, though.
It was kind of random.
woohooo!!! meet up! 🙂
I hope I can make it!
Thylacines were really beautiful and amazing. Sometimes I have to wonder how many creatures wouldn’t be extinct if it hadn’t been for us humans. The Robots VS Monkeys thing was AWESOME.
Go Monkeys!
Every creature would eventuely. Just not that fast. Nature always uppgrades.
I’ll be camp counseling so no Meet-Up for me 🙁
Sad that human ignorance and stupidity caused the extinction of such a beautiful animal. Sadder still that we seem to have learned nothing from it. Human activity has caused the extinction of dozens of species since then, and continues to threaten and endanger hundreds of others…
@Aron: Wrong. Evolving–or “upgrading”, as you call it (technically that’s not actually how evolution works, but whatever)–is not the same as going extinct. Evolution means leaving descendants–descendants who are not exactly the same as their ancestors, and who sometimes “branch out” to form another species entirely, but descendants nonetheless. Extinction means the complete loss of a species from the ecosystem. Cro-Magnon (early Homo sapiens) evolved, and we are their descendants. Other human species, such as Neanderthals and Homo floresiensis, went extinct–they left no descendants.
If you watch the video that comes up after the one you posted ends (the one called “Mysterious Planet: Return of the Thylacine”, it says there’s some proof that Thylacines may still exist. I shows a (somewhat shifty and not totally believable) photo of one in some grass or something that was supposedly taken recently.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NthS7iH9DrY
@Kayleigh
Sorry. English is not my first language, so it’s a bit hard. (That wasn’t exactly how i ment it. But that’s probably my foult.
1) thylacines are the new Bigfoot seriously people make reports on seeing an animal that looks like it and footprints and stuff.
2) I read about some one who REALLY kept one as a pet which I would totally do!!
Scott i just wanna say congratulations!!!
Behemoth and Leviathan are all over melbourne. I cant walk into a book store and not see them, and thats not just the large stores, even my kinky little independent book store has them (and they are almost sold out) congrats 🙂
yay! i’ll be at the meet-up, scott-la!
How sad and profound to see footage of a such a graceful creature. Farmers and ranchers in the United States hunted the bald eagle nearly to extinction and now they’re trying to do it to wolves.
I hope the reports of sightings in the southern Tasmanian forests are correct.
🙂 TAZZA!!!! <3
wow a real Tazza, makes my mind want to explode with coolness.
you know some scientist want to bring back the wooly mamoth, they should bring back thylaciences we kind of owe them because we’re the reason they’re dead.I feel so guilty whenever I see a picture of one like I’m sorry my race is responsible for your death… aaakkkk so guilty!
oooh i like the next video that you can watch. IS THE THYLACEINE STILL ALIVE?! and did i spell that correctly?
-Lizzy-wa OUT! ❓
My goodness I haven’t been here for a LONG LONG time.
So long, that I think I had changed my name to something else, but I don’t quite remember what it was.
Anyways, I need to catch up on my Scott books and read Leviathan and Behemoth!! So then I can know what you guys are talking about 🙂
I had a childhood flashback when reading Leviathan. When Tazza was introduced, I remembered this episode of this show Kratt’s Kreatures where the two Kratt brothers went searching for the Tasmanian tiger and they found out later that it was extinct.
Thanks for that Scott 🙂
I researched the Tasmanian Tiger on Wikipedia and it was really interesting (Keith[can I call him Keith?] did a really great job illustrating him, and you, describing him) but it’s nice to see how they moved and stuff
This is a completely random question (by the way, I am a HUGE fan of all of your books. I’m literally hysterical waiting for Goliath to come out). But how exactly did you decide on the covers for the Uglies series? It seems like the Pretties might attract a different audience than it’s meant for.
That video makes me want a Tasmanian Tiger/Thylacine. Does anyone know why they went Extinct? If it was because of something Man did I’m not surprised.
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