How did I miss this interview in Time a couple of years back starring two of my favorite writers?
NG: I always loved, most of all with doing comics, the fact that I knew I was in the gutter. I kind of miss that, even these days, whenever people come up and inform me, oh, you do graphic novels. No. I wrote comic books, for heaven’s sake. They’re creepy and I was down in the gutter and you despised me. ‘No, no, we love you! We want to give you awards! You write graphic novels!’ We like it here in the gutter!
PZ Myers, biologist and blogger at Pharyngula, was recently sued for referring to the “flagrant crackpottery” in a book he was reviewing. (Considering that the book in question had a drawing of a spider with 10 legs, I can’t disagree.) The author sued for $15 million. Less than a month later, he withdrew the suit. (Gee, wonder why…)
Update: in a followup to his original review, Myers called the book “a history of the evolution of balloon animals”. That prompted this LOL”Cat” :-)
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was much better than I expected, given the last couple of outings in the series. Sure, they cut about 3/4 of the plot out, but I was expecting that…
Before HP, they ran a trailer for The Golden Compass. I’m pretty excited about this: it looks like they more-or-less nailed the look and feel (besides the altheiometer having too many symbols on it).
The Dark Is Rising, on the other hand, looks horrifying. I had been warned before, but was letting things play out to see what happened. After watching the trailer, I agree with the columnist who related the following story:
A joke among the journalists covering The Dark Is Rising set visit in Bucharest over the last couple of days was that the movie has only changed three things from the Newberry-winning novel on which it’s based: they’ve changed the lead kid’s nationality from English to American, they’ve changed the lead kid’s age from 11 to 14, and they’ve changed everything that happens in the story.
I am not going to waste my money on this one, even in the unlikely event that the girls beg to go see it after I give them the original novels. Sorry, Doctor, but I doubt even you can save this one.
You’ve probably heard the stories by now about LiveJournal cancelling a lot of accounts whose only offensive was having “rape” or “incest” in the interests list — anecdotally including some survivors. The site which caused this has been accused of installing spyware on the visitors’ computers, so I’m not going to mention the name.
Barb, a BTVS fanfic writer waxes eloquent on the various reasons that this whole thing was a bad idea.
All right, you say, but still, none of this affected me directly. And it wouldn’t affect you, either, because you’re a clean-living, clean-minded reader of adult het porn. The people it did affect are all skeevy perverts anyway, and even if writing about perversion isn’t technically illegal, they deserved what they got. No one I know/like/respect could possibly be one of those creeps.
Maybe that’s true. Maybe you don’t know or like or respect anyone who’s ever written or read Wincest or Weasleycest, or Harry/Snape or Spike/Dawn, or Giles/Any Scooby or Simon/River, or Boone/Shannon, or Connor/Angel, or S1-2 Buffy/Angel, or S2 Buffy/Spike. Or read Romeo and Juliet or Lolita or Flowers In The Attic or Oedipus Rex. You’ve never read or enjoyed a bodice-ripper where the heroine is ravished against her will by the sexy and domineering Earl of Studly but turns out to secretly like it. Or thought that the Doublemint Twins are kinda hot. Maybe you have absolutely no sexual fantasies relating to rape or incest or underage sex at all, ever.
Today, I decided to drag the girls down to the library to see Susan Lubner speak. I’ve been interested in her since I spotted Ruthie Bon Bair: Never Go To Bed With Wringing Wet Hair in a bookstore window. Unfortunately, I was lagging, and most of the event was over when we got here. They still had time to do some artwork and get cupcakes, though. :-)
While they drew up front, I discovered that the Wikipedia didn’t yet have an article on her, and attempted to remedy the situation.
Over on Wax Banks, Walter Holland has an interesting analysis of narrative structure, fandom, and all sorts of other things as exemplified in the endings of Buffy and Angel.
Whedonesque sent me there: Holland wrote at least as much in the comment thread as he did in the original post.
No, not lies, poetry!
Slashdot links to a blog post with lots of poetry based on the Fibonacci sequence.
In December, I mentioned Diane Duane’s interest in finishing her Feline Wizards series, if there was actually a market for it. Well, it turned out that several people were willing to step up with hundreds of dollars worth of challenge grants, all of which were promptly met. So, Diane polished off the first chapter and put it up for the subscribers last week. It was up to her usual high standards, including a reference to Blue Harvest which unfortunately sailed right over my head (oh, so that’s where the bald spot came from…).
Today, she posted it for all to read. If you like it, please subscribe so that she has the money to finish it! :-)
Ah, I knew this had to be on the web somewhere, but I kept forgetting to look it up as soon as I got off the bus. :-) King County Metro has an annual poetry competition, and posts the winners up with the ads over the seats.
Diane Duane wants to know if we’d buy the third book of her Feline Wizards series if she were to self-publish it. My initial answer is “hell, yeah!”, but considering I haven’t actually laid down the cash for her last two Young Wizards books, I’m not sure I can justify sending in my vote. Have you read her other books? Do you want to see this one?
If so, go vote.
