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Randomness for 4/15

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1) Breaking it down.

2) The Pierley/Redford Disassociative Affect Diagnostic. About as accurate as any internet personality test, but this one’s actually cool to take (and only 20 “questions”).

3) The Amazing Media Habits Of 8-18 Year Olds

4) Seven basic things this Cracked.com writer thinks you’re doing all wrong, for certain values of “you.” The only one my household didn’t know about was the brushing after meals thing.

5) Borders execs try to justify bonuses on the revenue their company will bring in someday after they get this little bankruptcy thing straightened out. God forbid their bonuses should reflect what they’ve already done, rather than what they expect to do.

6) Book reviewers, let me point out a thing that is not cool.

7) This is simply wonderful. Play with it when you can listen to sound on your computer.

I’m not talking about that thing I want to talk about

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Not because it’s a secret, but because it’s not the sort of thing writers talk about online, and it’s faintly ridiculous to be upset about it. Also: unseemly to feel neglected by people who are friendly enough but do not owe me anything.

So I’m going to talk about ebooks instead. Lots of people talk about the disadvantages of ebooks: you can’t loan them (usually, right?), can’t resell them, they feel ephemeral, some systems don’t even let you own it outright.

But many people obviously prefer them over physical books–they certainly rhapsodize about them online. You’d think that, with readers switching in large numbers, they’d be willing to pay more for those features.

I know I know. Ebook readers have all sorts of justifications for why they think they should be paying less. I just listed a bunch two paragraphs above. Still, it’s about demand, right? What price people will pay?

This jumped out at me while reading this article. The author starts with the assumption that all these features should lead to higher price points, which is very much the opposite of the usual set of assumptions I’ve found so far.

Anyway, it’s not going to happen right away, not while readers are agitating for price reductions. At some point, though, I suspect the price of ebooks will split off from the price of paper books, and ebooks will either cost the same as they do now (or increase slightly in price) but include ads or will come with upgradeable options that cost a little extra. (“Is the plottable map in the new Rothfuss worth an extra 99 cents?”)

End obligatory useless ebook prophecy.

Randomness for 4/10

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1) Slow motion photography. Exploding cakes. Techno. I promise you that you will love this: Video. And it even comes with little stories! via @ChuckWendig

2) “I like big butts and I cannot lie, but is there some evolutionary reason as to why?” Sir Mix-A-Lot mashed with the modern just-so stories of sexual selection pressures. The comments are stone hilarious.

3) The sounds of Minecraft, as music. Video.

4) New Zealand brewer markets a “breakfast beer.” I’m not opposed to the idea of a (small) beer at breakfast, but this sounds god-awful.

5) “How I got a blank book onto the Amazon.com bestseller list.” via @victoriastrauss

6) Some posts on the resurgence of “epic” fantasy: One. Two.

7) Alternate Star Wars. What if George Lucas had been inspired by a Kurosawa film other than HIDDEN FORTRESS?

Randomness for 4/5

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1) So you want to get published? A flowchart. Is it just me, or are flowcharts made of awesome?

2) “Don’t you have any vegetarian meat?”

3) A big discussion on selling stolen IP in the Kindle format.

4) Advice for writers who suffer the pangs of jealousy.

5) Nerf guns painted and modified to have that steampunk look.

6) How slavery really ended in the U.S.A.

7) Black Gate is having a sale on their back issues. I have stories in issue #2, #3, and #10.

Randomness for 3/30

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1) Canadian politics made fun by nitpicking about monsters. Via James Nicoll.

2) Shit my students write.

3) Jon Stewart on class warfare, without ever mentioning class. Video.

4) This is genuinely awesome. It’s better than GARFIELD MINUS GARFIELD.

5) This writer’s evening is nothing at all like mine. How to be a social writer. via James Enge

6) Are these the best D&D adventures ever?

