The Rogue's Gallery

rippatton

11:07PM - Self-Published Spec Fic Reviewers

I know it can be hard to find reviewers for self-published books. 

Here is a list I've compiled on my website of Blogs that review Spec Fic self-published books specifically.

Hope it helps all you wonderful indie writers.

stillsostrange

10:37PM - A wild reprint appears!

My story "Smoke & Mirrors," originally published in Strange Horizons in 2006, will be reprinted in Ekaterina Sedia's anthology Circus: Fantasy Under the Big Top. Since it was previously reprinted in Best New Romantic Fantasy 2, this means I finally have a most reprinted story. Woo!

"Smoke & Mirrors" is the child of my very first artist's challenge necklace from elisem, two different dreams, and the song "Hoist That Rag" played on repeat.

Also, that isn't Loki. And it makes me sad that I've ever had to say that.

The same circus in S&M also appears in "Catch." I hope to eventually get another couple of stories out of it. If I ever get more stories out of anything.

Current mood: cheerful

rippatton

7:10PM - Help a Woman Win a Gemmell

Just a few more days until the voting for the Gemmell Morningstar Awards closes and my friend and high fantasy writer Helen Lowe's "The Heir of Night" is in the final round of voting for the category Best Fantasy Newcomer.

Please make your vote before May 31st.

All you have to do to vote now is click Here

Then click again in the circle immediately above "The Heir of Night -- Helen Lowe"

By way of added incentive, no book by a woman has yet won in either the Legend or Morningstar categories. Your support could well make that a thing of the past.

kate_schaefer

5:55PM - Life Is Good

I'm having a terrific time at Wiscon this weekend. The highlight of the weekend, so far, was singing with a bunch of women last night. We mostly sang old British folk songs and silly camp songs, the kinds of songs you learned when you were twelve, if you were lucky, and continue to sing in the shower many many years later. The highlights of that highlight, for me, were singing "Rolling of the Stones" with Ellen Kushner, and hearing Rachel Holmen sing "The Five Constipated Men of the Bible." When I go home, I must get out some of those old folkie LPs and figure out whether and how to replace them.

Another highlight was piling into a car that was almost large enough for five people and going to Ichiban with Kate Yule, David Levine, and Vicki Rosenzweig. Despite its name, Ichiban is a Szechuan restaurant. Kate found the restaurant through application of her awesome superpower and Yelp fu. Our party's combination of foods to avoid meant that we ended up eating intensely flavorful but mild foods, the most interesting Szechuan eating experience I can remember ever having.

As usual, Wiscon is far too full of people I want to see, most of whom are also trying to see far too many people, and many o f whom are hanging out in places other than where I'm hanging out. As complaints go, this one does not rate high on the pain scale.

8:01PM - The Last Kickstarter Post

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2012/05/last-kickstarter-post.html

We're in the last four days of Amanda's Kickstarter.

Over the last almost-a-month of the Kickstarter she's gathered a huge amount of support, set records for what crowdfunding can do, made the news internationally,  and she is now planning a giant webcast block party in Brooklyn on Thursday night for the people who supported the project and to count down to 11:59 when the Kickstarter ends and she starts to play.

She's certainly got enough supporters, and she's already well exceeded her goal and is somewhere off into the land beyond her wildest dreams. (As I write this she's 900% funded, and looks on course to make this a million dollar Kickstarter.) But I still thought I'd stick something up here, in the last few days, because...

We put together the Evening With Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer Kickstarter last year, to raise the money to professionally record the West Coast tour we did in November. We raised a lot more money from the Kickstarter than we had expected, so we made everything we could even better than anyone had expected. The double CD we had planned to do became a beautiful triple CD package, for example, and then we did a special super secret bonus CD with a banana on it to go along with that - as well as over two additional hours of extra material we released digitally for all the supporters. We worked very hard to make sure that everyone who supported us got something better than they had thought they were getting when they signed up.

And when the stuff started showing up in people's mailboxes and they started posting happy photographs of their stuff (like these...)




...then people here and on Twitter and on Tumblr started sending me sad messages, telling me they wished they had supported the Kickstarter, they'd missed it as they hadn't seen it, or had forgotten, or were broke at the time -- but was it too late to get the stuff?  I wrote back a lot, and said yes, I was sorry but it was too late. We'd only made enough for the Kickstarter backers.

(We do plan to release An Evening With Neil and Amanda commercially, probably towards the end of the year. And it'll be a nice package, but it won't be what the Kickstarter folk got. That was special, and it was just for them.)

