Linkspam wants to go back on vacation

[cofax7]

Torque Control has a roundup of reviews of Jay Lake's novel Green. The responses are all across the map, I have to say, but I'm... dubious. I've only read two Lake novels, and the second one, Mindspring, was so distasteful and unthinking in its presentation of Smart White Guy Dealing With Noble Savages, complete with a fairly dodgy cross-species

Comments

[katie_m]

The manpain chart is awesome. As Eli mentioned in her LJ, we watched the first bit of the pilot of NCIS:LA just to see the astonishing amount of slashy manpain, and it was really hilarious. The Chris O'Donnell character was SERIOUSLY INJURED, shot in the line of duty! And he's living out of two bags, drifting from place to place! And he's an ORPHAN! And he never ever got a birthday card in his life! And he only goes by an initial BECAUSE HE DOESN'T KNOW HIS WHOLE NAME!

And LL Cool J loves him and wants him to be happy.

Seriously, it was the most amazing fangirl bait I'd ever seen.

[cofax7]

He has no NAME? Oh, that's just fantastic.

Heee!

[eregyrn]

He only has an INITIAL! Nobody ever told him what it stood for! Waaaaah!!!!

[veejane]

Dude should consider looking into the Freedom of Information Act. As an agent of the government, surely he did not flunk that class has the foggiest idea about disclosure laws.

(Also, aren't all birth certificates in California online? Isn't that how they figured out that Spike was actually 10 years older than he claimed to be?)

[abyssinia4077]

Link courtesy of Shoshanna, I can share with you an awesome chart about MANPAIN. Heee!

Not only is that awesome but I can totally find on that chart exactly where canon!Daniel Jackson divides from fanon!Daniel Jackson.

I will point out that I don't like my tax-dollars being spent on Tasering police suspects or putting prisoners in solitary confinement so they develop mental health problems and become even more of a risk to themselves or others; but I still have to pay my taxes.

It would be simultaneously fascinating and terrifying to see how people would choose to divide their taxes if they could make choices like that (ie: you must pay X amount but you can decide which programs your money goes to). I mean, it would be an unmitigated disaster in reality because I'm pretty sure there isn't a simple politician, much less member of public, who fully understands the US budget to the detail but...an interestingly thought game on putting your money where your mouth is.

[brown_betty]

Good to know about Lake, because I was thinking "I don't know this Lake fellow, but I like the cover!" which is the sort of thing that has a good chance of leading to my reading it.

[brown_betty]

My name-fail strikes again!

Looking at the cover image via amazon, I guess I can see the creepy, too, but upside down in a pomegranate tree! Also, "Her beauty and brilliant mind were not enough to free her from captivity"? WTF? Does beauty often work that way?

[takumashii]

This, this. It wasn't long after I threw Mainspring across the room that I read Jay Lake's comments on race in his own writing and my jaw dropped open that he was putting on his I Am So Not Racist hat.

[eregyrn]

Also: I don't know. Following the link to the study about roofies has people in the comments who have read the PDF of the study report that it doesn't actually address crime statistics. So the upshot seems to be that it's a real but rare phenomenon that spreads LIKE an urban legend. Which is different from implying that it IS an urban legend (which suggests that it's a completely made-up phenomenon.)

[cofax7]

So the upshot seems to be that it's a real but rare phenomenon that spreads LIKE an urban legend. Which is different from implying that it IS an urban legend

Ah, good point.

[eregyrn]

Further clarification: and actually, it's hard to tell how "rare" it really is. Although I can see making the point that it happens more rarely than the storytelling about it suggests that it does -- that would be the "urban legend" part, the idea that many more people tell stories about "this totally happened to the friend of my BFF's sister", in order to make it a cautionary tale, than there are actually verifiable incidences of it. That *is* the urban-legend template, and that is the reason FOR urban legends

[rachelmanija]

Yeah, I'll buy that it's rare and the danger is overrated, but not that it's nonexistent. There have been several cases in LA alone that were confirmed by drug-testing and went to trial.

[giandujakiss]

Oh god, the Heroes thing.

Also, I am continually amused at mainstream news "discovering" fanfiction. It is a punchline on mainstream television now - I don't think we need news reporting anymore..