a poll on free online content.

I have an informal poll for you this morning.
How do you feel about writers releasing their material online as "patronage-ware"? (That’s what I call it when someone puts up a story or novel without requiring payment for the download, while asking people to pay whatever they think their entertainment was worth to them.)
Have you/would you [...]

not just a jacket.

Here’s one thing that bothers me every time I walk into my local Borders:

Now, I am not the world’s greatest Glenn Beck fan, to put it mildly, but it’s not his face or the title of his book that chaps my hide in this case—it’s the thing he’s wearing.
For those not familiar with foreign [...]

your recommended weekly dose of fairytales.

While we’re on the subject of endorsements, I have another one for you on this fine Tuesday.
Sometimes, I come across a writer who makes me not only stand in awe at their talent, but also makes me realize just how much more I have to learn before I can say that I have a good [...]

more flash movie reviews.

So I picked up another small stack of rental movies on Saturday, and (miraculously) managed to watch two of them over the weekend: Coraline and Inkheart.  Both of them are movie adaptations of Kid/Young Adult fantasy books.
Coraline was just a lovely, charming piece of work.  It’s hard to explain the Gaiman Factor to someone who [...]

can’t google-cheat on that one.

Here’s a little quiz for the literature geeks:
This is the first page of a well-known manuscript.  It’s the original first page of said manuscript.
Care to wager a guess?  First one to name it gets bragging rights.

 
 

do you like your skiffy preachy or fluffy?

Picture a graph for the Social Commentary content in science fiction.
On the left side is the Pure Fun/Entertainment/Escapism value.  On the right side is the pure Political/Social Propaganda value.
Some authors lean more toward the left side of the graph (John Scalzi, David Weber), and some are toward the right side (Cory Doctorow, China Mieville).  Some [...]

supernatural monsters, and the people who riddle them with bullets.

Here’s one for all the folks looking up “gun for hunting werewolf” on my blog:

Larry Correia’s novel Monster Hunter International is out from Baen, and available for your immediate purchase.  (The image above links to the Amazon page for MHI, but you should also be able to walk into your nearest Borders or Narnes [...]

that book you bought? we’ve decided to un-sell it to you.

Reason #2811 I’m lukewarm about the Kindle:
Amazon deleted previously purchased copies of Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984 after the publisher changed their mind about offering an e-book version.
That’s pretty ballsy.  Like the article states, it’s like Borders or Barnes & Noble sending someone to break into your house, take a book you purchased from them [...]

peter s. beagle could use your help.

Peter S. Beagle is a Hugo- and Nebula-winning author.  His best-known work is without a doubt The Last Unicorn, which I consider one of the Top Ten fantasy novels of all time.
Peter S. Beagle could use your help.  If you’ve ever enjoyed any of his works (and if you like fantasy and haven’t read The [...]

a gun for werewolf.

Answering my own question about original werewolf movies or novels, I’ll name Whitley Strieber’s Wolfen, which was a pretty good and inventive novel, and a tolerable horror film (even if the film diverged from the source material quite substantially.)
For those who asked or commented…yes, I’m toying with the idea of a novel in the genre.  [...]