The Murverse Mothership

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Ditch Diggers comes to you ACTUALLY LIVE from WorldCon 2019 in Dublin, Ireland!

• Once again, Hugo-nominated writer and owner of Escape Artists, Alasdair Stuart, acts as Matt’s official proxy in Matt’s absence.
• Our guests for this 4th Annual Ditch Diggers Live are legendary authors Ursula Vernon and Gail Carriger!
• This year, Mur and Alasdair host a special game of Superfight featuring customized publishing industry scenarios such as the sudden firing of a new writer’s editor (which actually happened to Ursula).
• Ursula and Gail choose their heroic personas and also face-off in “dungeons” containing such things as pits of gladiators who definitely did not skip leg day, and may or may not be shiny.
• Surprisingly, butter is apparently the best power to have in this game.
• Spoiler Alert: the cat dies.
• The mime card persists. You’ll see.
• The writing of award speeches are discussed, including and most especially Ursula’s near-mythic “Whale Fall” speech when she accepted her Hugo in 2017.
• Alasdair discusses his Inner Matt, and Gail agrees we all have one.
• The audience is either too terrified or too knowledgable to ask questions of our guests, so the Ditch Diggers lob a pair of final dungeons filled with arm-wrestling statues and lava at Gail and Ursula (razor stiletto heels, cement shoes, and sausage lassos are deployed).
• Our heroes survive the publishing industry by learning the ultimate lesson: it’s all about helping each other, and sometimes there are sausages.
• Everyone shares their final thoughts, which for Gail involves more butter and for Ursula involves square dancing.