Amanda will be releasing a version of her new CD to the public in September. That's the one you'll be able to buy at your local store. But the two CD set inside a book (the blue thing on the right), or the quadruple vinyl in its box, or whatever else she decides to throw in to the other levels, the art-book she's making -- that stuff will only exist for Kickstarter.  If you want it, or any of the other rewards (down to the $1 reward that gets you the whole album digitally when it comes out, which I promise will be significantly cheaper than it'll be on iTunes) then this is really just a reminder that you only have four days to click on the Kickstarter link and support it...



...

Amanda did a post the other day on her blog and for backers, explaining that, no, a million dollar Kickstarter wasn't actually going to make her rich. People are signing up for things, she'll make the things and provide them, but she doesn't get to put a million dollars into a swimming pool and then throw it into the air, like Uncle Scrooge. It's not tax-free donations, it's people signing up for services.

So, to clarify:

The Kickstarter exists to fund a CD release (to the public, not Kickstarter supporters) and a tour (ditto).

The Kickstarter money funds the studio and promotional costs (just as a record label might have done). The business model isn't, Make Money From 20,000 people. It's Use 20,000 people to crowdfund the costs of manufacturing and distributing and promoting a CD and a tour to the General Public. And then get rich from that.

You'd think a band who took their video and studio and promotional budget from a record label and used it as income instead of as an investment in their future were being pretty shortsighted. That's the Kickstarter money: it's a video and promotional and design and manufacturing and touring budget. That's what it's for.


...

There. That's the very last post about Amanda's Kickstarter, unless I start blogging from a rooftop in Brooklyn when it's all over, as the NYPD haul Amanda and the Grand Theft Orchestra away. She says they have all the permits in place for a midnight rooftop gig, and they've even hired the police to block off a road and so on. I just think of the Beatles on the roof of the Apple building, and the legion of uniformed cops who appeared to make them stop...

cassiealexander

11:06AM - Wiscon, and more reviews and interviews and free books!

Originally published at Cassie Alexander. You can comment here or there.

I am having such a good time at Wiscon!

My final panel (of three) was this morning, and everything went very well, and I’m getting quality hang time with some of my favoritist people in the world :D. Plus, some people here (Na’amen, *cough*Na’amen) have even read Nightshifted already and said super positive things, and are telling other people about it completely of their own accord, which is awesome and amazing to watch. I guess books do, if you’re lucky, go on to have a life of their own? But it’s very odd — and wonderful! — to see it happening to your own book. Even in a small way. After all the solo writing I’ve done in the dark, it’s very strange to see my book out in the day ;).

I have some more people to shout out now too!

I don’t think I linked to Book Sake‘s review a few days ago, and I should! While she’s not over the moon about the vampires in Nightshifted, she feels the hospital stuff is spot on, which I’m am so happy to see. I think half of my book related anxiety is fear of other medical professionals finding holes in my stuff, or thinking that I stretched things too far, so it’s nice when other nurses (or nursing students) feel it passes muster :D.

And there are two Nightshifted giveaways running right now, if you want to try to win a copy for free –

My Bookish Ways did an interview with me and they’re giving away a copy of Nightshifted and a very cool syringe necklace for one lucky enter-er. :D

And the Nocturnal Library also interviewed me and they’re also giving away a copy of Nightshifted — this one I can ship internationally! (I’m also very fond of this interview because I answered the questions late at night, maybe a little more honestly than I should have, heh.)

I’m positive I’m missing stuff, and I already know I’m not caught up — it’s probably going to take me a good week or two to get all the links I need down and emails responded to, so sorry if I missed your review or I’m linking/responding too slowly. I still have page proofs on Moonshifted to do when I get back home, not to mention going back to work, so it’ll be a process — but I swear I’ll get there :D.

heyiya

11:38AM - Vid: Black Steel (Born in Flames; WisCon 36 premiere)

The WisCon vid party (wiscon_vidparty) was on Friday. I premiered this vid––from the 1983 film Born in Flames, which I encourage you all to see, but it should be quite watchable as a vid about the feminist revolution if you don't know the source.


Black Steel
Music: Black Steel by Tricky (original song by Public Enemy; vocals by Martina Topley-Bird)
Video: Born in Flames (dir. Lizzie Borden, 1983)
Edited by Lila Futuransky
Beta: cyborganize and metatxt. Thanks to were_duck and chaila
Content notes: Physical: Flickering images and rapid intercutting throughout. Content: institutional violence; brief depiction of sexual violence and dead body.

