Pteropus, also known as the flying fox, is one of my favorite inhabitants of Sydney. The “foxes” are really fruit bats, with meter-wide wingspans and a taste for figs and mosquitos. They don’t echo-locate like smaller bats, but they do have a distinctive chirp, like a tongue click in some alien language. Pteropus also has a pleasant musky smell, like a faraway skunk in those moments before you realize what you’re smelling.

For the next couple of weeks, we’re staying within view of the Royal Botanical Gardens, which swarms every evening with foxes heading out to the suburbs. Dusk is prime mosquito hunting time, of course.

Here’s the view from our balcony, with the Opera House peeking out from the trees. In the top right, the first bat of the evening has just taken wing.

After many tries, I managed to catch one whizzing just overhead . . .

In close-up, you can see the mammalian skeletal structure—the tiny feet and the vestigial fingers sticking out from the wings.

And remember, this thing’s big. Three feet across! Walking at night, we occasionally startle one out of a low tree, and it’s like a leather kite coming to life just over your head.

Anyway, that’s what I’m staring out at these days. Book 1 of Leviathan is in copy-editing, and the research for Book 2 is in full swing . . .

The other day I went into the offices of Simon & Schuster to shoot some video about Leviathan, and they cleverly had me doing double duty on this pre-Xmas video. It is slavishly devoted to the notion that Books Make Good Gifts (aka Publishing Is Recession Proof, Right? RIGHT?), but still pretty cool.

The amazing thing is the company I’m keeping. Just try to imagine the after-shoot party with me, Bill O’Reilly, Maya Angelou, and Dan Brown all hanging out. The mind boggles.

Click for the actual video.

By the way, my 50s college professor shirt is by D.L. Cerny, my new fave place for dapper. Because shirts make great gifts!

A common phenomenon in publishing is the “lookalike cover,” which happens when two covers share the same stock photograph (or at least a very similar one).

Here’s an example from the first of my new Midnighters covers:

Note: This lookalike was first spotted by Pop Culture Junkie.

This isn’t such a bad lookalike, because the photos have been cropped, Photoshopped, and used in very different ways. Plus, it’s a fairly normal-looking stock photo.

But the crazier the photo, the more obvious the lookalike. Like this one that was pointed out to me recently (thanks, Eloise). It involves the Australian cover for Peeps and, um, the Bible.

Now what sort of Bible is that, you ask? It’s a coffee-table version with slick magazine-like layouts, that’s supposed to appeal to you slick young things.

As one might expect, The Bible: Illuminated was surrounded by a fairly boring controversy over whether publishers should try to make religious texts “cool” or not. Blah, blah, blah. Some people will like it, others not. For some, the juxtaposition of modern images with ancient texts will be brain-rattling, which is probably a good thing.

But for readers of Peeps, the cognitive dissonance should be especially intense. And that’s the fun part of lookalikes—when the same image works in different ways for two very different books.

Any more lookalikes out there that you guys have found?

Update: And it turns out there are more of these eyeball covers! Check them out on Pop Culture Junkie.

It’s good to be Скотт Вестерфельд. Very good indeed.

Sure, Scott Westerfeld gets to live in a stable democracy (two of them!), with thousand-channel cable networks and no Siberian winters.

But Скотт Вестерфельд has covers like this one:

Yes, that’s the new edition of Midnighters: The Secret Hour. Or The Owl, as the series is known in Russia. It is even more insanely cool than the old Russian cover.

Too awesome for words, at least words in English. Speaking of which, here’s the plot description, courtesy of the always profound Google Translator:

Biksbi small town in Oklahoma at first glance, nothing remarkable. But in fact it is one of the most dangerous and mysterious places on the planet. Few know that at midnight Biksbi lasts not a moment, a whole hour. Hour, when the whole world stops and go hunting producing darkness, who can resist only those born in a minute of midnight. Their five, all of them students, and each has a unique gift to brighten the whole manifested in a secret hour: Rex sees traces of touching the darkness of Melissa could not hide other people’s thoughts, Dess loves numbers and mathematical laws, Jonathan with the midnight has become almost weightless. Jessica came to Biksbi more recently, and her talent was the most dangerous to night creatures.

Suddenly, the guys show that they are not the only one who knows about the secret hour. And that previous generations owl Biksbi disappeared is not a coincidence …

Actually, that sounds like the plot description to Book 2. But, hey.

And check out this Скотт Вестерфельд classic:

“The Rebel”
Three hundred years ago, human civilization collapsed – and reborn from the ashes. Surviving disaster firmly decided not to repeat the mistakes of their ancestors. Now the world is designed to truly correct. Cities swim in the greenery, aeromobili quietly slipping in the air. But most importantly – on the ground there is real justice. Because there are no more plain people … Well, not counting teenagers. All who turned sixteen – madly, giddily beautiful thanks to plastic surgery. One trouble: how is painfully long stretch last months before the Sixteenth birthday! ..

However, in the meantime, much can happen. Vylazku risky thinking of booking for “ugly creatures, Telli and did not suspect, than it would – that it is destined to become new friends, overcome dangerous and distant way, and learn about the terrible secret” Operation Beauty “…

Scott Vesterfeld – one of the most recognized authors fiction for young people. Russian readers, he is known primarily for the TV series “owl” already successful earn great popularity both in the world, and we have.

Oh, yeah, we have. Of course, The Mignighters TV series never really happened, but don’t let a little pravda slow you down.

