The Scorpio Races Readalong
“Today is the first day of November and so, today, someone will die.”
This is the first line of my novel THE SCORPIO RACES, and it’s also a line that, on the first day of November, hundreds of readers share (usually without context) across social media, alarming God knows how many friends and family.
SCORPIO is the little novel that could, the novel that taught me it was all right to be strange. After the massive success of SHIVER — a million copies sold of that series, then two, etc., etc. — I wasn’t sure where I was supposed to go next. Was I going to try to beat the numbers of Shiver? I didn’t think that was possible. Shiver’s success was a combination of the book’s contents and the book’s timing, and you can only control one of those things.
So I decided this meant I should just write whatever I wanted to, without worrying about if anyone would like it. I’d attempted SCORPIO a few times over the years and never been satisfied with the result, but now it felt like it was time. I could feel it burning inside me, waiting to come out. I wrote it fast, drafting in 90 days, in order, a feat never done before or since. And I adored it. It is my favorite of my novels (briefly Dream Thieves warred for my heart, and the novel I just completed might make a run for it, too, but Scorpio always wins). I didn’t care how it did. My strange cozy novel about flesh-eating horses and wild November nights would be just for me, the privilege of writing obliviously earned by outrageous success I couldn’t hope to match.
But SCORPIO succeeded. Not at first. It came out very quietly one fall, the same year as FOREVER, and didn’t come close to touching the bestseller list. But unlike most novels, who slowly (well, sometimes quickly) sell fewer and fewer copies each year, SCORPIO putters along and even escalates, now outselling FOREVER, the #1 NYT Bestseller that previously dwarfed it the year it came out, just shy of a decade ago.
It’s a difficult book to sum up and so it survives via whisper and elbows in sides and staff recommendations on indie bookstores across the world. I’m grateful that my most folklorish novel travels like a bit of folktale. Passed from family member to family member, friend to friend.
This month I need to reread Scorpio Races myself for Reasons, and because I’ve already set up a Slack channel for my Howl’s Moving Castle readalong, I figured I’d ask if any of you guys wanted to accompany me on my Scorpio readalong. It’s casual, with different channels for each chapter, so you won’t be spoiled if you are reading at a different pace (who knows what pace I will be taking). I’ll be in the Slack channel for both books all month, off and on, and so even if I finish before you, I’ll be around for the discussion until December.
Slack is a little strange to figure out in the beginning but everyone there is very helpful about reaching out a hand to folks who’ve just arrived. If you would like to join us, here’s the invite link: https://bit.ly/2Qc7rDl.
And finally, both The Scorpio Races and Howl’s Moving Castle are quite well represented in libraries, so feel free to grab a copy there (please don’t pirate), or if you’d like to get the bonus tarot cards I created for the readalong, you can order your copies of either from Fountain Bookstore. They’ll just automatically come with copies ordered from them during the month of November.
See you there — oh — and —
It is the first day of November and so, today, someone will die.
ellievsbear
romaincrisis
baratheonpilled
prguitarman
snowghoul
tangentwithtanner
janainaart
areudirty
dededos