"The right to violence is like the right to pee. You've got to have the right place and the right time." Revolutionary becoming in a past speculative future: a transformative homage to Lizzie Borden's 1983 film Born in Flames.

( Download, lyrics and streaming links )

Posted at Dreamwidth. comments.

specficmarkets

(ninharris)

7:17PM - Call for Submissions: Issue Three of Demeter's Spicebox

Hullo all!

Submissions Guidelines for Issue Three of Cabinet des Fees's Demeter's Spicebox are now up!

We have chosen the Aarne-​​Thompson type 2031C, The Mouse Who Was To Marry The Sun for Issue Three, do refer to the guidelines for the additional prompts!


Reading Period: 5 APRIL 2012 onwards (until we get the perfect two stories for the next issue).

Do bear in mind that you will need to read the stories from Issue One and Issue Two, as this is a storytelling project and the prompts reflect this. DS runs in Volumes of four issues each, and each Volume will start with a fresh set of prompts.

If you have any questions or doubts, feel free to email us at demeterspice (gmail) in April!

Best,

Nin Harris

specficmarkets

(marycatelli)

10:39PM - Airships & Automatons

A steampunk anthology.

mindstalk

10:10PM - Humplings and dumplings

Friends had free whale watching tickets, so I went on a 3-4 hour cruise with them. Don't think I'd ever seen live whales before... maybe off the Frosh Camp boat to Catalina? Or on some geology field trip? Obviously didn't stick in my memory if I did. We went over an hour going out on a fast catamaran -- my GPS tracker said we were going 47 km/hour, which is pretty fast for a boat. Friend had tickets as compensation, for an earlier trip that had seen no whales. We saw whales. Ended up in the midst of a bunch of humpbacks and maybe minke. Star of the show was a humpback that kept breaching over and over. It'd be nice to think it was playing or showing off, less nice to think it might have been extra irritated by barnacles. We don't really know why the breach. But it's impressive. Did lots of fluke-showing dives, apparently not very deep dives since it kept coming up! Also saw a mother and calf. Some whale behind us kept waving its pectoral at us, slapping the water.

:usericon:

Bsoton: frigging hot. 30 miles out on the water: nice temperature. Really windy, though. Seasickness: none. But my legs got a workout from 'surfing', balancing on the top deck while not holding onto stuff. Mitchell compared it to an elliptical machine in 2D. Surprisingly tiring.

But that and wearing jeans and hauling a jacket around (I hadn't known how cold it'd be, I came prepared) didn't keep me from exploring Boston more once we got back. It may have been over a month since I was last in the city. Walked down the Greenway a bit, then found myself attracted to some giant shell-like entrance to what turned out to be Rowes Wharf Walkway. Not doing that well, a bunch of available office space. But looked nice, and to the south I found an unexpected bridge, which I took naturally, leading to the courthouse and a modest botanical garden, and signs about Fan Pier and the cleanup of Boston Harbor[1]. Further walking led me to the Westin Waterfront, turning my intrepid exploration into something that felt rather mundane. Unfair; not like I'd been in that particular area before, but I'd imagined I'd found a bigger area of novelty.

I'd meant to try out Vietnamese in Chinatown, but decided to look at the Hei La Moon dinner menu, and my legs said "stay". The dinner menu looks unexciting, though some of the food on tables looked more so. But even more exciting were trays of dim sum, so I asked, and yep there's a dim sum menu and they'll make it fresh for you.

:usericon:

The waiter was honest. "Just you? That's a lot of food." "I know. I'll just take the rest home." 15+ pieces got eaten, 9 made it home. I should have eaten less.


I'd grabbed Niven's Limits as a lightweight short story collection to read on the boat if needed. "Lion in the Attic" is pretty good, "A Teardrop Falls" (berserker story) is good, "Spirals" (manly men and women colonize space despite the downers of Earth) is ehhh. I probably liked it when younger, but now the misanthropy gets to me. Also the dubious economics. Not impossible economics; Zimbabwe basically did what he describes the US as doing. But still. I did note part of the problem was a tax revolt, and part of the solution was Americans paying their taxes again...

[1] When Ehrenhalt talked about Chicago's recovery in The Great Inversion, one factor mentioned was old effort to clean up Lake Michigan, or at least stop contributing to it. Chicago has a nice shoreline now, one rich people are willing to pay to see. And beaches are safe to swim off of; they might have been as a kid too, though the lake was surprisingly out-of-mind for being about 4 miles from it. By contrast, other Great Lakes are still industrial dumps, which probably doesn't help e.g. Buffalo or Detroit. So, I've moved to Boston, conveniently after considerable effort to clean *it* up, with proper water treatment plants rather than dumping stuff into the harbor...

