Yesterday I had the rare pleasure of attending a lecture by Professor Takayuki Tatsumi, who was visiting Swarthmore College.  Dr. Tatsumi is the author of, among others, American Cyberpunk, which was the first critical study undertaken of cyberpunk (1988), and Full Metal Apache: Transactions Between Cyberpunk Japan and Avant-Pop America.

He spoke ( Read more... )

So, we've got that going for us...which is nice.  (Scroll down, no really)

http://news.bookweb.org/6736.html 

It's the saddest of sad news: Donald Westlake is dead.  The creator of Dortmunder, the hapless thief whose brilliant plans invariably escalate out of control until his team are stealing train engines and breaking into prisons, died in Mexico at 75, apparently of a heart attack.

Westlake was incredibly prolific, using many pen names over his ( Read more... )