Schrodinger’s Book Review

book reviews, writing/blogging/publishing related, , ,

The Schrodinger’s Telephone book review is definitely alive, and not dead. You can read it on Big Al’s Books and Pals. For those of you who don’t remember, Big Al’s is a book review site that  went viral a couple of years ago when someone went ballistic over a negative review, and this led to lolz for all.

But Big Al has always been very, very good to me. So go read the review,  and then go buy Schrodinger’s Telephone for less than a buck, or that other one for a little more. It would be great if you could like Schrodinger’s Telephone on Amazon, which will take all of a second, and if so inclined reviews — good, bad, indifferent are always appreciated. Did you know an Amazon customer review could be as short as 20 words?

Don’t read e-books?  Schrodinger’s is a novella, you can devour quickly. It won’t strain your eyes to read it on whatever device you have.

Branding I’m Doing It Wrong

Politics and Culture, writing/blogging/publishing related, ,

Despite the widget above featuring three of my books, and the link on the side to my Amazon author page, etc. etc., most people stopping by this blog have no idea whatsoever that I write fiction. Nor do they care.

I get it. I know why you’re here. (I check my analytics almost as much as I check my book stats.)

Continue reading Branding I’m Doing It Wrong →

Your Saturday Book Review: The Chrysalids or Rebirth (US title)

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Title: Rebirth (US) or The Chrysalids (UK)
Format Availability: ALL
Genre: Science Fiction

Joy is rediscovering a book you read in childhood, and still loving it.

I first read Rebirth when I was a child and probably didn’t get most of the references. I understood the future post-apocalypse part, having already absorbed Twilight Zone reruns and the Outer Limits. Horror movies had made me aware that nuclear attacks could lead to mutations, long before I learned it any science class. I don’t know if I would have made any analogies between the fundamentalists in the story and real life fundies as I wasn’t exposed to a lot of ultra-religious types.

Because the protagonists are young, this is a tale that would probably today be considered “young adult” although it’s a story anyone can enjoy, and everyone should read. I wonder if teenagers today, reared on The Hunger Games would like it. They might. The young people in Rebirth are also being in endangered by their society. They aren’t wizards, but like Harry Potter and his friends, they aren’t exactly muggles either. Continue reading Your Saturday Book Review: The Chrysalids or Rebirth (US title) →

Justice Scalia Sees Voting Rights Act as “Racial Entitlement”

Politics and Culture, Things that Piss Me off from The NY Times, , , , , ,

New York Times, February 27, 2013

Voting Rights Law Draws Skepticism From Justices By Adam Liptak
WASHINGTON — A central provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 may be in peril, judging from tough questioning on Wednesday from the Supreme Court’s more conservative members.
If the court overturns the provision, nine states, mostly in the South, would become free to change voting procedures without first getting permission from federal officials…
…Justice Antonin Scalia said the law, once a civil rights landmark, now amounted to a “perpetuation of racial entitlement.”
_________________________________________________________________

(with apologies to Calvin Trillin and Dorothy Parker)

If MLK were still in the fight,
no doubt he’d know it isn’t right,
to give the blahs advantage.

He’d proudly see it just and true,
to back Scalia and his crew.
For they like him believe
in equal rights for ALL.

Unlike those nasty Democrats,
they’re crazier than rabid bats!
Every one a panderer,
and also, too, you know it’s true,
we’ve ALWAYS been at war with Oceania.

Smash Season Two — Too boring to hate-watch.

Kay Gardella Memorial TV Review Blog, , ,

The days of hate-watching are over. First season Smash may have been dumb, but it was, at least occasionally, interesting.

It’s not that I don’t hate the new season. I do, but it’s no longer entertaining, and whereas before I could sort of tune-out the stupid, or groan through it until they went into some Broadway-like musical number, I can no longer even do that.

To begin with they’ve made Grace Julia super annoying. Granted she was no picnic last year either. Good that they jettisoned her husband and son though I didn’t mind Shrek so much. The forty-year old boy who still lived at home with them was awful. If they’d just cast someone who looked sixteen, and acted sixteen, maybe viewers wouldn’t have gotten so pissed off about it. The homelife versus crazy-world-of-theater could have worked. A realistic look at the pressures of being the playwright’s spouse could have been interesting. In fact, All About Eve was told from the spouse’s outsider point-of-view.  Frank as narrator, or even telling the story from multiple characters’ points of view would have, at least, been different.

Continue reading Smash Season Two — Too boring to hate-watch. →