See the DW comments at http://mindstalk.dreamwidth.org/323472.html#comments

stillsostrange

8:47PM - It isn't just one of your holiday games

Thank you to everyone who weighed in on the name change question. I'm afraid some of you will be disappointed, though. I can't let Varis and Vargas appear multiple times on the same page (much as I couldn't handle Kieran and Kiril), but there will not be any cute in-text reasons for this. (Okay, I say that now, but I may think of one later.) I just have to change it. The first reader who actually notices will get a cookie.

The true lesson to be learned from this is: there's no such thing as a throwaway name. At least if one is writing a series, anyway. One never knows when Random Character Bob will show up again, and when he does, you may regret naming him Bob.

In other news, Agent F just passed out while watching Animal Planet an hour before her bedtime. This is an unlooked for windfall of writing time, if I can manage not to pass out.

Current mood: tired

rippatton

10:11PM - Cover Design Interview with Kura Carpenter

Writers write books. And in this age of indie and self-publishing sometimes we design covers for them. Good covers. Bad covers. Covers that attract readers, or repel them. The truth is, not all writers are good cover designers or have the artistic, computer, or technological skill to pull off a good cover.

Sometimes we need to hire someone, but that can be expensive, and where and how does one find a good cover designer?

I am pleased to say, I recently "met" book cover designer Kura Carpenter through SpecFicNZ, the national speculative fiction writers organization I started in New Zealand while I lived there.

Kura is from Dunedin, New Zealand and has designed for authors all over the world, including a recent cover for Steam Press for the novel 'Tropic of Skorpeo' by author Michael Morrissey to be released later this year.

Kura kindly agreed to let me interview her about cover design, so here it is. I asked and she answered. All you have to do it enjoy!

Kura, how did you get into book cover design?

A couple of years ago my friend, Justin Elliot, asked me to create the cover for his YA Fantasy adventure, A Dark Future. I really enjoyed it, but I pretty much wrote it off as one-time opportunity. Then in 2011 I met Peter Jenks who was about to release a non-fiction guide as an ebook, and I increasingly became aware that ebooks were really taking off and that publishing was changing and I could design for anyone, anywhere.

What is your favorite book cover of all times?

I don’t have a single favorite cover, but I do have a favorite design era. I love the Art Nouveau & Arts and Crafts influenced covers of the late 1800s. Will Bradley’s cover for ‘In Russet and Silver’ published in 1894 is a good example.

What is the hardest genre to design a cover for? The easiest?

As I’m primarily a photo manipulator, I find the hardest is Historicals because sourcing photos of models in historically-accurate clothes can be challenging. I find the easiest are those with a strong emotional content, so for example romance and horror.  

What is your favorite kind of book to design a cover for?

I enjoy doing thrillers most because I like creating a graphic that will tell its own story, and thinking in terms of visual cues as to the tone of the book is great fun. I also enjoy doing sci-fi because I get a chance to flex my Photoshop muscles and create special effects >> Blue lightning, anyone?  

On average, how long does it take you to design a cover?

The length depends on the genre and the number of base photos required to build-up the graphic. A sci-fi/fantasy cover will usually be heavy on props and special effects and therefore they take longer. For example the fantasy cover I created for James E Thomas Reed Butler’s Story’ required ten images, whereas the non-fiction ‘Girls and Dating’ by PM Jenks only required one. But in terms of hours, I’d say on average 8 to 12 hours.

Authors are often surprised at how little say they have over their book cover with a traditional publisher. How hands-on is the process if they commission one with you?

That’s entirely up to the author. I personally like a collaborative effort, and so I encourage the author to have a lot of input. It’s important to me to understand the author’s taste and style, after all I’m creating a cover that needs to fit their individual brand.

Are there any big no-no's of cover design? (Things one should never do, ie- have a relative design your cover, use a certain font for the title, etc)

I think it’s very important to project the right tone, and I think people sometimes forget that fonts also have a tone. To demonstrate this I’ve created a simple graphic where I’ve reversed the normally associated conventions with two fonts.