7) Sixty completely unusable stock photos. This is hilarious wtf-ery, but it will take a while to load. Open it up in a tab and do something else for a while, then come back to it. Seriously, people, I can’t pick the worst one (okay, I can: it’s the blackface one).

Reviews, Part 26

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1) Wayne (@skyfall_ranger) liked the Twenty Palaces books quite a bit: “Twenty Palaces is what you get if you take fairly high magic Lovecraft and make an action movie. Swimming in blood. And on fire.”

2) LiveJournaler brooke_hok had a mixed reaction: “Basically they’re fun, fast-paced books that you’ll probably enjoy if you like gritty Urban Fantasy with a mystery element.”

3) Bob Walch at bookideas.com gave Child of Fire four out of five stars: “If you like fantasy grounded in reality with some fascinating twists and turns coupled with edgy characters give this latest Harry Connolly novel a try.”

4) Douglas Justice (aka @TushHog5 — we don’t judge!) liked both books: “Just finished your books – in fact A game of cages last night …and loved ’em!”

5) Author Nicholas Kaufmann liked Game of Cages, but not as much as Child of Fire. “I’m enjoying this series immensely, and can’t wait for the third installment, Circle of Enemies, to come out this summer.” He’s not alone in thinking the cast of characters was too big. Much of the editorial work I did on this book involved identifying and delineating the characters.

6) Tim Gray (aka @timgray101) had this to say about Game of Cages: “A weird beastie and lots of people having bad days. Fun stuff. Kind of” I understand just what he means.

7) LiveJournaler jpsorrow (aka author Joshua Palmatier) liked Child of Fire enough to seek out Game of Cages at some point but he found the first third rough going. “… once the reader was given something to focus in on–a plot thread that was clear and easy to follow–it drew me in and kept me reading.” Folks in the comment section have quite divergent opinions on the quality of the book. He’s not the first reader to be somewhat disengaged by the first part of the book, where Ray and Annalise are not sure what’s going on in Hammer Bay and poke around trying to get to the bottom of things. It’s a pretty common storytelling style in mysteries, but quite a few readers didn’t like it; maybe it’s a matter of execution.

Schadenfreude as consolation

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When I’m feeling a little down, I thank the undirected, uncaring universe that I’m not this lady.

If you’re going to call a reviewer a “snake” for pointing out spelling and grammar errors, you really ought to proofread those comments carefully. I certainly make my share of errors, but in this situation? Extra care is required.

Also: lol.

Randomness for 3/26

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1) How great entrepreneurs think.

2) A flowchart guide to the Affordable Care Act.

3) Ten supposedly sexy super-heroine costumes that really aren’t.

4) Every new social media offering, now online. (This is pretty funny, and it even includes a certain cat)

5) Author Ryk Spoor responds to my hypothetical vampire child question of a few days ago.

6) I know there are a lot of people who don’t like Rachel Ray, but I think everyone will accept that she deserves a comma or two here.

7) J.K. Rowling’s next project, courtesy of collegehumor.com

I wrote this post but it didn’t go online for some reason

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I suspect the reason is, “I’m an idiot.”

Anyway, Japan is getting a lot of attention for the recent natural disaster (and the problems it caused) but just before that happened there was a powerful earthquake in New Zealand, too. The folks in Christchurch need help, and author Karen Healey is doing something about it.

Yep, that’s a charity anthology, and the table of contents is pretty impressive. Check it out and, if you can, help those folks out by buying a copy.

Randomness for 3/21

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1) Simpsons jokes, by season. via Bill Martell.

2) A James Bond script, written by Ben “The Shakespeare of Hollywood” Hecht. I especially love the idea of giving the name “James Bond” to different agents, just to mix things up. It explains the parade of actors in the role so nicely.

3) Seven massive holes in the Earth.

4) Read this wonderful story by Jane Rice, written in the 1940s.

5) Novels and novelists: imperfect competition

6) An interesting new format for physical books. (Ignore the seo crap about killing the Kindle).

7) Not a real ad campaign for the Smithsonian.