gbsod

Comment Threads

• Charlie Stross commented on More on books
  Roger: This 'keeping the lights burning' observation also of course applies to countless female writers (and consumers) of complete dreck like romance novels This is your yellow card. Reason: fightin' talk directed at a genre of fiction that lots of people -- whether or not you agree with them -- hold in considerable esteem. Also: egregious sexism directed at the majority of fiction readers. I refer you to the moderation policy. Do it again and you will be banned from this topic and your comment deleted. Some additional clarification: genre romance accounts for around 52% of all published fiction in...
• dfjdejulio commented on More on books
  Interesting (well, to me) side-note on genre romance: my attitude towards it changed (a bit) when I played the old Infocom text adventure "Plundered Hearts". The bulk of Infocom games were fantasy (like Zork) or science fiction (like Planetfall). There were a few mysteries thrown in as well (like Deadline). "Plundered Hearts" was a no-apoligies up-front full-fledged BODICE RIPPER. The heroine (who was the character you played as) was involved in plots involving governors and pirates in the West Indies, intrigue, romance, everything. The box art even almost looked like a painting with Fabio. (Oh, and as an aside, the...
• justjohn commented on More on books
  (Bravo! I say this largely because the author I 'discovered' after finding you, our gracious host, was Elmore Leonard, and that revealed to me a whole genre of novels I'd completely forgotten about: Westerns.)...
• Moderator Alan commented on More on books
  Do read them. At her best, she can be very, very funny. Important? An interesting question — I'm not sure whether YA fiction can be important or whether, on the other hand, YA authors are automatically important in that they get to their readers before those readers have got too jaded. (Disclaimer: I know her peripherally, and have cooked for her, which was slightly tricky since she's vegetarian and it was someone else's BBQ. On the other hand, I don't know her so well that I consider my judgement particularly affected.)...
• Moderator Alan commented on More on books
  Glancing at Wikipedia this morning, I thought "I know that face". Yes, Susanna Clarke and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrel is the current featured article....