And as long as your relative works in graphics, I don’t see the problem with getting their help. :p

Are there any key principles for cover design? (things you should always do-- ie- include genre clues on cover, always have cleavage- hehe)

I feel genre clues are extremely important, as they are all about setting a tone. Any adult having grown up as a book lover will have developed an unconscious but very sophisticated ability to interpret and value a cover design through visual cues and symbols. So for me, the key to good covers begins with understanding the market. What a particular audience wants and expects to see, and what those things mean. For example, imagine a man standing in a forest a night. What genre is that? Not enough info? Ok then, he wears a cloak and holds a lantern… Are you thinking Historical about now? But what if I add, the lantern is illuminated by captured Fairies…?

I saw a recent discussion on-line about the use of gender neutral covers for YA versus gender specific covers (covers that feature a guy protagonist, or, more often, a girl protagonist).  Books like Divergent, Legend, and Hunger Games had very gender neutral covers. What's your opinion on the roll gender plays in cover design and appeal?

To me this question precedes the design process, it’s really about how publishers calculate their sales. Any time a cover is gender specific the publisher is effectively risking losing 50% of the potential audience. I predict with the prevalence of ebooks, it will become common for YA books to have 2 covers, a solution which isn’t cost effective in traditional print publishing.

How do you balance author input with your own expertise? In other words, what do you do with a client who keeps insisting on bad cover design ideas?

I’ve never had a client like that, but I have wondered what I would do if I was in that situation. On one hand, I’m employed by the author, therefore I should deliver what they want. But on the other hand if I could see what they wanted would be detrimental to their sales, then I would have to say so. I simply couldn’t do something I felt would effectively ruin the purpose of the cover. Every product has a function to serve and fundamentally, Book Covers are adverts.

Can you talk about the components involved in back cover design? What does the author need to bring to the table? Book blurb, a one sentence hook, recommendations and review quotes from other authors, author bio? What about the author photo? Do you recommend one or not, and why?

The more an author can bring to the back, the better. A blurb is essential. A one sentence hook is great for catching the eye and generating intrigue. Recommendations and reviews make purchasing the book easier for someone browsing, because people like to go where others have gone before -- as in, it reduces the risk in their minds.   And as for photos, I think they’re a good idea. Readers are naturally curious and sharing a photo will help establish a personal connection with them. I feel a photo has a psychological value similar to a signing your real name to an important document. A value that says, this is the real me, and I stand behind this book.

Thanks Kura! Be sure to check out Kura's work and website HERE. 

quantumage

3:43PM - Dragons in Space!

Today, SpaceX’s Dragon capsule docked with the International Space Station.  A huge step towards commercial passenger flights into space and galactic Empire!  And of course, the company hired specialists to help them achieve their goal.

stillsostrange

5:35PM - A question for the crowd

I named a character once in The Bone Palace, an offhand reference that didn't warrant an entry in the dramatis personae but is still in print. Now I find myself needing to write more about that character and a) not liking his name much anymore, and b) finding it a bit too similar to someone else who shows up quite often. How many of you would be wildly irritated if I changed someone's name between books? (I doubt most people even remember that he was ever mentioned, but somewhere out there is the reader who will.)

Current mood: working

kate_schaefer

3:06PM - Cephalopods and ornithology

If you are at Wiscon this weekend, and if you are in the bar on the first floor, and if your bartender is named Zach, ask him about either cephalopods or ornithology. He will be informative and witty on either subject.

ellen_datlow

5:21PM - My schedule at Fantasticon in Copenhagen June 1-3rd

For anyone near Copenhagen next weekend I'm a Guest of Honor with Alistair Reynolds at the Danish annual convention Fantasticon. For anyone in the vicinity, here's a link to the website and my schedule: (I'm not sure what a few of the panels will entail but am assured I will be told :-) )

http://fantasticon.dk/fantasticon2012/

Friday 17:00-17:20, Kultursalen
Opening ceremony
Everybody

Friday 17:30-19:00, Cafeen
Videnskabcafeen: The dead, the undead and the vampire romance
Ellen Datlow, Stig W. Jørgensen, Steen Langstrup, Gert Balling (m)

Saturday 12:00-12:50, Kultursalen
Stories we haven’t seen: The good short story
Ellen Datlow, Knud Larn, Henrik Harksen, H.H. Løyche, Ralan Conley (m)

Saturday 2:00 p.m. to 2:50 p.m., Heerupsalen
interview Ellen Datlow
Ellen Datlow, Ahn Lars Pedersen (i)
Saturday 15:00-15:50, Kultursalen
Genres – Necessary distinction or annoying restriction?
Ellen Datlow, Alastair Reynolds, Anne-Marie Vedsø Olesen, Stig W. Jørgensen (m)

Saturday 20:15-??, Festsalen
The banquet

Sunday 13:00-13:50, Heerupsalen
The fairy tale in modern fiction
Ellen Datlow, Nicolas Barbano, Lars Ahn Pedersen (m)

Sunday 17:00-17:50, Heerupsalen
The last panel – final remarks before the convention (end the world?) ends.
Ellen Datlow, Alastair Reynolds, Klaus Æ. Mogensen (m)

bookelfe

10:32AM

I would like to make it clear that it is entirely izilen's fault that I faceplanted straight into Kaze Hikaru as soon as I finished classes.

