After over a year’s hiatus, Chapter 7 of Diane Duane’s self-published-over-the-net novel, The Big Meow, has finally been released to subscribers! Check out the first six chapters, posted for free, and hopefully, you’ll decide to become a subscriber. After the year that Diane has apparently had (multiple family losses, multiple medical issues including gall bladder), a few extra subscribers would be a good thing.

Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001, Earthlight, Rendezvous with Rama, and many other classic science fiction novels, died at his home in Sri Lanka this morning.

The title of this post, the closing line of his story “The Nine Billion Names of God”, was shamelessly stolen from dmsilev@Kos, where I heard the news.

What do you get when you cross “My favorite books” on Facebook with the average SAT scores at American Universities?

Booksthatmakeyoudumb :-)

Top book, surprisingly enough, is Lolita: Harry Potter is squarely in the middle of the pack, with a fairly low Marge Inovera.

So, as mentioned earlier, I picked up Sister Bernadette’s Barking Dog. Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten to it yet, because I’m too busy with Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series. It’s Horatio Hornblower/Jack Aubrey with dragons, basically. Highly recommended.

I just had the darnedest time tracking this link down, so I’m reposting it here so I remember where to find it. Words such as “Miles”, “Dendarii”, “cattle”, “Aral”, “Serg”, and “Bujold” will hopefully let me find it next time. :-)

Lois McMaster Bujold’s The Warrior’s Apprentice was optioned by a movie studio a while back: the script treatment approached Manos levels. Thank God, it never actually happened…

We’re inside a ship. A really big ship. A HUMONGOUSLY big ship, called
the Worldship , with “alien runes” carved on all the walls. It’s
inhabited by Fremen– oops, sorry, I mean by The Free Dendarii Peoples
of Space, a bunch of monk’s-robed, tattooed, primitive tribal types who
live all their lives on shipboard. Their mystic leader, Obi-Wan– I
mean Ky Tung– is gathering them for some ritual chanting in the center
of the ship. While this is going on, a Black Battle Cruiser docks, the
lock is opened by a Dendarii named Baz (yes, you heard right; Baz is a
Dendarii tribesman) and hundreds of space-armoured
s/t/o/r/m/t/r/o/o/p/e/r/s/ Armsmen pour out, slaughtering all in their
path. After them strides Darth Serg– I mean *Count Serg Vorbarra*, in
black space armour and a cape, stepping over the bodies of his fallen
foemen. (Now, *where* could they have borrowed *that* idea from?)

Mark Pilgrim compares Jeff Bezos’s statements before and after Kindle came out.

First sale doctrine, anyone?

The Shifted Librarian reports on a teen librarian who keeps DDR set up all the time, and will allow patrons to challenge her in an attempt to get their fines waived. :-)

I never started reading the Wheel of Time series, but it may be just as well: Robert Jordan has passed away before finishing the last book.

Diane Duane shares her reminiscences on the passing of Madeleine L’Engle over here.

“If you don’t buckle under to our extortion, we’ll stop selling your books.” (h/t Laura)