Hi! You may know me as woodburner. Or hey, you may not. Anyway, this is a mostly open journal - subscribe/unsubscribe at will, no need to ask permission. :)

STILL ALIVE

SORT OF

:SLDKJF:LDSKJ

So anyway, more shit happened with the Wicked Pretty Things anthology. Including a press release in Publisher's Weekly from the president of Running Press (who is openly gay, which to my mind makes it even worse) that attempts to paint Jessica Verday as a troublemaker and whines that they're being cyber-bullied. No really, what a douchebag. cleolinda has been reporting on the situation and has a convenient recap of the events. Suffice it to say that the anthology has now been canceled due to the number of authors pulling out. Way to serve as an example of how NOT to do damage control, guys. Seriously, what the hell, I don't even.

*burrows back into hole*

Deathless is out!

(ALL THE BOOKS are coming out right about now. Have I mentioned my frustration at this? COME ON PUBLISHERS, I'm out of gift card $$$ and I have almost none of my own! CAN'T YOU SPREAD OUT THE AWESOME A LITTLE???)

This is Cat Valente's Koschei the Deathless book, and it looks badass, and she is also doing a Deathless prize package giveaway to promote it. One of these days, I will win one of these things! ONE OF THESE DAYS.

---

Via inkstone, your regular dose of publishing WTF: Jessica Verday pulls her story from the upcoming Wicked Pretty Things anthology because she was told her story, which featured a G-rated romance between two boys, would be unacceptable to the publishers due to the gay content.

That's not even the WTF part. The editor Trisha Telep's response is the WTF part:

Oh dear. Might as well give you my two cents. Not that it really matters but... Don't take it out on the publishers, the decision was mine totally. These teen anthologies I do are light on the sex and light on the language. I assumed they'd be light on alternative sexuality, as well. Turns out I was wrong! Just after I had the kerfuffle with jessica, I was told that the publishers would have loved the story to appear in the book! Oh dear. My rashness will be the death of me. It's a great story. Hope jessica publishes it online. (By the way: if you want to see a you tube video of me wrestling a gay man in Glasgow, and losing, please let me know).

I... wrestling... gay man... WHAT? I just. WHAT???????? I would be more offended than I am, but I'm too busy boggling at the surreality of it.

In an update, Verday reveals that the publishers apologized for any offense caused and asked if she would consider having it appear in the anthology again, but since Telep is still in place as the editor Verday quite understandably refused. Also, while I somewhat understand the publishers' decision from a business standpoint (though I certainly don't approve), I'm not exactly pleased w/their doublespeak, either. Which is it? Is it all a "misunderstanding" and you "stand behind" Telep "100%"? Or do you have "no direct association" with her? You can't distance yourself from someone's grody bigotry while still endorsing them, people.

Anyway, since this happened a load of authors have pulled out of this anthology and others Telep is involved with (and at least one author refuses to have anything to do w/the publishers so long as Telep is working for them).

My advice to Trisha Telep: APOLOGIZE. Profusely. Unequivocally. Immediately. Not this offensive non-apology bullshit quoted above, but a real apology. And if you still don't see why what you did and said was bigoted and wrong, educate yourself, and do it in a hurry.

In non-Fringe news, most of you have probably heard by now, but Diana Wynne Jones has passed away. SO SAD ABOUT THIS. ;_______; I read Howl's Moving Castle several years ago, but I only discovered how awesome the rest of her books are last year. Which is a crying shame - I should have read these as a kid, I would have loved them. (Not that I don't love them just as much now, I just wish I'd gotten to experience them as a kid, too.)

Her books are magical and hilarious and they make the world seem a little roomier, and if you haven't read any of them you should go out and do so right away.

"What I don't understand is why when people say 'the real world' they always mean something depressing by it." - Diana Wynne Jones

SO. Is it just me, or do the creators of Fringe seem bound and determined to keep the audience in an ever escalating state of HOLY CRAP!!! this season? Last week we've got Anna Torv running around doing her unnervingly apt imitation of Leonard Nemoy for the whole episode and this universe's version of Lincoln Lee showing up, and this week we're in the otherverse watching Lincoln and Henry the freaking cab driver deliver Altlivia's freaky accelerated growth baby in a random Chinatown shop, what the Christ? (Also, I was seriously impressed at the way episode before last made me go "OH MY GOD!!!" with the recap, before the episode even started. Srsly, you guys, you guys, srsly.)

