I don't mean to nitpick, Tom, but is this really your plan?

Lauren Beukes, Bridge: ( world hoppers )
Herman Melville, Moby Dick:( yep, never read it before )
Sarah Monette, A Theory of Haunting: ( occult adventures )
Ilona Andrews, ( Kate Daniels-ish )
Emma Newman, Before, After, Alone: ( short stories )
T. Kingfisher, Thornhedge: ( fractured fairy tale )
Lavanya Lakshminarayan, The Ten Percent Thief: ( a different capitalist hellscape )
Cory Doctorow, Red Team Blues:( progressive male power fantasy )
Robert Jackson Bennett, The Tainted Cup: ( new series; I'm in! )
Christopher Rowe, ( fascinating worldbuilding )

Chuck Tingle, Camp Damascus: ( overall, I liked it! )

Rebecca Roanhorse, Trail of Lightning: ( Good read! )
Ruthanna Emrys, Deep Roots: ( Aphra Marsh returns )
Unbroken: 13 Stories Starring Disabled Teens: ( Many genres )
Wild Cards: Mississippi Roll, various authors: ( eh )
Emma Newman, Between Two Thorns: ( fantasy and abuse )

Anne Charnock, A Calculated Life: ( more human than human )
KJ Charles, ( More from the Magpies universe )

Emma Newman, Brother’s Ruin: ( A different fantasy world )
Emma Newman, Planetfall: ( Back to sf )

Kaitlin Sage Patterson, The Diminished: ( fantasy YA )
T. Kingfisher, Clockwork Boys (Clocktaur War Book I): ( A forger, a paladin, an assassin and a scholar walk into a bar )
Daniel Handler, All the Dirty Parts: ( teen boys love sex )
Ed Ryder, Jack Gilmour: Wish Lawyer: ( great premise ... )
Jim Butcher, Brief Cases: ( short stories )
Theodora Goss, The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter: ( here you come with the Jeckyll and Hyde )
Genevieve Cogman, The Lost Plot: ( bold title choice )

Rachel Hartman, Tess of the Road: ( Rec! )
In the Footsteps of Dracula, ed. Stephen Jones: ( big names )
Steven Brust, Good Guys:( work hard for the money )

OUaT: ( spoilers are so aggravated they forgot the cut tag )

Humanities Crisis Mad Libs:

Of course humanities classes challenge students to think about big questions; of course that teaching is valuable. But when the argument leaps immediately to synthesis, analysis, and imagination, we give little credit to the scrappy effort needed to master the fundamentals of many humanities fields. Humanities faculty members regularly miss the chance to tell their students and the public about the many other valuable skills they teach: how to write a clear sentence; how to communicate in a foreign language; how to look to the past in order to make decisions today; and so on. All of these are invaluable skills that help students in the world of work. Building these nuts-and-bolts skills also leads to broader vistas.

( horror stories, C.J. Cherryh, Stacia Kane, Seanan McGuire )

So, I was trying to get inspired to write and I realized that I really, really like a story of mine that nobody else seems to. There are good reasons not to like it: it lacks narrative flow and just sort of ebbs away at the end. But it works for me, in part because it doesn't have a real flow; it's a story of a breakdown, of a man who thinks so hard he destroys the natural course of his relationships. No link, because this isn't about trying to get you to read it -- what I wanted to know is whether other authors reading this have beloved monsters, stories that you like even though they didn't get a positive reaction, or as much of a positive reaction as other stories of yours.

What are your orphans, and why do you hold them close to your heart? I would like links, if you're willing to give them, whatever fandom. Readers, your thoughts are welcome too, if you've got them.

And now, a huge number of fiction books: Martha McPhee, Umberto Eco, Stephen King, William Gibson, Tim Cockey, The Mammoth Book of New Horror, Alan Dean Foster, Graham Greene, George Turner, Walter Tevis, Patty Dann, Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Tales of the Slayer v. 2, Steven Brust, Kage Baker, Peter David, Hot Blood XI: Fatal Attractions, and James Maxey. I'm pretty sure that's a list that hasn't ever been put together before.

( Read more... )