Fashion and the Snarkmeisters

By Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Caro, once considered the most beautiful woman in the world, had a daughter with a relatively ugly magician. Caro’s daughter, unfortunately, inherited her father’s looks—and his magic. She uses that magic to help protect her beautiful mother, and famous women like her, from the snarkmeisters on red carpets everywhere.

But the snarkmeisters pale in comparison to the darker magic driving them—a magic that thrives on human failings. A magic that might prove too great to overcome.

“Rusch is a great storyteller.”

—RT Book Reviews

• Language: English
• Publisher: WMG Publishing
• Release date: Feb 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386460060

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

USA Today bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes in almost every genre. Generally, she uses her real name (Rusch) for most of her writing. Under that name, she publishes bestselling science fiction and fantasy, award-winning mysteries, acclaimed mainstream fiction, controversial nonfiction, and the occasional romance. Her novels have made bestseller lists around the world and her short fiction has appeared in eighteen best of the year collections. She has won more than twenty-five awards for her fiction, including the Hugo, Le Prix Imaginales, the Asimov’s Readers Choice award, and the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Choice Award. Publications from The Chicago Tribune to Booklist have included her Kris Nelscott mystery novels in their top-ten-best mystery novels of the year. The Nelscott books have received nominations for almost every award in the mystery field, including the best novel Edgar Award, and the Shamus Award. She writes goofy romance novels as award-winner Kristine Grayson, romantic suspense as Kristine Dexter, and futuristic sf as Kris DeLake.  She also edits. Beginning with work at the innovative publishing company, Pulphouse, followed by her award-winning tenure at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, she took fifteen years off before returning to editing with the original anthology series Fiction River, published by WMG Publishing. She acts as series editor with her husband, writer Dean Wesley Smith, and edits at least two anthologies in the series per year on her own. To keep up with everything she does, go to kriswrites.com and sign up for her newsletter. To track her many pen names and series, see their individual websites (krisnelscott.com, kristinegrayson.com, krisdelake.com, retrievalartist.com, divingintothewreck.com). She lives and occasionally sleeps in Oregon.

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Fashion and the Snarkmeisters

Fashion and the Snarkmeisters

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

WMG Publishing

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Fashion and the Snarkmeisters

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Also by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Fashion and the Snarkmeisters

You saw it , everyone did—1 billion people if the Nielsens are right (and they so rarely are)—that moment when the statue of a gigantic, naked, golden man toppled onto a scrum of snarky, microphone-wielding reporters.

Oh, the dithering. Oh, the slow-motion replays. Oh, the terrified faces—right out of a Hollywood disaster movie.

No one was injured, at least not in the Hollywood-disaster-movie way. Expensive clothing was wrinkled and stained beyond repair. Reputations were ruined with little more than a few high-pitched squeals. And way too many people celebrated on social media.

I admit, had I been sitting at home watching the so-called debacle, I might have Tweeted something inappropriate and regretted it enough to delete my Twitter feed the next day.

But I wasn’t at home. I was standing about fifty feet to the left, behind the emergency curtain at the edge of the red carpet, some special safety pins clamped in my teeth, a stronger-than-surgical-steel needle in my right hand, and a spool of special glittery metallic thread in my left.

I might have growled a cheer, but I knew better than to open my mouth and take a deep breath before shouting my huzzahs. After all, if I had swallowed those pins and lost my concentration…

Well, I get ahead of myself.

The Real Beginning

I have no idea if the snark started on May 16, 1929, in the Blossom Room at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel (make that May 17, the day after the Big Event) or if it started back at dawn of time when clothing stopped being optional.

What I do know is this: The word award came into common use in the Middle Ages, and if you look at mainstream dictionaries (the ones that don’t accept magic), you’ll see that award meant decision after careful observation. Okay, fine. That sounds right—especially considering how much time we all spend watching the nominated films every year.

For the magical, though, the word award holds a deeper meaning. The word has the word ward in it, and wards, as