Hangovers

Actual content will be attempted next week, promise.

• The Showbar Palace of Wonders in D.C.
• Jay Tomio kicks off a new series in which he’ll highlight 100 of his favorite speculative fiction books from the last 10 years. The first ten or, more accurately, numbers 91-100.
• The 50 most popular science blogs. (Via Kameron Hurley.)
• I want these sneakers.
• The first installment of a new Cory Doctorow column for Locus, "Science Fiction is the Only Literature People Care Enough About to Steal on the Internet," is online. (Via Jonathan Strahan.)
• Alan DeNiro has created a PDF featuring several stories in his new collection, Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead. He also announces that the book just happens to be a BookSense pick for August. Yay!

• A dreary, rainy post-holiday here; let us hope the fireworks have ended so the dog’s life can go back to normal.
• Dave Schwartz on whether there are inherent differences between the novel and short story and what they might be.
• Theresa Duncan on why Kate Moss is "the desiring-machine embodied." I just find her to be a skinny chick who takes good pictures, but Duncan’s fascination with her is fascinating.
• The Devil Wears Prada: I thought it was a delightful fantasy, in which the fantasy world-building is most effectively engineered by every character in the movie pretending that Anne Hathaway isn’t approximately the size and weight of a stick. See also: Meghan and Lauren‘s takes.
• Get well, Ebert.
• The world’s favorite Happy Booker hosts two guest essays: Christy Zink’s on using history in fiction and Reb Livingston on being the asshole.
• The afterlife of Grover Krantz at the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History, amid his friends.
• A great review of Johnny Cash’s last recording. Several MP3s are included at the end of the review.

• I will catch up on email at some point in the nearish future.
• Hank Stuever examines the age-old Marvel vs DC test in the WaPo.
• Also, in the WP, Sarah Kaufman profiles cyclist Floyd Landis, who some people persist on cheering for.
• Andy Duncan on why he loves U.S. Transportation Secretary (outgoing) Norman Yoshio Mineta.
• Bookshelves of Doom corners Scott Westerfeld and asks him some, well, relatively easy but still very interesting questions. Wrong-un means something else in the South, by the by, such as, "You’ve got the wrong-un."
• Paul Collins reviews a book I really have to lay hands on: Hollow Earth: The Long and Curious History of Imagining Strange Lands, Fantastical Creatures, Advanced Civilizations, and Marvelous Machines Below the Earth’s Surface. (Via Jenny D.)
• During your fireworks tomfoolery, keep watch for the Moon and Jupiter, who’ll be out on a date somewhere around the southern horizon. Have fun. Keep all your fingers.

• Well, Superman excitement aside, we’re going to hold off seeing it until tomorrow or Friday so we can go see my favorite Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers’ movie, Top Hat, at the Kentucky Theatre tonight.
• Patrick Nielsen Hayden points out that we’re now living in a Kim Stanley Robinson novel.
• Fantagraphics is reissuing the fantastic Castle Waiting, which I dearly love.
• Via Patrick Samphire, a UK site compiles a partial list of what some teen readers do/don’t like in the books they read.
• Tod Goldberg on what he learned from teaching this quarter.
• The Guardian on Angela Carter. (Via Theresa Duncan.)

• Visit the nonexistent city of Galvez. (Via Claire.)
• Austin Kleon with some advice care of George Saunders: George Saunders says that as a young boy, he felt the language in Esther Forbes’ Johnny Tremain was a code he could break, “a code that turned out to be more accurate and expressive than the one we all use to slog through normal life.” And breaking this code suggested to him that he might be able to come up with his own code, “a premonition that my complicated feelings about life could be subjugated to that quest, which has turned out to be true.”

  People talk about voice and style, and I have no clue what they’re talking about. “Find your voice!” they say.

  Screw that. I’m working on my secret code.

• Whale terrorists at BibliOdyssey.
• Over at the new Killer Year – Class of 2007 blog (featuring a bunch of mystery novelists making their debut in… well, ’07), Toni Causey tells a hilarious story on herself involving errant breastmilk. (Also, Toni’s blog has moved.)
• Matt Cheney does a wonderful rundown of one of my favorite dead people movies, Cemetery Man, which I suggest as a double-bill with The Loved One. And earlier in the week, he had a great interview with editor Tina Pohlman, who is thoroughly charming and has great taste. I interviewed Tina for my PW piece on fantasy and she said way more smart things than I had space for.
• The most excellent Cryptomundo blog. Damn, and I’d just gotten my subscribed feeds down to 153, from like 300 or so. (Via the ever-witty Theresa Duncan.)
• Dorothy at Of Books and Bicycles says something about bicycle racing that is also true of writing: Yes, those other women are competitors, but without competitors, a rider doesn’t improve. Other riders aren’t merely your competitors: they are the people you need to make yourself better.
• His Majesty’s Dragon gets a rave in this week’s Book World, and there’s also a nice review of Daniel Handler’s Adverbs.
• And now off to lots of writing/editing work.

