Concerned about Emma Bull’s and Steve Brust’s mounting medical expenses, author Scott Lynch has decided to start sending “people who could use the boost” two-thirds of all donations by readers of his free online serial novel Queen of the Iron Sands. Bull and Brust will be the first beneficiaries of his new policy. Others will follow.

Both writers are facing surgery this month. Emma Bull told her Livejournal readers she is having a thyroidectomy on August 8. Steve Brust, briefly hospitalized for congestive heart failure in April, will have an automatic defibrillator implanted on August 22.

[Via Ansible Links.]