Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Genre map

Some weird choices on here, but fun anyway: http://popchartlab.com/products/a-plotting-of-fiction-genres. So far we’ve covered Apocalyptic (The Road), Biopunk (The Windup Girl), and Historical Romance (Wolf Hall). Correct one bad judgment call on the chart (listing Gaiman’s Anansi Boys instead of American Gods) and we’d also have Mythic Fantasy. In the next few months, One Hundred Years of Solitude (our April choice) will add Magic Realism, and Neuromancer (August) will cover Cyberpunk. 

That still leaves Bizarro Fic, among other sub-subgenres we’ve somehow managed to ignore. Ass Goblins of Auschwitz, anyone?  

Monday, February 2, 2015

A fix for our broken (some say) book-nomination process?

What should I read next?

Kinda fun, if often weird in its selections. I gave it a try with a few of our better-reviewed (by us) choices and got these results:


A Visit from the Goon Squad gives Steve Martin - An Object of Beauty

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay gives Jonathan Lethem - The Fortress of Solitude

A Game of Thrones gives Greg Keyes - The Charnel Prince

Master and Commander gives Patrick O'Brien - Post Captain (Rather a safe choice, as it's the sequel to M&C. But I approve.)

A Few Seconds of Panic gives David Foster Wallace - This Is Water

Perdido Street Station gives Michael Swanwick - The Iron Dragon's Daughter

The Sparrow gives Robert J Sawyer - Flash Forward [Okay, it didn't. That's result 2. The first result was Fitzgerald John D , Mayer Mercer - The Great Brain at the Academy. That's good, but just nuts.]

Hunting Eichmann gives Robert Mayer - The Dreams of Ada

Persepolis gives Alison Bechdel - Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic

American Gods and Sandman both give Warren Ellis et al. - Transmetropolitan : The New Scum

The Night Circus gives Yangsze Choo - The Ghost Bride

The Orphan Master's Son gives George Saunders - Tenth of December: Stories

And Wolf Hall, our current book, leads to A M Homes - May We Be Forgiven.


Note that in each case the recommendation list is much longer; I just grabbed the top result. Except for The Sparrow.

Friday, January 30, 2015

Trailer: Star Wars meets Marvel meets DC

This is awesome. It's as if someone were really trying to film Patton Oswalt's beautiful vision. I almost agree with io9 (discussing a slightly different version): "once you see Superman flying alongside the Millennium Falcon you will want it to be real more than you've ever wanted anything."

Thursday, January 22, 2015

Skill vs. Luck?

538 has been running a series of articles on board games, and it's pretty interesting reading.

You can read about great games.

You can read about terrible games.

And, if you're looking for something to do with your kids, they've got an article about obscure games for kids.