Marginalia

[coalescent]

I'm off to Worldcon tomorrow. eeeeeeWorldcon! If you're there, feel free to say hi. I'll be back home on Tuesday evening. I'll probably be posting between now and then via the futurephone, but reading access might be limited. In the meantime, The Scotsman previews the con and The Herald talks to Chris Priest and Geoff Ryman. [both via Locus]

When a speech therapist goes to an sf convention [via someone on sdn's journal]

A great conversation between Yoshio Kobayashi, Christopher Barzak and K. Bird Lincoln at Strange Horizons.

Some fiction: the first chapter of Double Vision by Tricia Sullivan; CommComm by George Saunders; and Peter Watts' backlist.

The rise of Shoujo and how it's caught the US comics industry on the hop. [via coffee_and_ink]

What happened at this year's Romance Writers of America Awards. [via fjm]

I have never played anything quite like this. There's a non-RPG version as well. [via Penny Arcade]

The September issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction includes Kelly Link's wonderful novella 'Magic for Beginners'. This means you should buy it. In addition, Robert J Killheffer's review column considers the UK/US divide. John Scalzi comments, matociquala comments on his comments (here) and sartorias comments on them both.

Just in case you think Kelly Link is not for you, Bluejack reviews 'Magic for Beginners' at the Internet Review of SF. He also muses about bias in the numbers of books by men and women that get reviewed on sf sites. Currently, the pile of review copies available for Strange Horizons leans strongly in the male direction. I've got a list of things I'm going to try to get hold of to help balance that (books by Elizabeth Bear, Judith Berman, L Timmel Duchamp, Carol Emshwiller, Gwyneth Jones, Margo Lanagan, Kelly Link, Maureen McHugh, Justina Robson, Tricia Sullivan, Cathrynne M Valente, Kate Wilhelm, and Liz Williams, although to be fair I'd be chasing all of those no matter what) but more suggestions are welcomed. I'm looking for forthcoming, new, or relatively recent books.

Comments

[demona-hw.livejournal.com]

Isn't all Shoujo crap, though? I'd rather the daughters of the nation were reading about Giant Robots and people exploding from the inside, myself.

[talvalin.livejournal.com]

What I find interesting is that a lot of men read shoujo too. I tried it and it simply didn't appeal to me. Giant robots are clearly better.

[kalorlo.livejournal.com]

How about shoujo giant robots? They do exist (Escaflowne). It really depends on what you tried, tbh, because it's a *huge* category.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

Robots - presumably giant ones

http://www.superdickery.com/seduction/31.html

[kalorlo.livejournal.com]

Nah, it's not all crap. *waves Utena flag*
It just has a tendency to be more romance-driven (though there's plenty of that in some of the Giant Robot manga too...)

Done badly it's just sickly, but there's some really really good stuff out there. And CLAMP. Mmmm, CLAMP.