"Across the herbaceous nap below..."

Reportedly, this is the cover of Hell Hath No Fury

Hey! Everyone cares about this.

Through routes and thoroughfares unbeknownst to yours truly, a copy of Thomas Pynchon's new novel, Against the Day, landed in my unreadied mitts today. It's due to drop out of the heavens next Tues, but, if like me, you maintain in your ward a posse comitatus of ninja/pirate mule operatives, you can probably procure the 9 years-coming beast (1085 pages, 3 lbs 6 oz) now with relative felicitousness. Funny, my specially-bred retinue of warrior-pariahs didn't even tell me they were gonna hook me up. Anyway, if you don't roll deep with shadowy underlings who can tap the most down-lowest subterranean black markets with with the casual flick of a shuriken or point of a scimitar, you gon hafta wait til tuesday. Oh yeah I heard it's soon gonna be illegal not to read this book, so getcha paper up. This bastard goes for 35 ramshackles.

I've read about 20 pages. It opens with a boisterous quintet of aeronauts, called the "Chums of Chance" aboard the flying-ship Inconvenience. Here are their names:

Randolph St. Cosmos
Darby Suckling
Lindsay Noseworth
Miles Blundell
Chick Counterfly
...and their Henry James-reading dog, Pugnax

Choice quotes:

"...moreover, the complexities that would attend rigging Blundell in the necessary paraphernalia would tax the topological genius of Herr Riemann himself."

"Across the herbaceous nap below, in the declining light, among the brighter star-shapes of exploded ballast-bags, running heedless, as across some earthly firmament, sped a stout gentleman in a Norfolk jacket and plus-fours..."

I feel like I just got Only Built 4 Cuban Linx 2, 3, and 4 all on the same day. You really gotta get yourself some ninja/pirates.