Howdy, folks. It’s been busy times at Rancho Del Daryl.  #1 daughter graduated from high school this weekend, which we celebrated with a Chicago Hotdog Party. If you’ve never had a true, Chicago-style hotdog, words cannot express the pity I have for you. The neon relish I slathered on my dogs took the sting out of feeling like an old man whose daughter is old enough for college.

Then on Sunday I put the finishing touches on the first draft of my next book—working title Raising Stony Mayhall—and sent that off to agent and editor. And then I started serious work on issue #1 of Dracula: Company of Monsters. In the middle of all that I got addicted to Plants Vs. Zombies on my wife’s iPad. Life is hard.

Oh, and before I go, two items on the reviews front:

BookMark is our local PBS station’s radio book review program, and a couple weeks ago Noah Schoenholtz reviewed The Devil’s Alphabet—and a very nice review it was, too. You can listen or download on WPSU’s site.

And then there were a couple reviews on “Masked”, the anthology of superhero stories edited by Lou Anders, that’s coming out in July, and some reviews are appearing. One hand, we have the prolific reviewer/ human spambot Harriet Klausner, who is the sausage grinder of internet reviewers: books go in, and unrecognizable reviews come out. Her review of the book is a marvel of incomprehensibility.

And on the other, we have this just in from Publisher’s Weekly:

Anders (Fast Forward) delivers an ambitious collection of superhero tales that provide top-notch plots and characterizations while honoring their four-color roots. In Daryl Gregory’s superbly metafictional “Message from the Bubble Gum Factory,” a former sidekick finally realizes the broader implications of superheroes. Stephen Baxter nicely applies hard science to the futuristic “Vacuum Lad.” Gail Simone’s “Thug” and Mike Carey’s “The Non-Event” bolster predictable plots with solid characters and prose. Joseph Mallozzi’s “Downfall” and Marjorie M. Liu’s “Call Her Savage” embrace comics clichés and make them both more complex and more entertaining. Only Mike Baron’s dull, heavy-handed, and predictable “Avatar” stands out as noticeably weak, though Peter and Kathleen David’s witty “Head Cases” feels more like the opening of a novel than a complete story. Overall, Anders has assembled a solid anthology that provides first-rate entertainment. (July)

Oh, and Lou sent the contributors this link: The art director for the book, Richard Yoo, blogged about the cover — with some interesting alternative approaches they tried before arriving at the final product.

Okay, gotta go write about Vlad the Impaler. Happy summer, everybody.