One of the MOST FUN THINGS about writing in the same world for a thousand years–stories that take place in different countries, in different parts of the timeline, some of it history and some of it myth and all of it in translation, but same damn world nonetheless–is that you get to reference yourself all the time and it’s all these little jokes EVERYWHERE.
Like Twice-Drowned Saint has this section that talks about two movies, but the two movies are two of my old stories (one of them in Bone Swans), and some of the first fiction I ever published: “Life on the Sun” and “Godmother Lizard.”
There’s a character in Saint Death’s Daughter, Havoc, who is loosely related to the Jack o’ the Hills stories. And my short story “From the Archives of the Museum of Eerie Skins,” forthcoming with Uncanny Magazine, has cameos from “The Witch in the Almond Tree” characters.
And don’t get me started on all the Dark Breakers references.
I SHOULD MAKE A WHACHOOMACALLIT! A CONCORDANCE!
This bit (below) was always in THE TWO PAUPERS, but now I’ve made it even CHEEKIER, and only those who’ve read BONE SWANS (and who remember it) will get it.
Also, THIS TIME, I added in an artist that I’ve named after my friend Lea Grover (author of Becoming SuperMommy). I used to model for Lea, back in Chicago. She’s got my butt up in her living room.
Lea, I think, would fit right into the Dark Breakers world. She’d certainly ROCK the Voluptuist movement of the New Century. She’d be one of the premier artists of Seafall, and give Elliot Howell a run for his money. And HE’D be HER biggest fan. So there.
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“Desdemona had opted to dress as the iconic Swan Princess from legend, Dora Rose. Everyone knew the story; it was the sort of thing Voluptuist artists scarfed up like cheap wine and day-old bread. There were several famous paintings on the subject. (Gideon favored Leha Borgrove’s watercolor-and-inks over Elliot’s oils; Elliot tended to idealize the female and animal form, but Leha wasn’t afraid to make her swan girls ugly, mighty, and mean.) There was also a ballet (which Gideon had never seen), an opera (which he loathed), and a play that Ana had written for the Seafall Fringe Festival (which he had gone to watch every night, although Ana didn’t know that).”
– “The Two Paupers”: Revised and Expanded for Dark Breakers
C.S.E. Cooney 