highly relevant, and may put an end to the discussion altogether.

Properly, an alicorn is a unicorn’s severed horn, but it could also be read as a horned animal (“cornu”) with wings (“alis”).

Hey, why not?

As for blurbs, it’s true that they can hurt worse than an alicorn through the duodenum. My wife and I once reviewed an album, saying “They’d be Spirit if they were better”, and got an angry midnight phone call in response, demanding that we take it back. So we followed it up by saying, “They’ll never, ever be Spirit”, but that didn’t seem to be the right thing to say either.

That is all.

Unicorns are famous for killing animals many times their size, including elephants. Godzilla is a good deal bigger, but remember, unicorns have been described as running around carrying an impaled elephant. At the very least, if Godzilla tried his usual STOMP maneuver, he’d go hopping away yelping after he took two feet of needle-sharp curly horn in his instep.

As for zombies, I suppose a zombie owner might command his slow-moving, dull-witted slaves to attack Godzilla, but I doubt they’d fare even as well as compos mentis Japanese military personnel.

Oh, and by the way: zombies don’t eat human flesh. In fact, they don’;t eat meat of any kind. Look it up.

do unicorns even have a cause?

in a fight i’d put money on the zombies. they just have the numbers.

“Book… not braains… braaaains…!”

Rebecca: I guess I rely on blurbs more because I had such good luck with them as a teenager. I was always finding books that my fave authors had blurbed. That’s how I discovered Lisa St Aubin de Teran. And now that I’m part of publishing gossip land I have a pretty good idea of what blurbs are sincere.

Narwhals are fabulous!

Penni: That’s a fantastic idea. I wonder why more publishers don’t do that.

Ez: “Blurbs” are the quotes from authors or chunks from reviews.

“Cover copy” is the description of the book. Also known as “jacket copy”. Or just plain “copy”.

2. I think I’m getting “blurbs” confused with “review quotes”. I thought a blurb was “something on the back of a back explaining what the book’s about”, and that review quotes were “the protagonist is a pain in the arse, but the plot’s intriguing, lalala”. Will you clarify, please?

Thanks, and have a lovely day!

i am curious, justine–what are your feelings on narwhals?

I *cannot* believe someone gave you a bad blurb! What’s wrong with, “I’m sorry, I’m not going to be able to do this…”

Salokin: Sweet, sweet smell of decay. Unicorns smell of farts. Nasty farts.

Jessiegirl: Obviously, you mean vampires second, zombies first and rather than the number 4 you should put “last”, but other than that I am with you!

Marrije: I haven’t read the Zusak, but I can tell you that John Green is utterly sincere in his love of it. He doesn’t shut up about it. Seriously, every time I see him he’s on my case to read it. No matter how many times I tell him that I can’t read it cause I heard it has unicorns—he still keeps going on and on and on about the glories of that book. Sheesh!

1. vampires.
2. zombies.
3. all other magical creatures.
4. unicorns.

Bmad: You’ll get no consensus from me a pox on both their houses!

Elizabeth: You are behind the times. Scalzi suggested that yesterday.

John H: the horror!

Welcome, Captain Cockatiel, I am so with you on not needing pegasus or unicorns in the face of the glory of zombies.

Marrije: Oh noes! I hate Heyer’s detective fiction! It’s awful. So very awful. But remember I hate Agatha Christie and all cosies so maybe it will work fo you? I hope so! It’s her regencies that are my crack. Venetia, Sylvester, Frederica, Cotillion. Sigh. Such yumminess. If you go the amazon route order them of amazon.co.uk—much better covers.

Hope the good news conquers the bad news.

Doselle: Very very well put. That’s it exactly!

Though I’m concerned by the personal experience part. Ewww!

1) Fun quotient: Fast-moving zombies beat unicorns hands down. They make more exciting targets, cooler noises and there’s that likely to eat the annoying guy next to you thing, as well.

2) D.P.W. (Disfunctional Personality Warning) quotient: In this department, unicorns excel. Consider, if you’re over at someone’s home and they have a collection of unicorn merch., you pretty much guaranteed you’re socializing with a nutter, whereas, if you walk into someone’s home and are greeted by posters of zombies, you’re pretty much in for a good time (although you may be expected to listen to a little too much Danzig).

3) W.W.M.L.W.I.A.F.W.G quotient: Okay. Who would most likely when in a fight with Godzilla? Well, zombies are flesh eating, fast moving humanoids with the ability to work in packs. Unicorns just kinda hang around being, well, fairly lame and pathetic with thei stupid horns, so, while either would like get crushed under Godzilla’s massive feet, there’s no doubt in my mind that unicorns would make some lame, pastel-like splatter as they were flattened into a pancake.

I’m sure there are other important indicators, as well.

D

P.S. To the lovely Elizabeth Bear:

Zombie Unicorns are infinitely cooler than unicorns because the word ZOMBIE makes just about anything cooler. Other examples include: Zombie Chef, Zombie Figure Skater, Zombie Footballer, Zombie President, etc. Even Zombie Milton Berle. So, when considered in such stellar company, how can a zombie unicorn not be cool, right?

i bought a georgette heyer novel! i had never heard of the woman before you talked about her, so i’m going to read this because of your blurbs.

it’s one of her mysteries (the unfinished clue), and i’m not sure whether you like those (the blurbs (hah!) mention Agatha C. as a comparison), but I thought i’d start with the one i found.

i also got zusak’s the book thief because of john green’s blurbling. well, his review, actually.