Links and fiction
I know it’s a bit late for a Poker Face parody, but it’s font humor and it’s very well done, so there you go. Neutra Face.
Amazing facts about bear hibernation, sex, etc.
Lynn Parramore on personal finance myths.
Ben Aaronovitch, Whispers Under Ground: Another installment in the tale of Peter, learning proper English wizardry and practicing proper English policing (sort of). Herein of the Underground, where a mysterious murder leads him into the bowels of the earth and the art world. The story is slight, but there’s one sewer scene in which the over-the-top bantering abilities of everyone involved (including a slightly improbable FBI agent) both lowered my suspended disbelief and made me grin with pleasure. I want more of the main story-where is the mysterious evil Faceless Man? But I’ll wait.
Troll’s-Eye View: A Book of Villainous Tales, ed. Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling: Featuring Peter Beagle (best title: Up the Down Beanstalk), Holly Black, Michael Cadnum, Nancy Farmer, Wendy Froud, Neil Gaiman (poem), Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Ellen Kushner, Kelly Link (less annoying than I usually find her), Garth Nix, Delia Sherman, Midori Snyder, Joseph Stanton, Catherynne Valente, and Jane Yolen. Fairy tales retold from the villain’s point of view, for author-defined values of villain which (plus, I think, the YA focus) means that the villains are generally rewritten as the heroes of their own stories, and the former heroes often revealed to be, in particular, unappealingly greedy-which may say something about current cultural values (among popular fantasy authors at least). Overall, quite enjoyable.
Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd, ed. Holly Black & Cecil Castellucci: This YA collection was pretty enjoyable, with fan-friendly geekiness of all sorts, and even a Kelly Link story about a girl who goes to meet a man she met online (at a hotel that happens to be hosting a dentist convention and a superhero convention) that I loved, which never happens. Scott Westerfeld, Cassandra Clare, M.T. Anderson, Garth Nix, and Lisa Yee, among others, also contributed. Except then there was this terrible slut-shaming story by Barry Lyga. Maybe he meant to write a cautionary tale about revenge fantasies and geeks being capable of horrific behavior, but it didn’t read that way and I suspect he really thought that it was awesome revenge for the humiliated geek girl to distribute a picture of her enemy’s breasts and destroy her reputation by suggesting that she liked sex. The illustrations in between the stories lean hard on broad stereotypes, while the stories are generally more nuanced. Skip the Lyga, and it’s worth checking out.
comments on DW | reply there. I have invites or you can use OpenID.
Amazing facts about bear hibernation, sex, etc.
Lynn Parramore on personal finance myths.
Ben Aaronovitch, Whispers Under Ground: Another installment in the tale of Peter, learning proper English wizardry and practicing proper English policing (sort of). Herein of the Underground, where a mysterious murder leads him into the bowels of the earth and the art world. The story is slight, but there’s one sewer scene in which the over-the-top bantering abilities of everyone involved (including a slightly improbable FBI agent) both lowered my suspended disbelief and made me grin with pleasure. I want more of the main story-where is the mysterious evil Faceless Man? But I’ll wait.
Troll’s-Eye View: A Book of Villainous Tales, ed. Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling: Featuring Peter Beagle (best title: Up the Down Beanstalk), Holly Black, Michael Cadnum, Nancy Farmer, Wendy Froud, Neil Gaiman (poem), Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Ellen Kushner, Kelly Link (less annoying than I usually find her), Garth Nix, Delia Sherman, Midori Snyder, Joseph Stanton, Catherynne Valente, and Jane Yolen. Fairy tales retold from the villain’s point of view, for author-defined values of villain which (plus, I think, the YA focus) means that the villains are generally rewritten as the heroes of their own stories, and the former heroes often revealed to be, in particular, unappealingly greedy-which may say something about current cultural values (among popular fantasy authors at least). Overall, quite enjoyable.
Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd, ed. Holly Black & Cecil Castellucci: This YA collection was pretty enjoyable, with fan-friendly geekiness of all sorts, and even a Kelly Link story about a girl who goes to meet a man she met online (at a hotel that happens to be hosting a dentist convention and a superhero convention) that I loved, which never happens. Scott Westerfeld, Cassandra Clare, M.T. Anderson, Garth Nix, and Lisa Yee, among others, also contributed. Except then there was this terrible slut-shaming story by Barry Lyga. Maybe he meant to write a cautionary tale about revenge fantasies and geeks being capable of horrific behavior, but it didn’t read that way and I suspect he really thought that it was awesome revenge for the humiliated geek girl to distribute a picture of her enemy’s breasts and destroy her reputation by suggesting that she liked sex. The illustrations in between the stories lean hard on broad stereotypes, while the stories are generally more nuanced. Skip the Lyga, and it’s worth checking out.
comments on DW | reply there. I have invites or you can use OpenID.