So I've been reading Jo Walton's An Informal History of the Hugos and, yes, I know it's just republished blog posts, but it was $2 and I like reading things in one big file. It goes through the nominees and winners, year by year, with occasional reviews and some of the blog comments. I'm up to the early 80s, which is good because now I am getting ( Read more... )

Song sort-of rec:

Earlier today, Metafilter unfortunately linked me to the song Call Me Maybe, and I kind of cannot stop listening to it. It, and all the assorted covers that populate YouTube. (This one is my favorite. No, wait, maybe this.) It won't get out of my head! Argh. Yes, yes, I am probably the last person in the world to have heard this ( Read more... )

I have a couple more chapters to go in The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells, but I feel confident in reccing it to you fannishly-minded fantasy readers. Let's just say I'm not surprised that the author apparently has some involvement in fandom (and also writes SGA profic). I forget where I heard of this -- maybe it was a Yuletide nomination? -- but the ( Read more... )

I finally got around to reading Diane Duane's short story collection Uptown Local and Other Interventions, which I grabbed when she was having that 50%-off sale on her ebooks (man, I hope she does that again sometime), and I thought I would discuss it for the edification of the YW fen around who may not be sure whether they want to drop money on it ( Read more... )

If you were ever considering watching the Dragonlance animated movie, don't. It is... really bad. It is unwatchably bad. I am at a loss as to why Michael Rosenbaum, Kiefer Sutherland, Michelle Trachtenberg, and Lucy Lawless all needed money that badly, which apparently they must have because they agreed to be in this thing ( Read more... )

Because I have no taste in literature and could not sleep, I spent last night reading Waterfall: A Novel by Lisa Bergren. Sadly, I did not read it soon enough to be able to post about it while it was still free for the Kindle (do I look like I would pay money for this?), but it is hilarious nonetheless. YA Christian time-travel medieval-Italy ( Read more... )

Seen chez
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Finished reading The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and, wow, um. I have a hard time believing it's up for a Hugo. It is... really not my style. The worldbuilding feels kind of cheap and easy and imitative, like the sort of thing I would have come up with at fourteen. (For reference, the last fantasy whose worldbuilding I remember liking a *lot* was the ( Read more... )

Hi internets! I herd you liek book reviews! Let me tell you about these two. They are not recent, but I only read them yesterday, so they are new to me.

Basically, they're a fairly complete duology (in omnibus as either A Matter of Magic or Malice and Magic, apparently), and they're YA fantasy Regency novels. I understand many people enjoy both of ( Read more... )

I finally got around to reading Lynn Flewelling's Shadows Return today; it's been sitting on my to-read pile for about a year. It's the fourth and most recent of the Nightrunner books, though apparently the next one's coming out next month ( Read more... )