ANYWAY I just want to say that Lincoln Lee is the most adorable thing ever, jfc he is like a little kitten and I just want to scoop him up and squeeze the tar out of him, omg. How can anyone be that smooshable? I MEAN LOOK AT THIS FACE. HOW CAN YOU NOT WANT TO SMOOSH THIS FACE.



During that whole bit with Lincoln bawling over Altlivia I was all, "This is such blatant bid to get the fangirls in flailing conniptions. ...I, uh, I think it's working. *_*" And I think I'm starting to ship Lincoln/Altlivia kind of hardcore. Sobbb please don't end up killing them off, show, PLEASE????

Two ebook giveaways from Nightshade:

God's War

Of Blood and Honey

Don't know anything about either of them, but they look like they could potentially be interesting, and hey, free! They're epubs - no DRM, so should be easy to convert into whatever format you need w/Calibre or whatever. (Already got my copy of Blood and Honey and converted it to mobi, works fine on my Kindle.)

Jesus, the news just keeps getting more and more horrifying. Some links:

Here is a link round up with links to news, information (including shelter info), and organizations accepting donations.

Facebook group sharing translated news coming out of Japan. Honestly, it seems like the major news networks are constantly several hours behind the news being shared over the various social networks...

Crunchy Roll says they'll match donations up to $5000.

Fandom auction at help_japan.

TROLLOLOLOL GDI WILLIAM BELL DO YOU NEVER STOP TROLLING.

Incidentally Anna Torv's Leonard Nimoy impression is rather impressive... DISTURBINGLY IMPRESSIVE AUGH.

- So this morning I totally dreamed that bb_shousetsu was a host club in addition to a BL mag. There was a decorative golden cage (JUST DECORATIVE OKAY) with a pretty boy space case (seriously, he was not even in Earth's orbit) lounging inside on cushions. There were dead-tree versions of the mag stacked up around the outside of the cage, and he was browsing through one of them with a confused and intensely focused expression.

I just. Don't even know, okay.


- KORRA!



omg. *_*


- So like, it's International Women's Day or something. Badass.

@tinytempest: For #internationalwomensday, rec some stories & novels by or about women that showcase how awesome women are. #femalefictionrec

Seeing as I could list approximately ELEVENTY BAJILLION titles that I think EVERYONE SHOULD READ NO REALLY GDI READ IT NOW, and that would be counterproductive since everyone would be all, tl;dr, I'm going to make a list of the very first 15 that pop into my head to avoid the crushing guilt of leaving out some eminently worthy book.

...Needless to say, my list will pretty much be SFF only. B/c I uh. Rarely read anything else?

In no particular order:

The Orphan's Tales, Catherynne Valente

Midnight Robber, Nalo Hopkinson

The Etched City, KJ Bishop

Steam Powered: Lesbian Steampunk Stories, by various authors, ed. by JoSelle Vanderhooft

Leviathan series, Scott Westerfeld

Half World, Hiromi Goto

Redemption in Indigo, Karen Lord

Bayou (graphic novel series), Jeremy Love

Skip Beat (manga series), Yoshiki Nakamura

Ooku (manga series), Fumi Yoshinaga

The Shadow Speaker, Nnedi Okorafor

White is for Witching, Helen Oyeyemi

The Privilege of the Sword, Ellen Kushner

The Intuitionist, Colson Whitehead

Liar, Justine Larbalestier

The Alchemy of Stone, Ekaterina Sedia

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, NK Jemisin


...wait that was 17. And gdi I am already thinking of others. I didn't even include anything more than 15 years old! TOO MUCH AWESOME EVERYWHERE, CAN'T KEEP UP.

(Oh, and uh, it goes w/o saying some of the above has triggery content. Anyone wants warnings for something, feel free to ask, but be forewarned that I'm horrible at remembering specific instances of such things.)

MORE LADY RECS IN THE COMMENTS, GO!

Guys, I just want to read some gay/lesbian sff that primarily consists of KISSING and SHENANIGANS. Why does this not seem to exist? I keep checking out gay books here and there and... they're not scratching the itch. None of them. I mean, some of them are pretty good! And I am all for a good story that happens to have gay main characters! But. I really, really want to read about some silly shenanigans and kissing, you guys. Silly shenanigans and kissing between two dudes or two ladies. (eta: Or you know, more than two dudes or two ladies. OT3s ftw.)

