Link roundup

1. "However, the volatile situation in Syria means that activists' methods to get documentation off the streets and onto social media are rapidly changing. Unconfirmed reports claim pen phones and small camera phones are being smuggled into Syria by anti-government expatriates and both the Saudi Arabian and American governments."

2. Fascinating article about pirates. When I read about the Barbary pirates in Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver, I thought he was greatly exaggerating their exploits. But no:

Initially, the corsairs used galleys, which were fast and easily maneuverable, but the problem of supplying their rowing crews and soldiers, which could total some 184 men, limited their range. But European renegade sailors, such as John Ward, “without any doubt the greatest scoundrel that ever sailed from England,” as a courtier put it, and Danseker the Dutchman, known as the “Divil Captain,” were on hand to supply the expertise needed for a shift to sailing ships.

They could now raid along the British and the Irish Channels — they would even reach as far north as Iceland. Throughout the century, their raids caused havoc in coastal communities, with sailors and fishermen refusing to go to sea. In the Mediterranean, whole stretches of coast in Spain and Italy were deserted.

3. Useless, but a magical idea - - it looks like a camera, but when you press the shutter it doesn't take a picture. Instead, it pulls off from the net a random photo taken by someone else at that exact moment. Via these sites.

George Martin's A Dance With Dragons (no spoilers)

A Dance With Dragons is easily the worst book in George Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. But I read 950 pages in a week, and often gave up sleep to do so, so it would be silly to call the book bad.

In retrospect, the flaws of the book were trumpeted by Martin himself. A third (or more) of the book is content that was meant to be included in A Feast for Crows. But that book ran too long, so the content was saved for this. In other words, it's b-material that never deserved to be its own book. Another third of the book was frequently described by Martin as the "Meereenese Knot" - - an inescapable plot hole he had worked himself into. His difficulty in solving that "knot" was the reason the book was so famously delayed. What he really needed was someone to tell him that the Meereen portion was trash and should be completely discarded. (Is there somewhere where he's defended the main character's actions in that part of the book? Because they certainly made no sense to me.)

The last two hundred pages more than made up for the rest of the book, though, and it will be a long, difficult wait for the next book.

Kid's book with color-changing ink

Video showing off Keep Our Secrets, by Jordan Crane and McSweeney's, featuring color-changing ink. Available for preorder for $8 at B&N. Via.

George Martin's A Dance With Dragons

I usually wait for paperbacks, but decided to read this right away to avoid spoilers. After 400 pages, I say the new characters are entirely forgettable, Daenarys has lost what once made her appealing, and the plot is so, so tedious.

And yet, I cannot put it down.

The Dragon with the Girl Tattoo

The Dragon with the Girl Tattoo. It's real. Via.

Sasquatch's Big Hairy Drawing Book

I received a copy of Chris McDonnell's excellent Sasquatch's Big Hairy Drawing Book. Imagine an activity book with just a touch of Mad Magazine's humor. (Unfortunately, my youngest is a bit too young for it, and my oldest treats drawing and writing as the worst punishment in the world.) Anyway, the book will be available at SDCC (and for preorder at Barnes & Noble) and there's already a Flickr gallery showing off artists' work:

Short story by Lev Grossman and Mike Mignola

The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities: Exhibits, Oddities, Images, and Stories from Top Authors and Artists:

The death of Dr. Thackery T. Lambshead in 2003 at his house in Wimpering-on-the-Brook, England, revealed an astonishing discovery: the remains of a remarkable cabinet of curiosities.

A carefully selected group of popular artists and acclaimed, bestselling fantasy authors has been assembled to bring Dr. Lambshead’s cabinet of curiosities to life. Including contributions from Alan Moore, Lev Grossman, Mike Mignola, China MiÉville, Cherie Priest, Carrie Vaughn, Greg Broadmore, Naomi Novik, Garth Nix, Michael Moorcock , Holly Black, Jeffrey Ford, Ted Chiang, and many more.

44% off at B&N.

You can read an excerpt from the Grossman/Mignola collaboration here:



There's also a related contest:



"In celebration of The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities: Exhibits, Oddities, Images, and Stories from Top Authors and Artists, edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, one lucky winner will acquire a working model of the famous Mooney & Finch Somnotrope re-created by Steampunk Workshop founder Jake von Slatt and as described in the new collection! (Click here for a sneak peek at the book).
To enter, simply order the book or ebook from your favorite online retailer and enter your confirmation number on the next page."

Link roundup

1. Cool animated poster for The Hunger Games. Ten years from now (at most), this will be standard, right? I was just thinking the other day (as I run out of wall space) that it would make more sense to get a cool digital frame to cycle through posters.

2. In case you want to feel nauseous about the economy.

3. Great one-sentence description of a new book:

a sci-fi mix of Moby Dick and the classic movie Duel, in which an unknown, invincible, Kafkaesque alien ship has returned 300 years after breaking one galactic empire to now threaten the human Commonwealth, and the best and brightest minds that are sent in a invincible ship of their own to stop it, with the only problem being that those best and brightest are also some of the Commonwealth's most twisted sociopaths and if they win, the human empire may find itself in more danger than ever.

