- Over at the new and improved Strange Horizons review section (which has an RSS feed even), Greg Beatty praises Kate Wilhelm’s Storyteller. Oh, but this is a lovely book. Everyone who wants to understand science fiction as a community will want a copy. Many people who want to become professional writers, or better writers, will also want copies, and that’s because this book blends two genres. On one hand, it is a memoir. In these 190 pages of honest, often poetic prose, Kate Wilhelm recounts the story of how the Clarion Writing Workshop came to be; the many struggles she, Damon Knight, Robert Scott Wilson, and a host of other dedicated teachers, administrators, and volunteers faced; and the lessons they learned along the way in close to three decades of shaping Clarion into its present form. I’m really looking forward to reading this one.
- Weather Underground in Rita watch mode, and Ed has some invaluable link gathering. Too horrific to contemplate.
- OGIC reveals her LBC nomination, the last one for this round. Discussions and author appearances to come. If any of the books look like your kind of thing, read along and participate in the discussion weeks. (Or just participate!)
- Cory Doctorow points to new James Patrick Kelly goodies on the web: Periodically, Jim goes into a studio and records himself giving spellbinding readings of his stories, which he then releases gratis on the Web, under a Creative Commons license, with a tipjar for donations to pay for more studio time. Jim has just posted three more stories: "The Edge of Nowhere," "Barry Westphal Crashes The Singularity" and "Proof of the Existence of God (And an Afterlife)."
- Carl Zimmer at The Loom on puzzles and creationism. (And he reveals that his brother is a consultant for the Oxford English Dictionary, which seems like one of the coolest jobs In The World.)
8 thoughts on “Thursday Hangovers”
Comments are closed.
I really need to get myself a copy of Storyteller. (That’s actually the most dangerous thing about this whole business: I end up wanting to read most of the books reviewed myself. My poor poor bank account.)
Shouldn’t you be able to work your new gig (or any of the LJ stuff) to get free review copies of whatever you want. you do have to parcel things out, after all, right? (It is all about the free books.)
See, this is what I’m talking about. You two and Matt and maybe a couple of others need to put together a litblog co-op style thing specififically for titles “of genre interest” like this one. I, for one, would be way more interested in reading a coordinated set of reviews by the three of you on the new Wilhelm or on China’s new collection or on, well, on any of a dozen recent sf/fantasy/”allied fields” books than I am (sorry!) reading about the books that a lot of literary bloggers report on.
Whose with me? Shaken & Stirred readers, let your visions be heard!
You’re mad, mad I tell you!
Most of the reviewers for SH are in the US, so most of the books go to a contacts manager who is also in the US. I never see ’em. And I’m not forward enough (or savvy enough) to know where to start with getting books just for having a livejournal.
I’m not complaining, because I do get *most* of the books I want free to review for some place or other. But there’s always more, right? 🙂
(So I’m up for the genreblog. I’m probably going to run out of hours in the week a some point, but until then …)
Okay, the ball’s rolling. Somebody get Cheney over here.
My problem with the litblog co-op is things seem to move so slow that I never get all that enthusiastic about reading the comments on the books. I want things now now now!
Yeah, an attempt is being made to speed up the after-pick process so there’s more content. I agree with you.