Kaze Hikaru is a manga about a plucky crossdressing girl in nineteenth-century Japan! Whose family is all killed, so she does the logical thing: shaves off the top of her head and joins up with the troupe of warriors called the Shinsengumi so that she can seek her REVENGE.





( Cut for picspam! )

This entry is cross-posted at Livejournal from http://skygiants.dreamwidth.org/286868.html. Please feel free to comment here or there! There are currently comments on Dreamwidth.

stillsostrange

8:59AM - Sie ist der hellste Stern von allen

Þæt, as they say, wæs god concert. We had great seats, the pyrotechnics were gorgeous--and hot*--and the set list was very nice, even if I would rather have heard "Rosenrot" than "Bück Dich." We had to miss the last encore to get home to the babysitter--the opening whistle of "Engel" chased us into the parking lot, and I'm not sure what they played next. I got to see "Haifisch," though, which I love unreasonably.

They played "Ohne Dich" and it was quite nice, but I'm afraid Laibach did to that song what Johnny Cash did to "Hurt." They'll never top that cover.

That's another concert off my life list. Having seen Leonard Cohen and Concrete Blonde, and given up on Siouxsie or the Creatures, the list is getting short. It would be nice to see Laibach. The rest would need a time machine.



* Not unlike many members of the band.**

** But Till, honey, the reason you can't get laid in Germany is because German women understand your lyrics.

Current mood: tired

4:16AM - Quick Useful Sandman Slipcase post

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2012/05/quick-useful-sandman-slipcase-post.html

A hasty post...

There's a slipcased set of Sandman on the way. It's going to be published in November. I'm so happy. This is something that I have been asking DC to make for a very long time, and I am genuinely thrilled it's going to exist. It will look almost like this. (If you look carefully you'll notice that the final book in the box shown here is not The Wake. That's because that edition of SANDMAN: The Wake has not been published yet.)

(Here's the Amazon listing for it -- they've dropped it from $200 to $125. And I'm sure there are other such deals elsewhere on the web.)

DC are also going to be selling the Slipcase with some copies of The Wake. So if you have the rest of the  books already, you can simply put them into the slipcase.

According to Bleeding Cool, retailers have until this weekend to get their orders in for November to guarantee that they'll get them. So if you want one, either if you want a copy of The Wake with a Slipcase, or the set of all the books, you should talk to your Local Comic Shop now. (How do you find your local comic shop? You could always use http://www.comicshoplocator.com/)

(The current edition of paperbacks contains the same colouring as the Absolute editions, although, obviously not all the extra material in each of the Absolutes. If you already bought the Absolute Sandmans 1-4, feel proud of yourself. You are not required to buy the books again. You are never required to buy again what you already have.)

mindstalk

11:48PM - Kid's lit and post-apoc

So I keep hearing there's a huge trend to dystopian YA or other kid's books. Mostly recently in this thread. Either blow things up, so the kids can be protagonists without parents getting in the way, or make a fascist dystopia, so they can acceptably rebel against authority without ruffling the feathers of the moral gatekeepers.

Sometimes this sort of thing makes me come up with examples or counter-examples from my own life, which I've been advised can be annoying, but I can do whatever I want in my LJ, haha. Mind you, I didn't have a huge concept of children's books let alone YA as a kid, and was doing things like reading Mallory at 7 and Moby Dick at 8, but anyway, here's what I can remember, in order of my digging them out of memory:

( Mercy cut )

Side note: Wikipedia says of Alexander's Vesper Holly: "Vesper is young and wild; not at all the proper Victorian schoolgirl. Alexander describes her as having "the digestive talents of a goat and the mind of a chess master. She is familiar with half a dozen languages and can swear in all of them."[2]" I should go re-read it, especially since anima_mecanique liked it a lot as a kid. I remember jack-all.

See the DW comments at http://mindstalk.dreamwidth.org/323271.html#comments