I've been wanting to read The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi for ages - and then I read a review piece that's all "great book great book GREAT BOOK oh and also rape. Lots of rape. Gruesome rape. Detailed rape." Which, uh, no thanks.

Why is it that any time a genre writer wants to be Gritty, he (yes, he goddamnit) resorts to a) prostitution, b) ( Read more... )

There's something about old people, frail and bent and wizened, that makes me want to take them by the hand and reassure them somehow. They may be complete assholes once you get to talk to them, what do I know, but still ( Read more... )

Yes, I think I have a new sound effect for the month ( Read more... )

I have just finished The Demon's Lexicon. This is a problem, because the next book isn't out for another year. I managed to fool myself into thinking I bought it Monday, then realized it was actually Wednesday. It feels pretty damn marvelous to be able to read something in a stretch (well, school got in the way, but it couldn't keep us apart for ( Read more... )

[1] I want it to be July so I can get gogoangelgunboy's Mercy Following printed in Collective Fallout. Gabe's writing is one of the reasons I don't usually compare printed stories and internet-published stories; printed things just don't stand a chance. Mercy Following has a dusty mongrel mythos and dirty-beauty tone all its own that elbows most others into the ( Read more... )

I'm feeling vaguely unhappy, which is how I tend to interpret being really tired.

I'm so behind on tomorrow's seminar task it's not even funny. Last year this course had a 50% fail rate; I'm not holding very high hopes. It is theoretically possible that I could stay up tonight and lie through my teeth write something together. I fight my lazy ( Read more... )

Nausea sold to fastest bidder.

Shipping included all regions. No refunds.

Call now for a free bonus headache.

I get such a feeling of anticlimax when I finish a book. China Miéville's The Scar is by far the best book I've read in some time* but I still have the feeling that the story wasn't finished when the book ended. Like I'm waiting for a ( Read more... )

FINALLY DONE. Oh my god.

Orcs was 711 pages of non-occurrence.* Poor oppressed group of warriors runs around generic fantasy world and fight lots of very detailed battles and I'm still not really sure why. It's like someone's D&D campaign, only more boring. The whole thing seems just a set-up for the next series, in which - supposedly - they will ( Read more... )

Okay, Stan Nichols: Actually not all that great. I suspect Grimwood was high (again) when he wrote, "Subverts traditional fantasy tropes" and "very funny." I know that Tom Holt must've been when he wrote, "A feast for the most jaded fantasy lover's palate." Or maybe he was thinking of another book. Any other book ( Read more... )

My coz and I have established that there are a few things that run in the family ( Read more... )