1) Homemade pop rocks. via Matt Ruff.
2) 20 Sad Etsy Boyfriends. Also: Sad Dancing Hipster is Sad and Dancing.
3) I’m so tired of this sort of thing that seeing it now just makes me tired. Author demands respect for sf/f from literary lovers.
4) PW’s map of North American chain booksellers.
5) “Nonsense, I did not shave your wife.” via @matociquala
6) 127 Hours, starring Wile E. Coyote. Video.
7) So you need a typeface… Flowcharty goodness.
Happy Irish Day.
2) What’s in Spock’s Scanner? Video. This is honestly hilarious. via Tor.com
3) A really beautiful truck crash.
4) Could many cases of ADHD really be caused by food hypersensitivity?
5) This shadow art is amazing.
6) This is amazing, too, but also chilling. Satellite photos of Japan before and after the earthquake.
7) A pro scriptwriter in L.A. tells how she broke in, complete with clueless commenters. Another pro writer straightens those clueless commenters out.
1) Cognitive Scientist records 90K hours of his own child’s language development, then graphs it. Soon to come to a TED Talk near you.
2) Andrew Wheeler’s syllabus for his non-existent sf course. I think it would be better served to address some of what happened in the 19th century, even if it was just an overview in the first week.
3) The Muppet Alignment Chart.
4) I wish every review of a reality TV show was this good.
5) Organizing a bookshelf: Video. There are so many simple ideas that work magic as stop-motion. Thank you, computer revolution.
6) A nearly-incomprehensible map of science fiction.
7) The internet is full of wonderful things: Carl Sagan’s Old Spice commercial as an animated gif.
Bonus 8th thing! Soylent Green isn’t the only thing made of people! Now “castles” are, too! Video.
Check out this blog post by a guy who just got his first book deal. There’s so much in there that he did right that any aspiring author could revisit it several times over the months and learn something new from it.
1) A smart way to promote science education. Also.
2) At no point does this stop being awesome: Sheen Family Circus.
3) Frank Herbert writes a children’s book: Goodnight Dune
4) Baby laughs at ripping paper. Video. Watching this is good for your soul.
6) Please do not submit my name here.
7) Those amazing personal stories you hear on radio call-in shows? They might be actors reading a script.
Is this also an argument for authors to make public appearances?
(Unless they’re assholes.)
1) Josh Albritton (@CapnIndigo on Twitter) liked the first book a little: “Holy shit that was an amazing wild ride! Can’t wait to read the rest!”
2) On his “lackluster blog,” Gary Furash really liked Child of Fire: “… another urban dark fantasy novel and, surprisingly, even darker and more noir than [Richard Kadrey’s Sandman Slim].”
3) On Twitter, Thadeous Cooper says he tore through Child of Fire. “Great book, needs more long term characters though.”
4) On Strange Horizons, William Mingin has many, many, (many) criticisms of Game of Cages, but ultimately calls it compelling, stating: “Besides the pull of sheer event, story, or vicarious identification with risk and triumph, there’s an ineffable quality of style in page-turners, a quality of compulsiveness that some writers evoke—unpredictable, hard to pin down, and unfairly distributed. Anyone experienced in reading the fiction of event knows there’s “good stuff” and not so good, even if the difference between the two isn’t always easy to pinpoint. Connolly writes the good stuff.” That’s sort of good, I guess. Anyway, I knew the big cast of characters would be difficult for a lot of readers. I learn and move on.
5) There have been several kind words from comments in my last thread on Charles Stross’s blog. No quote, but there are quite a few nice ones. See?
6) On Twitter, @timgray101 (aka Tim Gray) liked it enough to read more: “CoF goes from location to location uncovering stuff and having action/peril scenes. 80s action paperback/Call of Cthulhu scenario/car chase.”
7) Noel Rappin put both Child of Fire and Game of Cages on his “Best of the rest, 2010” list: “The first book, I think, works very well. It’s creepy — a town’s children are dying one by one, and as they do, everybody forgets they ever existed. I get kind of creeped out just typing that.” He’s less fond of book two (although it still makes the list) and of Ray’s nicknames for characters whose names he doesn’t know.
Check out this article about a best-selling backlist title.
I know authors are already doing this with titles that have reverted to them. The interesting thing here is that it’s the publisher who’s pricing a backlist title like an app and surprising the hell out of themselves by hitting the NYT Bestseller list.
Obviously, this is not going to work as well as the practice becomes more common, but a surprise like this (and I’m certain that it is a surprise to everyone involved) will almost certainly cement teh idea of windowed ebook pricing: Full(ish) price when it’s a new release and a heavy discount (mumble mumble) months later.
I like it.
1) Five reasons so many movies suck.
2) Teacher tries to reach students via a book she writes, in which they are characters. School board objects to drug and sex references, not to mention the “Mr. Gay UK” stuff. You already guessed the rest.
3) Judgmental bookseller ostrich.
5) Childhood pictures re-enacted. I have to admit, I love these, but I don’t think I could do it. One picture may be NSFW because it shows a woman’s breast.
6) Dance a dance designed by communist committee.
7) Predator, the musical. Video. What it says on the label, and pretty funny.
My last post at antipope.org went up overnight (well, it was overnight for me, morning GMT) and it examines the question of whether guest-blogging on his site, which gets over 10K visitors a day, resulted in a lot of sales of my books..