And the back of “The Rebel” is even cooler. It has an airship on it, for some unknown but probably awesome reason! Once I get the real book in my hands, I’ll make sure to scan it.

So here’s to you, Скотт Вестерфельд! You’re a better man than I.

So I think it’s time for another IMterview.

You may remember previous IMterviews, such as my discussion of Cycler with Lauren McLaughlin, and this chat with Robin Wasserman.

This one is a little closer to home, as it’s with my wife, Justine Larbalestier. We’ll be discussing her new book, How to Ditch Your Fairy.

Because we’re sitting next to each other as we IMed, it turned out a bit sillier than usual.

If you need catching up about what the book is about, here’s what I said back when it came out.

And here is the IMterview. (Okay, I’ll stop saying “IMterview” now, because it is lame.)

Here’s what the book looks like:

You can order HTDYF at Powell’s, Amazon, or Barnes and Noble.

Justine and I are in Texas this week at NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English), and we did a joint appearance in Austin on Wednesday night. The questions were written down by audience members and read to us by the host. It was kind of fun and extra classy that way, and had one added benefit—after we ran out of time, we still had all the unanswered questions!

So this morning, for all those of you who didn’t get a live answer, Justine and I answered them on her blog.

Click here for the Q & A.

And here for Justine’s account of the event.

And we’ll be seeing all you lovely teachers, librarians, etc., at NCTE/ALAN soon.

In a mega event tomorrow, Justine will be joining Robin Wasserman and a passel of other YA writers at Books of Wonder.

Justine, of course, will be discussing How to Ditch Your Fairy, and I’m sure you remember Robin from her guest-blogging stint here and her awesome novel Skinned.

The other authors are:

SUZANNE COLLINS for The Hunger Games; WILLIAM BONIFACE for The Extraordinary Adventures of Ordinary Boy #3: The Great Powers Outage; P.W. CATANESE for The Riddle of the Gnome; JOANNE DAHME for Creepers; DANIEL KIRK for The Low Road; DEAN LOREY for Monster Madness; AMANDA MARRONE for Revealers; and KETAKI SHRIRAM for Sorceress of the Himalayas.

So many books; so little time!

Click here for event details at BOW’s site, or just read this:

Saturday, November 15
Noon to 2PM
Books of Wonder
18 W 18th Street
New York, NY 10011
212-989-3270

Hope to see you there!

Here’s some news about some of the other sites related to my books.

A new teen website called TeenLibris.com has a contest up right now. They’re giving away copies of Bogus to Bubbly and Uglies t-shirts!

Teen Libris also has an excerpt from Bogus to Bubbly online, so go and check it out.

There’s a ton of new content at FeelingBubbly.com, my publisher’s site for the Uglies series.

And (again) for Midnighters fans, don’t forget to join up at the new forum, Midnighters Inc.

Okay, what am I missing? Use this comment thread to promote any other fansites that the peoples here might want to check out.

Update
And for you political folks, check out this wonderful thank-you video that the YA for Obama crew made for Maureen Johnson.

I was recently informed that the Uglies series is a bonafide bestseller in France. That must be why I’ve been getting so many Facebook friend requests from Paris schools lately. That’s also why my books tend to come out in France almost instantly, translated straight from manuscript.

In fact, the French version of Bogus to Bubbly is already in stores. It’s called Secrets and looks like this:

For comparison, here’s the US cover again (also in stores!):

I like the cropping on the French cover better, actually. And the slightly redder color scheme. It somehow seems more . . . secrety. It’s a cool title, too.

So hello to all my fans in France! And thanks to everyone at Pocket Jeunesse for their support.

If you read French, click here for all my books at Amazon.fr.

UPDATE
Attention all Midnighters fans, there’s a new forum in town: Midnighters Inc. Check it out.

A few days ago, I got an email from Lauren Myracle, author of the TTYL series and a very scary horror novel called Bliss. It was a challenge . . .
to a Scare-a-thon!

Now, a Scare-a-thon is possibly the scariest thing you can be challenged to, at least in modern times. To survive it, you must face your greatest fear, and then blog it.

If you succeed, you’ll have learned something about yourself, something rich and squishy from your subconscious. But on the other hand, you could die of fear!

So don’t try this at home.

Also challenged were M.T. Anderson, Holly Black, Libba Bray, Meg Cabot, Cassandra Clare, Melissa De La Cruz, John Green, Shannon Hale, Maureen Johnson, Stephenie Meyer, Kirsten Miller, Sarah Mlynowski. I link to some other Scare-a-thon entries below, and will update them as more appear on the interwebs.

Here’s my entry:

Ahhhhhhh!

Okay, not so much scary as disgusting. But it was scary to me.

As for my fellow Scare-a-thon members, I dare you to watch this scarifying video entry from Shannon Hale, in the spirit of Blair Witch Project.

And here’s Meg Cabot’s blog entry, for all you fairy-phobes.

Not to be outdone, Lauren herself met the challenge by learning the dance to “Thriller”.

Finally, here’s where we discover that Melissa de la Cruz is afraid of . . . dentistry!

I’ll be updating as the other entries in Scare-a-thon 2008 appear.

Still to come:
M.T. Anderson
Holly Black
Libba Bray
Cassandra Clare
John Green
Maureen Johnson
Stephenie Meyer
Kirsten Miller
Sarah Mlynowski

Let’s get going, dudes.

UPDATE
Click here for my election-eve post on YA for Obama!

UPDATED SCARES
Kirsten Miller faces her fear of eggs.