A couple of people have asked me, here and by email, if I'm going to open up a discussion of Tied to the Tracks. That's something I'd love to do. Rachel has a very interesting review of TTTT on her weblog, in which she raises her discomfort with one of the themes of the novel. That would be an interesting conversation to have. So I've been thinking about how to handle this, as it's next to impossible to conduct any kind of real discussion on a weblog.

The problem: I'm not willing to set up a Google Group or a Yahoo Group or anybody else's group, for that matter. The solution: my service provider makes it laughably easy to set up a discussion forum right here. Took me all of fifteen minutes.

I've had mixed luck with discussion forums in the past, but I thought I'd give it one more try. So here's the deal:

You want to be included in the name draw for the Queen of Swords ARC, all you have to do is

1. Register on the forum (no personal information will ever go anywhere, for any reason).

2. Wait for the verification email that will come to the email address you provided, and click on the link in that email to complete your registration.

3. Pick a topic, any topic, and submit a short (or long, it's up to you) post.

After that you're free to shake the dust of the place from your heels forever. Or maybe you'd care to stick around and talk about books. Completely up to you.

I'll give this ten days, and then I'll pull a name.

And in the meantime, maybe we can get a discussion of Tied to the Tracks going.