New Year’s EVE hangovers (see below explanation of the inner workings of BondGirl Bizarro World):

• Don’t tell anyone, but it turns out Florida’s weird.
• Wired lists the 50 best robots ever. And it’s a damn fine list.
• Greg van Eekhout (change your blogrolls and bookmarks!) has posted a podcast of his excellent story "Clean City," which first appeared in the honorable Say… magazine.
• An excellent profile of Margo Lanagan in which it is revealed that she writes ten pages a day when she’s working. ::cowering in awe::
• Southern Blog Cabal member Jeff Bryant’s back on the West Coast and has a lovely post about the road to prove it.
• Elizabeth Bear weighs in on the honor in ambitious failure in writing with an AMAZING post that you should definitely read. And she has made Sapphire and Steel icons, which makes me unbelievably, geektasticly happy.
• And finally, behind the cut, find out which superhero I am. (Though, honestly, I’d prefer to remain female in a perfect Metropolis.) (Via someone, I forget who, sorry!)

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Happy HangoversRead More »

• For the first time in as long as I can remember, I have four days off in a row, with no panels or formal obligations of any kind. So… of course I am experiencing the resurgence of the Martian Death Cold. Sigh. But some writing will get done anyway, although it may just be writing for hire. I do really want to kick it into gear on the next novel, though; perilously close to a resolution, that.
• Abigail Nussbaum gives out some special book awards.
• Ted Chiang appreciates Maureen McHugh’s "Frankenstein’s Daughter."
• Ed riffs on genre snobbery, inspired by Matt Cheney’s Literary Fiction for People Who Hate Literary Fiction.
• The NYT apparently hearts the Mutter Museum almost as much as I do. (Via Jenny D.)
• From Jonathan Strahan comes the infuriating pointer to the Sci-Fi Channel bragging about how well they did financially this year, despite their decision to untimely demise SciFiction.
• And behind the cut, two memes for your cut and paste pleasure, via Dave and Hal respectively.

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Friday HangoversRead More »

Otherwise known as the ritual cleansing of the bookmarks…

• Procrastination can be good for you. (Via the Antigeist.)
• Seattle Weekly’s music writers make their best 2005 mixes, including Mr. Matos’ picks.
• Dave Schwartz is fascinating as always on the topic of elephants.
• Read Jeff VanderMeer’s appreciation of Gavin Grant’s awesome "Heads Up, Thumbs Down" over at the ED SF Project, then read his thoughts on SciFiction’s demise. I thought it would last forever too, but instead it turns out this is its last story.
• The Book Standard talks to the awesomest Story Prize finalist ever, aka Maureen McHugh.
• Jeff Ford’s 2005 favorite reads.
• Dodo bone beds.
• James Marcus on editors.
• Despite being incredibly busy (and still beneath a stack of thank you cards for wedding gifts, now dreadfully, rudely late), I’m thinking of sending New Year’s cards. Failing that, I’ll be sending out valentines in Feb. If you’d like one, drop me your address via email or in the comments.

• The neverending holiday has ended. Let all rejoice and drink champagne once the exhaustion has passed.
• I keep forgetting to mention that Scott is now a NYT-approved expert on dogs chewing off faces… or something like that. He extracts the goods for you. Also, Uglies, the book that made him such, made Amazon’s top 10 books for teens. (And Looking for Alaska’s on there too; although, the lack of Valiant is truly scandalous.)
• Relatedly, possible record prime number found.
• Good luck to Didi on his new (ad)ventures. (Scroll down.)
• A little Factsheet Five post at the Esoteric Science Resource Center.
• Another fabulous recipe care of Mr. McLaren, cookies with bourbon. (We have had far too many sweets here at Casa Bond/Rowe, and yet still we immediately devoured chocolates sent by friends as soon as we got home.)
• More MFA talk: Maud has an excellent post excerpting David Hollander in the most recent issue of Poets and Writers on what MFA programs are not looking for (reductively put: in his opinion, writers who knock your socks off need not apply). See also: Maud on Caitlin Flanagan and the inner housewife.
• Holtzbrink, the overlords of Tor, Picador, St. Martin’s and others, have launched a blog and lots of other goodies. Check it out.
• Matt Cheney at Emerald City on "Literary Fiction for People Who Hate Literary Fiction."
• Jeff reveals the ugly truth that Christmas is really all about hippies.
• For full contact sport enthusiasts, Miss Snark is critiquing synopses submitted by her readers. In the response to the first one, she says: The purpose of a synopsis for an agent is, in the words of Lucienne Diver "to make sure aliens don’t arrive on the farm in chapter 14". However, that’s not the writer’s purpose for a synopsis. A synopsis for a writer is part of your arsenal of persuasion. Yes, you write a capsule of the novel but you also make it enticing. You want an agent to read this and think "oh yes I want to read this".