Hilarious madcap misadventures! Crossdressing spies! Dashing thieves! Jaded detectives! Mad scientists and magicians! Explosions! Airships! Swordfights! Gunfights! Pirates! Ninjas! Mind-exploding sexual tension! Snarky OTPs! Conversations held entirely in subtext! KISSING, FOR GOD'S SAKE, KISSING!

I WANT A GAY BOOK THAT IS ENTIRELY MADE OF THIS.

Does... does anyone know if this exists? T___T

(Smut completely welcome but optional. What I am really craving is the CHEMISTRY. And, uh, kissing. And shenanigans. I mean, basically what I am saying is I like smut but I don't want smut that gets in the way of SHENANIGANS and SNARKING and EXPLOSIONS and doesn't allow for the whole mind blowing sexual tension bit because that's what I'm really after here.)

Cindy Pon is doing a Huntress and Akata Witch giveaway! Click here to enter.

I've been eagerly awaiting both of these books, so. *_*

(Huntress: Asian fantasy w/lesbian romance YA by Malinda Lo, Akata Witch: Nigerian-American fantasy children's/YA by Nnedi Okorafor, for those of you that haven't heard about them.)

Fringe ep 314:

OMIGOD???


Also: "Not exactly how you imagined meeting the President, huh?"

"I already know him. He doesn't like me, I beat him at golf. :|"

Lawwwwl, man I love Broyles.

Fringe 313: O SHI -

Bizarre dashing of soap opera tropes into my sci-fi/horror, what is this??? Aside from that, I would just like to say that in all of the freaky-ass gore this show has thrown around, nothing has squicked me as much as this episode. WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO ME, FRINGE, WHY, WHAT DID I EVER DO TO YOU.

getitoffmeeeeeeeeee

Was weird to see an episode with Altlivia as the protagonist. I mean, we had plenty of episodes with her at the center of them, but she was still an antagonist in those. It was interesting, and I wouldn't mind seeing more of them. Also, Lincoln is the most adorable thing ever, y/y?

Lastly: BUG FANGIRL. GREATEST THING EVER. OMG SHE WAS THE BESTEST.


Madoka Magica ep6: THAT CREEPY LITTLE RAT. Omg. Guys, seriously, did you seriously not realize until now that you were being manipulated? (I guess I'm being too harsh. I reckon middle schoolers are so used to being manipulated it hardly registers.)


Star Driver ep 1-18: Watched the first ep of this back when it started broadcasting and everyone was talking about it, and I was kind of ambivalent. Went ahead and marathoned up to current in a fit of boredom last week. THIS SHOW MAKES NO SENSE. NONE. It's basically an incoherent collection of fanservice, bizarre and unsettling robots, sexual metaphors, and surreal references to other surreal series. But it is pretty hysterical. I mean, with GALACTIC PRETTY BOY* here to save the day, what could possibly go wrong?

*no seriously, that is actually what the main character is called, I am not making this up




Level E 1-5: Hilarious, mindless sci-fi/comedy. Not really much to say beyond that... I recommend it if you like that sort of thing.


Yumeikui Merry 1-2: Dig the concept (a dream creature stuck in reality), but the execution is a bore. The moe is a little overwhelming too, but I could get past that if it wasn't such a snooze.


Gosick 1-5: Kind of meh about this. I like the girl, but the boy gets on my nerves. Also the mysteries are kind of... well, as Victorique says, they're boring. It's pretty, though.

BOSS GETS A SEQUEL

OMG YOU GUYSSSSSSSSSS

\o/

- New porn_tree challenge! This time merikuru is running it. Come, leave prompts, write!

- Any recommendations on vintage hardboiled detective fiction? Preferably short stories, preferably free. So far I've read The Maltese Falcon, The Dain Curse, and part of The Big Sleep and Red Harvest, and Arson Plus, but those are all novels except for Arson Plus (well, Dain Curse and Red Harvest are only sort of novels I guess), and I want some short examples.


- Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Uh, unexpected show to watch?! So much wtf. Dark, dystopian, surreal... little magical girls. Along with prerequisite magical girl lesbian undertones! Whatever the animators are smoking, I WANT SOME. Although I somewhat fear that this series will end in horrible gruesome tragedy.



eta: apparently youtube embeds are not working on DW today??? Uh, here's the link.

BONUS! Yuki Kajiura OST.

Not so bonus: WHY WILL THE FANSUBBERS NOT RELEASE THIS IN A SIZE I CAN FUCKING PLAY WITHOUT MY COMPUTER CHOKING ON IT. I don't have much luck with anime at 720p to begin with, and this series is particularly hard on it with all that shit happening all over the screen at once.

HALP

PLS

My mother is literally begging me to let her take me to one of those Dr. Amen clinics. How do I convince her that this man is a quack and she would better spend that money on REAL medical care? I need really super-respectable sources saying he is a quack, and why. She will not listen to my observations.

(Despite always saying how smart I am, my opinions are automatically uninformed silly notions until I have doctors or otherwise "respectable" people to back me up. Especially if Oprah disagrees with me. Jfc you would think Oprah was a prophet and her word the word of God. This is a woman who seriously thinks "Dr. Oz wouldn't appear with a man he thought was a quack!" is a legitimate defense.)

All I'm able to find thus far is links to things like news articles and blog articles where the author is making the same arguments as I am. I need weightier things. Medical journals, psychiatrists and neuroscientists, that kind of thing.

SHOCKINGLY

Just unable to do much other than read and sleep, but you know, that's better than last year after Xmas, at which point I was unable to do anything but sleep. And unable to read a damn thing until, like, March or something. Which would have been really bad since, well, I got a Kindle.

BUT HAY GAIS, GAIS, I GOTS A KINDLE. AWESOME AMIRITE. How the hell does this thing even sort? I switched a collection to sort by author and it just sort of. Shuffled them. Randomly.

(Incidentally, I searched for KJ Bishop in the Kindle store and it gave me the King James Bible. IT THINKS IT'S A COMEDIAN what is this)

I have also watched all of Lie to Me, and despite it pissing me the hell off on occasion, I'm finding it PROFOUNDLY addictive. I blame Tim Roth. Why. Why is Tim Roth?

(...I sort of screamed a little at the beginning of the porno episode.)

You know what I miss? ANIME. Nothing's been coming out lately that I've been overly interested in. Gdi, that new thing coming out from the producers of Mononoke better be awesome. I was kind of underwhelmed by the psychiatrist show.

Oh, also, I have missed quite a lot of fpage/reading page posts, so if anything terribly important happened, do tell!

HAY GAIS

What are some video games (story-centric) that can be played on a 4yr old laptop that I would probably like? (I would include a PS1 in this equation but I haven't turned it on in so long I'm not even sure it still works.) I know I was interested in one of those Assassin's Creed games (WAS IT II? I DON'T EVEN REMEMBER) but I am dubious of its playability.

SOBBB WHY IS KEEPING UP WITH TECH SO EXPENSIVE. I used to really like games. ;;

Weird dream w/the Leverage team in a post-apocalyptic scenario, but all that was really going on was Sophie trying to finagle her way into a posh hotel room. L-lol why, brain. (She finally got one, but inexplicably, there were rotting root vegetables of some sort in the bathtub.)

Re: recent events in Fringe! (Wow, that was a good arc and all, but boy am I glad it's over.)

Now, don't get me wrong, I am all for focusing on Olivia at every possible juncture, but while everyone's worrying about her trauma, shouldn't someone... spare a thought for Peter? I mean, granted, the scale of trauma here is rather different, but I think what Peter's gone through is pretty darn traumatic??? What with him having been DATING AND SLEEPING WITH AN IMPOSTOR FOR LIKE WHAT, WEEKS?! MONTHS?! And yet.

Also, I am still kind of annoyed at the whole Peter never realizing it was the wrong Olivia thing. I mean, you just cannot play up a character as so smart and observant and as having such a keen understanding of people and then... have him so completely drop the ball. ( cut for brief spoilery rant )

Anyway, /tl;dr random rant about a show that is ~95% everything I could ever possibly want from TV. I HAVE A VAGENDA AND I AM NOT AFRAID TO USE IT.

I'm offering fairy tale flash fiction here and incense here.