• Jane Smiley joins the product placement in novels hurrah, sparked by Cathy’s Book, and she’s a bit more sympathetic than most. The thing is, whatever this book is, I know it will be great. Because, hello, Sean Stewart would be involved with nothing less. So I’m not too worried about Cover Girl compromising the quality; unlike what’s happened on America’s Next Top Model. And besides, anything that has Sean working in print makes me happy.
• Toxoplasma news. You have it. I have it. See also.
• Austin Kleon on using powerpoint for good, and not its usual evil.
• Over at the Endicott blog, Terri Windling points some samples of the striking art of Julie Morstad, who did those beautiful images for the new Neko Case. Beeyootiful.
• Liza Palmer on character.
• Jen Robinson’s list of 200 cool girls from children’s lit.

• Jeff shares Elvis’s secret.
• The Sci Fi Channel hosted a D.C. forum on the end of the world.
• The Young Lions’ party looks pretty swank. (Via Sarvas.)
• The Wednesday Chef recommends Bill Buford’s Heat.
• Another great post on research and storytelling by one of House’s writers.
• Things like this are what make me love the genre; I just don’t see this happening anywhere else. I’m in. Even if it means I’ll have to do that most loathesome of things: finish a short story. Because as a reader of F&SF, the thing that would make me most happy is more stories by women in it for me to read. (By the way, it seems like Asimov’s has been publishing more stories by women since Sheila Williams took over — anyone crunched those numbers? Maybe I’ve just been paying more attention to the gender balance.)

• Niall Harrison has masterminded all sorts of goodies related to the British Science Fiction Association. There’s Vector, BFSA’s journal, which is full of things worth checking out; see Matt Cheney’s 2005 short fiction round-up and Graham Sleight’s columns, for a start. Then, finally, there’s the new blog, which Niall will apparently be abandoning (mostly) Coalescent for.
• I read Terri Windling’s essay "On Myth and Writing" from the most recent issue of the Journal of Mythic Arts over the weekend; lovely. And the Oliver Hunter paintings paired with it are absolutely striking. There’s SO much great stuff in there. (And Midori pointed me to the excellent Marisa de los Santos’ poem "Wiglaf.")
• A NYT article on one alternative to free public libraries (which I love, love, love). Via Jenny D.
• Crissa Chappell’s 21 Steps for Writing a Novel, which points out excellently how circuitous, particular and torturous the process of writing and publishing a novel really is.
• Carter Scholz gives a rave review in the latest issue of Artforum to the new Tiptree biography, Julie Phillips’ James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon (which I would literally kill someone for an advance copy of; someone I didn’t like so much, but still). The advance buzz is very, very, very good on this one. (Via Melissa M.)
• Dan Wickett talks to a few contributors to the lastest Oxford American about being in it.
• The Index of Forbidden Books. (Via Bookninja.)
• A great cycling blog, to be bookmarked in preparation for the Tour de France.
• Sandcastles. (Via Pooks.)
• Kessel and Kelly interviewed about slipstream and putting their new antho together.
• Jeff VanderMeer’s having a book sale. We snagged a couple already.
• Or buy a page from a haunted book.

• Some back and forth at Hannah’s about a story at Strange Horizons, that spins off into talk of assumptions about the race/gender of protagonists and why they should be examined. And, why yes, Meghan McCarron is rocking this dicussion. (Via Chance.)
• Jeff Ford opens up some slipstream discussion. Most of which can be found in this earlier post’s comments.
• Ms. Erin Keane sums up the whole don’t call me Mrs. anything feeling, and she does it beautifully. Brava!
• Alan DeNiro has posted a story by his lovely and talented wife Kristin Livdahl, "The Saga of the Raiding Team," which we loved so much we published it in Say…* awhile back. (*Yes, the new issue is still coming; we’re working on it. June is NUTS for both of us, but it’ll be out soonish. And FABULOUS.)
• The one and only Lauren Cerand wants to send you mail.
• Coffee and Ink rounds up a Wiscon panel (which was reportedly quite awesome) about the wages of reading trashy fiction.
• Elizabeth Bear on POV.
• International Horror Guild nominations have been announced and, man, that’s a fabulous list.
• The Watcher’s summer TV round-up. (I DVRed the first episode of Hex last night, and will report back.)

(Sorry for the proliferation of hangovers this week, but I’m busy, busy, busy. I do plan a reading update and some other things for the weekend… she said, noncommittally.)

• Two posts in one week: Welcome to the apocalypse. Christopher announces his big Wild Cards news. UDPATE: Make that THREE posts; he’s just put up a PDF of the first halfish of his new story "Another Word for Map is Faith," which will be in the August issue of F&SF.
• Meanwhile, the lovely and stylish Erin Keane is having what looks to be an utterly fab release party tonight for her new poetry chapbook The One-Hit Wonders. I am so, so sad that we are lame and can’t go out on school nights to Louisville. If you live there, or close by, get thee to this party. And bring a mix tape/CD.
• There’s a brand new Temeraire (the Dragon) short story up on Naomi Novik’s web site, "Feast or Famine," set between His Majesty’s Dragon and Throne of Jade. Subscribe to the Temeraire newsletter while you’re there. Novik also confirmed on her blog that she’s just reached a deal with Del Ray for three more books, to come at the rate of one per year (what no one per month, indefinitely? wah! but sane…).
• Daniel Handler knows the pain of having a more famous alter ego/pseudonym. (Via Bookninja.)
• Transhumanists in Slate.