Mark Charan Newton

Share: [...]

[Read more →]

From the Guardian.
When we look at a book, its cover tells us what to expect. A pink paperback featuring a smiling young woman is most likely a female-centric summer read, whereas a gun on a black background is probably a murder story. A few simple aesthetic rules narrow our options, make life easier and ensure [...]

[Read more →]

Took me ages to find this graph. I remember studying data from sources like ice-cores sediment at university. Now, I occasionally subscribe to theories of ol’ Friedman, but that does not mean I deny things like this:

Source: IPCC, Working group I, Summary for Policy Makers (SPM), Third Assessment Report (TAR), page 3.
Guess I should read [...]

[Read more →]

Michael Chabon gets serious about genre at the LA Times.

Where did this bias against work created for a popular audience come from?

In all fairness, it came from the fact that the vast preponderance of art created for a mass audience is crap. It’s impossible to ignore that. But the vast preponderance of work written as [...]

[Read more →]

Awesome post over on Adrian Tchaikovsky’s blog about reading in the genre.

A genuine ignorance of the genre is possible. If you simply don’t read it, fine. However if you claim that, and then write this, people may ask how come, since you reinvented the wheel, all those spokes, the hub and the rim were just [...]

[Read more →]

Gabe Chouinard lights a fire under the ass of reviewers.
I like to start the week off with a bang, so each Monday I will be posting a longer, more indepth piece that will examine varied issues and concerns. The intent is to kick-start a discussion around these concerns; to create an open dialogue with others. [...]

[Read more →]

Interesting rant by James over at Speculative Horizons.
Something which has become increasingly common in recent years is the number of fantasy authors who, when asked what other genre writers they read/admire, give a reply along the lines of: “Oh, well…I don’t really read fantasy, you see.”… So why don’t some fantasy authors read fantasy novels? [...]

[Read more →]

A not so complete history of literary tattoos. (Link pinched from the blog of Jonathan Carroll.
Johannes Guttenberg invented the printing press in Germany in 1439. Samuel O’Reilly invented the modern tattoo machine in 1891. And sometime around the turn of the century the first literary tattoo was born. Whether nostalgic for the characters from a [...]

[Read more →]

Very happy to see Salman Rushdie winning the Best of the Booker Prize Award.

Midnight’s Children won the Booker Prize in 1981. It was then chosen as the Booker of Bookers in 1993 - the only other time a celebratory prize has been awarded.
The Best of the Booker shortlist was selected by a panel of judges [...]

[Read more →]

Most people know by now about the suicide of Thomas M. Disch.
I only ever read two books by the guy, Camp Concentration, and his collection of essays on the genre, On SF, enough to know he was a man who wrote with intelligence, style, and passion. A rare beast indeed.
Share: [...]

[Read more →]