Tuesday Hangovers

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  • Jeff Ford puts up his story "Bright Morning" about a writer cursed to be "Kafkaesque": If there’s one thing that distinguishes my books from those of others, it’s the fact that in the review blurbs that fill the back cover and the page that precedes the title inside, the name of Kafka appears no less than eight times. Kafka, Kafkaesque, Kafka-like, in the tradition of Kafka. Certainly more Kafka than one man deserves — a veritable embarrassment of Kafka riches. My novels are fantasy/adventure stories with a modicum of metaphysical whim-wham that some find to be insightful and others have termed “overcooked navel gazing.” Granted, there are no elves or dragons or knights or wizards in these books, but they are still fantasies, none the less. I mean, if you have a flying head, a town with a panopticon that floats in the clouds, a monster who sucks the essence out of hapless victims through their ears, what the hell else can you call it? At first glance, it would seem that any writer would be proud to have his work compared to that of one of the twentieth century’s greatest writers, but upon closer inspection it becomes evident that in today’s publishing world, when a novel does not fit a prescribed format, it immediately becomes labeled as Kafkaesque. The hope is, of course, that this will be interpreted as meaning exotic, when, in fact, it translates to the book buying public as obscure. Kafka has become a place, a condition, a boundary to which it is perceived only the pretentious are drawn and only total lunatics will cross. Read the whole thing.
  • Do cats cause schizophrenia?
  • Birnbaum vs. Himself.
  • Coffee and Ink lists a number of books she’s looking forward to. Me too.

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Sunday Hangovers

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Bad Guesser

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Chris McLaren (aka Big-Headed Canadian Whiskey Man) points to the Gender Genie, which analyzes writing samples and predicts whether the author is male or female. Somewhat concerningly, he said it thinks I’m a man. (Of course, it also thought Emma Bull was.) I decided to test it out with some longer samples.

Scores

The first 1,000 words and change of a new story I just finished called Cassie Says:

Female Score: 1883
Male Score: 1007
The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: female!

So far, so good, but that’s a pretty tight score.

The first chapter of my YA novel Girl’s Gang:

Female Score: 2083
Male Score: 2137
The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male! 

Wrongo!

A longer blog entry, From Two to Four:

Female Score: 1416
Male Score: 1776
The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male!

Of course, according to the stats, the Genie seems to be running about 41 percent incorrect. Not knowing much about what this is based on (and being unable to see the Nature article), I’m not sure any conclusions can be drawn from this — except perhaps that this oversimplifies the algorithm or something. (Or it’s just stoopid.) Kind of interesting though.

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Hey Geeky Girl (Updated)

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The memed up version of the Guardian’s phallocentric 20 best geeky novels list has inspired some interesting discussion (in the comments to that post). Christopher Rowe and Chris McLaren have responded by making lists of geeky books by women. (See also the discussion at this LJ.) (The update is Meghan McCarron’s list added at the end of the post.)

This is going to be embarrassing, but I’ll meme up these behind the cut. (My own list would have a lot more books I’ve read. But many of these are books I have long had every intention of reading and just haven’t, or have read other books by the authors instead.)

…

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Friday Hangovers

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VeronicaMarsTalk

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Am I the only person who didn’t know that Rob Thomas was a successful YA novelist before going into TV? That last week’s ep is named after his first book, "Rats Saw God"? I put it on reserve at the library. Anyway. This week:

"Nobody Puts Baby In A Corner" Veronica and Duncan discover that the still-comatose Meg had been babysitting an abused child, leading Veronica to take on an unfamiliar role as a babysitter to determine the kid’s identity.

The opening is great, so I’m really, really hoping this isn’t a very special episode as last week’s promo made out.

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