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Category Archives: you should read this
Building a Graphic Novel Library: What One Slice of The Hive Mind Suggested
I tweeted this image recently along with the tag-line, “What’s missing? Tell me your favorite graphic novel.” I got literally hundreds of replies, and since I’m going through the list to compile one for me in order to fill out … Continue reading
Posted in you should read this
Tagged alan moore, classic comics, classic graphic novels, graphic novels
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Reading Like a Writer: Planning It Out
Tracy Townsend just did a terrific workshop this Saturday on Reading Like a Writer, (here’s the highlights from Twitter). One thing I came away with is the idea of planning my reading — or at least some of it — … Continue reading
Call for Hopepunk Novels
If you have a small press or independently-published book that is hopepunk*, I’m putting together a StoryBundle that will come out in the latter half of 2020. This is the bundle I was discussing last year; my chaotic 2019 meant … Continue reading
Some Favorite F&SF Reads of 2019
This is by no means an exhaustive list, but includes many of my favorites. Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo. The success of Lev Grossman’s The Magicians trilogy has led to quite a few other “college for mages” books. This was … Continue reading
An Armload of Fur and Leaves
In the last year or so, I found a genre that hadn’t previously been on my radar, but which I really enjoy: furry fiction. Kyell Gold had put up his novel Black Angel on the SFWA member forums, where members … Continue reading
Posted in blogging, Writing, you should read this
Tagged blog post, books, reading, writing
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Reading Doc Savage: The Czar of Fear
This is number twenty-two of the Bantam Reprints. On the green-toned cover, Doc is menaced by several figures in black hoods with glowing green eyes. A trick of the light makes it appear that the middle figure actually has three glowing green eyes, but the text does not support this, alas. This figure also has a shape half-obscured on its chest that will turn out to be a green bell but in this looks more like one of those things you put over food to keep them warm. Doc is posed very awkwardly, head turned towards the men and stepping toward them while wrenching his chest towards us in order to display rippling muscles half-obscured by the customary ripped shirt.
The narrative begins with a radio squawking and a man in a lunch-room: “pale fright rode his face”. He’s gulping his fourth mug of coffee, accompanied by two women, one “a striking beauty” in her twenties and the other “a pleasant-faced grandmother type.” We learn their respective names are Jim, Alice, and Aunt Nora and they’re in search of Doc Savage.
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Posted in you should read this
Tagged czar of fear, doc savage, green bell, lester dent, reading
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2017 Award-Eligible Work Blog Posts & Roundups for F&SF
Hello! I’m posting my yearly round-up of eligibility posts. If you’ve got one, let me know by commenting here, e-mailing me, or messaging on social media.
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Nattering Social Justice Cook: This Is Not A Review
So I read a book recently and I loved some parts of it and other parts…not so much. And I’ve been thinking about it ever since because there was one part of it I just adored but I don’t feel like I could tell anyone to read the book without a big “hey and you should watch out for this” addendum. I’d bounced off a previous book by this author with what was supposed to be grimdark but had a big ol’ weirdly ungrimdark gendered cliché early on that made me think so hard about it that I couldn’t pay attention to the rest of the book.
I’ve talked before about reading when the protagonist is markedly not you, and how used to it women — and other members of the vast majority the mainstream media calls Other — become. And this was a good example of a very young, very male, very heterosexual book. Which God knows I’m not opposed to. I remain a huge fan of the Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir Destroyer series and Doc Savage was a big influence on me, growing up.
So why did this book hit me so hard in an unhappy place? Because it was so smart and funny and beautifully written and involved connected stories about a favorite city and magic, which are three of my favorite things. And because it had a chapter that was one of the best short stories about addiction that I’ve read, and that left me thinking about it in a way that will probably shape at least one future story.
And yet. And yet. And yet… Continue reading
Posted in you should read this
Tagged doc savage, feminism, nattering social justice cook, peacetalk, purplesf, writing the other
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Media Consumed in October, 2017
Not much October travel, yahoo! Game-wise it’s still StarDew Valley and Skyrim on computer and console, D&D5E and Star Wars RPG (Fantasy Flight) for tabletop. In television, I’m happy to have a new season of DC Legends and The Flash … Continue reading
Posted in you should read this
Tagged book lists, booklist, daily life, reading, reading for writers
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Media Consumed in September
I was on the road for most of September. That photo’s taken in the elevator of the Flatiron Building while I was in NYC, but other places I stayed included Dallas, Texas and Pocatello, Idaho. (More on that to come!) Here’s what I read in September, according to my notes, which always seem to leave out some stuff. Continue reading