Entry tags:
Grab bag with fiction reviews
Thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shoofus for the virtual panda!
I’ve been listening to Alanis Morissette’s Jekyll & Hyde, a delightful bonus track on the iTunes version of havoc & bright lights. That album, plus the new Pet Shop Boys, made me realize that putting together b-sides is getting to be as complicated as it was in the bad old days, what with Amazon and iTunes having different versions (and often enough different prices, though Amazon is going to $1.29 on some tracks too).
eBay wants to force you into arbitration (which you will never be able to afford a lawyer for, much less win) unless you opt out. From them: the Opt-Out Notice must be postmarked no later than November 9, 2012 . You must mail the Opt-Out Notice to eBay Inc., c/o National Registered Agents, Inc., 2778 W. Shady Bend Lane, Lehi, UT 84043. The Opt-Out Notice must state that you do not agree to this Agreement to Arbitrate and must include your name, address, and the user ID(s) and email address(es) associated with the eBay account(s) to which the opt-out applies. You must sign the Opt-Out Notice for it to be effective.
The awesome Steve Burt (disclosure: I’m proud to call him a friend) gets a full story in the NYT, in which his practice of focusing on the poets he likes and not spending time on criticizing those he doesn’t gets some attention.
Not unrelatedly, George Orwell on “Why I Write."
My favorite vid from Vividcon was![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bradcpu’s Ride to California. I love how it uses “California” as a metaphor for the heroism of the Avengers; I can’t explain exactly why I love that so much, but the vid is great fun.
Charles Stross, Rule 34: Multiple POVs, all second person. Don’t start if that will annoy you. A cop, several criminals, and some law-enforcement-adjacent people all struggle to figure what is going on with a wave of bizarre deaths among spammers. I like Stross doing Lovecraft better, but this did have the breezy information overload feel of a Stross story, crossed with the weird immediacy of second person.
Richard K. Morgan, The Cold Commands: The sequel to Morgan’s gay barbarian swordsman book The Steel Remains, this one is at least as grimdark—there are notable amounts of rape and other atrocities, many instigated by the main characters/closest thing the book has to heroes. Morgan combines sf (apparently high-tech machines with agendas of their own) with fantasy (elvish/fairy types who were kicked out of the human realms and aren’t too thrilled with that situation, along with dragon invasions and other sundry magic), and in this book he adds in a riff on the Arthur myth that works because of its brazenness. If you like GRRM, this might appeal (and is a lot shorter), but heed the warnings.
shoofus for the virtual panda!I’ve been listening to Alanis Morissette’s Jekyll & Hyde, a delightful bonus track on the iTunes version of havoc & bright lights. That album, plus the new Pet Shop Boys, made me realize that putting together b-sides is getting to be as complicated as it was in the bad old days, what with Amazon and iTunes having different versions (and often enough different prices, though Amazon is going to $1.29 on some tracks too).
eBay wants to force you into arbitration (which you will never be able to afford a lawyer for, much less win) unless you opt out. From them: the Opt-Out Notice must be postmarked no later than November 9, 2012 . You must mail the Opt-Out Notice to eBay Inc., c/o National Registered Agents, Inc., 2778 W. Shady Bend Lane, Lehi, UT 84043. The Opt-Out Notice must state that you do not agree to this Agreement to Arbitrate and must include your name, address, and the user ID(s) and email address(es) associated with the eBay account(s) to which the opt-out applies. You must sign the Opt-Out Notice for it to be effective.
The awesome Steve Burt (disclosure: I’m proud to call him a friend) gets a full story in the NYT, in which his practice of focusing on the poets he likes and not spending time on criticizing those he doesn’t gets some attention.
Not unrelatedly, George Orwell on “Why I Write."
My favorite vid from Vividcon was
bradcpu’s Ride to California. I love how it uses “California” as a metaphor for the heroism of the Avengers; I can’t explain exactly why I love that so much, but the vid is great fun. Charles Stross, Rule 34: Multiple POVs, all second person. Don’t start if that will annoy you. A cop, several criminals, and some law-enforcement-adjacent people all struggle to figure what is going on with a wave of bizarre deaths among spammers. I like Stross doing Lovecraft better, but this did have the breezy information overload feel of a Stross story, crossed with the weird immediacy of second person.
Richard K. Morgan, The Cold Commands: The sequel to Morgan’s gay barbarian swordsman book The Steel Remains, this one is at least as grimdark—there are notable amounts of rape and other atrocities, many instigated by the main characters/closest thing the book has to heroes. Morgan combines sf (apparently high-tech machines with agendas of their own) with fantasy (elvish/fairy types who were kicked out of the human realms and aren’t too thrilled with that situation, along with dragon invasions and other sundry magic), and in this book he adds in a riff on the Arthur myth that works because of its brazenness. If you like GRRM, this might appeal (and is a lot shorter), but heed the warnings.