4. I haven't tried it yet, but a free adventure game following the same basic concept as the Thursday Next novels sounds great:

You’re Thalia James, a cop who patrols adventure games in search of trouble like characters rebelling against their set roles or stealing the precious objects us Outsiders need to solve important puzzles. The very first scene in the game involves an argument between characters originally cut from The Dig and a conspiracy to return it its earlier, darker Brian Moriarty design. Later, you visit everything from Space Quest X to bits of the cancelled Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans, first to train an impetuous new recruit, and then to take care of a bigger challenge involving the world of adventure games slowly turning into a rather more violent place than usual.

*Previously: Thomas Allen's new cover for The Eyre Affair.

Book review roundup (slight spoilers)

1. Provenance by Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo: Here's the official description:

Filled with extraordinary characters and told at breakneck speed, Provenance reads like a well-plotted thriller. But this is most certainly not fiction. It is the astonishing narrative of one of the most far-reaching and elaborate cons in the history of art forgery. Stretching from London to Paris to New York, investigative reporters Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo recount the tale of infamous con man and unforgettable villain John Drewe and his accomplice, the affable artist John Myatt. Together they exploited the archives of British art institutions to irrevocably legitimize the hundreds of pieces they forged, many of which are still considered genuine and hang in prominent museums and private collections today.

If you enjoy nonfiction, it doesn't get much better than this. (Although I think the authors were a bit too kind to some of the members of the conspiracy.) If 300 pages sounds like a little much, just enjoy the Wikipedia links I inserted above. But it's only $2 used at B&N, and well worth that price.

2. The Maze Runner by James Dasher: I give the writing and character development a D+, the plot a B, and the cover by Philip Straub a B+ (unusually good for a fantasy novel). The story is Ender's Game meets The Stand, which sounds promising, but I barely managed to force myself to skim the last 40 or so pages to find out what happened. Just read the Wikipedia entry for this one. $5 used at B&N.

3. This Is Not a Game by Walter Jon Williams: The first 140 pages are an excellent novella that imagines, "What if Jane McGonigal got stuck in Indonesia during a coup and had to rely on her ARG-loving fans to help her escape?" Unfortunately the next 300 pages are so horrendously cliched and predictable that I (incorrectly) thought the book must have been the author's first. $2 used at B&N, which is a good price for the 140 pages.

4. Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands by Michael Chabon: An intensely boring collection of his nonfiction essays. However, there were some fun factoids in the essay about Arthur Conan Doyle. For example:

At least one writer has suggested that Conan Doyle might have managed to kill a patient, through Charles Bovary-like ineptitude or more sinister motives; he did subsequently marry the dead man's sister, and took control of the income that she inherited from her brother.

And this is quite a sentence:

Detective Freud might well conclude that Conan Doyle never entirely recovered from the pain and humiliation first of watching his mother cuckold his demented father in his own house and then of being obliged to stand by as the old man was packed off to the Montrose Royal Lunatic Asylum, never to return.

I wish he'd simply written a novel called The Amazing Adventures of Arthur Conan Doyle. $2 used at B&N, but only for the Chabon completist.

Link roundup

1. From an interesting interview with Neil Gaiman:

The last time I was in China, I was very puzzled because none of my children’s picture books are in print in Mainland China. They’re in print in Hong Kong and in Taiwan, in complex Chinese characters, but they are not in print in Mainland China. I asked my producer, “Why aren’t any of my children’s picture books in print in Mainland China?,” and they said, “It’s because of their disrespect for authority.” I said, “Really?!” And they said, “Yeah, look at them. The Wolves in the Walls is about this little girl who tells her parents that there are wolves in the walls, but they do not believe her. There really are wolves in the walls, and thus her parents are proved wrong. And, in The Day I Swapped My Dad For Two Goldfish, these kids swap their dad. If that happened, society would crumble.”


So, suddenly, it became a goal of mine that was almost a little obsession to write a children’s picture book that would be published in Mainland China, that they could not help but publish, but still could have all of the things that are in my children’s picture books, and I did it. I wrote this book and it’s being painted right now by this wonderful artist, and it’s called Chu’s Day, and it is about a baby panda who sneezes. There is no way that anyone can resist a baby panda who sneezes. This is the single cutest book I’ve ever written. It is written for two-year-olds and is designed in such a way that I’ve tried it on kids and it actually works that when you get to the end, they just look at you and they say, “Read it again!” The only words on page one are, “When Chu sneezed, bad things happened.”

2. Shark.

3. IMDB on The Shining:

Because Danny Lloyd was so young and since it was his first acting job, Stanley Kubrick was highly protective of the child. During the shooting of the movie, Lloyd was under the impression that the film he was making was a drama, not a horror movie. He only realized the truth seven years later, when, aged 13, he was shown a heavily edited version of the film. He didn't see the uncut version of the film until he was 17 - eleven years after he'd made it.

Via.

Because of the Cats

Because of the Cats by Nicholas Freeling. It's real:

Chief Inspector Piet Van der Valk of the Amsterdam police has a teenage gang on his hands: they are coming into Amsterdam from out-of-town, and they are remarkably professional. They leave behind a trail of wanton damage, senseless brutality, and rape, and one piece of possible evidence- 'the cats won't like it'. ""Because of the Cats was an international best-seller-indeed its group-murder plot was reenacted in real life shortly after, in Latin America-and Van der Valk acquired a huge following.""

One copy with this cover at eBay. Via.