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The Return of the Orange Virgin

First published online as a serial novel over 2 ½ years: June 2006 to December 2008

The Return of the Orange Virgin you see here is a labor of love. Over the ensuing years I had been raiding the manuscript for ideas and characters for short stories, and the stories were being published. Hence, a revision seemed the only proper way to treat a Lady. As was the original OV, this conflated novella version (205 pages in the trade paperback) was a fluid enterprise as earlier chapters tended to change as they were rewritten to match plot shifts in more recent chapters. Have fun. I am (see There's Life in the Old Girl Yet). Think of it as a hypertext puzzle box.

Secondly, a hearty, manly handshake for the persistent readers who stayed with the original drafts for an uploading process that saw 32 monthly chapters lofted over three years (2006, 2007 and 2008). Thanks for your patience; you guys kept me going. The inconsistencies, logical absurdities and plain-out wrong-headedness demonstrated by the author (as when a personage may emerge many chapters after her introduction only to disappear altogether without a why or wherefore) have been lessened, expunged and/or excised as the Orange Virgin was conflated to fit inside the covers of Platterland, a collection of tales due for release in late 2010.

In the days of old the gods had the whole earth distributed among them by allotment. There was no quarrelling; for you cannot rightly suppose that the gods did not know what was proper for each of them to have, or, knowing this, that they would seek to procure for themselves by contention that which more properly belonged to others....*