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Thursday, May 31, 2007 The Thursday Threesome: Pimentos in Olives Onesome: Pimentos-- in Olives? Useless decorative effect? ...or something you maybe enjoy? ...and is there something you can only stare at and wonder about at the snack bar? I had to look up "pimentos". But in the end, I have no opinion on this. I don't like olives. Twosome: in Olives though? Who thought of that one? No, that's not your question; rather, what combo of things do you put together in the food arena that's been know to strike others as a bit strange? Can't think of anything, really. No one has told me that what I've been eating is strange. (This either means that my diet is conventional and boring or no one ever notices the composition of my food.) Threesome: Olives-- on fingertips (preferably black olives!). What food do you "play" with when you're feeling a bit silly? I'm not the type of person who plays with food. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 7:46 AM : Wednesday, May 30, 2007 Ambivalence To be honest, I've been tense and stressed the past three weeks. It wasn't because of the work load. Work load just makes me tired. No, my angst has pretty much stemmed from waiting for exam results. You know, the kind of exam results that can make or break a graduate career*. The previous year, more than half of the students taking this exam failed it. So understandably, I've been worried. Well, today my advisor informed me I did favorably on the exam. Actually, he heaped a lot of praises about my unofficial score, but they all went through one ear and out the other. I guess I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop. If it ever does. *Yes, it was the qualifying exam. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 9:25 PM : Tuesday, May 29, 2007 The Cynic I recently read someone gushing over how it's empowering to go to some group meeting where everyone "gets" what they're impassioned about. And I think: Well good for you. But no one will "get" me. Ever. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 9:29 PM : Bibliophobes and Pigeon-Holers Mo. man burns books as act of protest. (via Jessica Burkhart) Dang it, the book geek in me wants to cry. But the thing is, I mostly agree with the last quote. It's really sad when general obliviousness to literary poverty forces someone to use shock tactics to shove people out of complacency. Why it was right not to buy pink shoes for my son. Hm. A dilemma. Should a mother not buy her child certain things because other children might make fun of him? Children can be cruel, but is it also right to encase your child in a protective bubble so he can never be hurt? I guess in these modern times, parents are as conservative and gender traditionalist as ever. (Somewhat off topic: I'd mentally snicker if a woman was wearing pink, let alone a man. Let's just say I don't particularly fancy that color.) [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 7:39 AM : Monday, May 28, 2007 The Review Killers Gloom and Doom, review-style. Every so often, I come upon these posts on various book and writing blogs from authors moaning about bad reviews and readers vowing that they never take any reviews seriously. And on top of that, there's the declaration that anonymous reviewers are cowardly. So I guess in their view, I'm cowardly because I write under a pseudonym. But if people don't like reading reviews, whether they are positive or negative, what's the point in doing a review anyway? Do readers want their reading choices be spoon-fed to them by advertisements and promotions churned out by a well-oiled PR machine? Do authors only want to hear positive lip-service? When I write a review of a book, I write about my opinion. I don't pretend to speak for anyone else. And at any rate, I am merely one reader among hundreds, thousands, millions of other readers. I'm pretty sure most people stumbling upon any reviews on my little corner of the web are authors googling themselves or students trying to cheat on their book reports (too bad suckers, I don't do book analyses). But for the small percentage of people who are looking for someone who actually has read the book, perhaps an honest reaction from me might be an interesting diversion. I'm not seeking to influence anyone's book reading habits. So it's perplexing that someone can get so riled up about an opinion and then spread their annoyance to every other opinion. While people have the freedom to not read reviews, I have the freedom to express my opinion on whether or not I liked a book. I'm not going to pander to anyone by deliberately writing glowing drivel or disgruntled snark. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 9:10 PM : Thursday, May 24, 2007 The Thursday Threesome: Somewhere, beyond the Sea... Onesome: Somewhere--, anywhere? Vacation season is just ahead (sooner than later for some depending on school schedules); do you have any plans mapped out yet? I'm not taking any vacations. Twosome: beyond this week? How far ahead do you plan for your days off? ...or do they just show up and you enjoy whatever happens? It depends. But I enjoy not planning. Threesome: the Sea-- Does that sound like the trip for you? Somewhere beyond the sea to an island for a week or two or twenty? Did you steal my screenplay idea for Script Frenzy? [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 7:31 AM : Wednesday, May 23, 2007 Science-y Goodness Go read Tangled Bank #80 over at The Geek Counterpoint. Lots of interesting linkage. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 7:59 AM : Monday, May 21, 2007 A Piece of Rare Commentary on Local News I should probably say something about the recent shootings in Moscow. On the heels of a student murder less than two months ago, everything just seems a little surreal. As if this little, rather bucolic town had been plopped straight into some sort of Hollywood horror movie. Earlier that day (a gorgeous Saturday), I had gone downtown to do some errands--and I saw a huge gaggle of children out on a field trip with their adult guardians. At the time, I certainly didn't think that that evening, someone would start raining bullets at that very spot. Another student mused if this would scare parents--that they would start pulling their kids from attending the coming year. I don't know. I wouldn't fault a non-resident from thinking that perhaps this place is a hotbed for homicidal maniacs. Violence scares people. But is it really different from any other place? Bad things happen everywhere. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 6:15 PM : Sunday, May 20, 2007 The Hyde of Humanity After seeing Naqoyqatsi yesterday, I read this essay by Joss Whedon today where he rants about the violence and exploitation of women--part of it due to twisted uses of technology. I think it's very easy to fall into this depressive rut of believing that science and technology will drag us into an apocalyptic future where only the trivial and the destructive hold sway. But there is nothing inherently evil or good about technology--it only has duality because we are the ones wielding it. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 9:58 AM : Saturday, May 19, 2007 Is It Just Me? I was flipping through a book of photographs called The Faces of Fantasy  at one of the local used bookstores this morning, and one thing struck me. The title is entirely deceptive. Most of the people photographed in the volume are old white people. Surely the fantasy genre isn't this monolithic?Addendum: To clarify, the people who weren't old and white were young and white. Relatively speaking anyway--if you consider someone like Neil Gaiman young. Gaiman is old enough to have kids around my age. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 1:17 PM : Thursday, May 17, 2007 And Madame Butterfly Too Depression, Suicide, and Asian American Women. I've mused about this occasionally and have always come to the (rather unsatisfactory) conclusion that it's the pressure to perform and conform. They may be major reasons but they're not the only reasons. And sometimes, when I'm feeling rather perverse, I think other Asian women are just nuts--I've been in black moods before, but it's never been so bad that I ever think about ending it all. Compared to them, I'm as laid back as a lazy cat. But then I know that's unfair--because I have some sort of coping mechanism doesn't mean that others do. Looking back on my interactions with other Asian girls, I think there is definitely something wrong about how the way society treats Asian American females. When I was in high school, I had a half-Korean friend who seemed to be in constant emotional agony and resentment because her Korean mother was putting more pressure on her to do well academically than her brother. While I was at Caltech, an Asian female chemistry grad student committed suicide by ingesting arsenic. Around the same time, I blogged about an MIT student who committed suicide by setting herself on fire. And when I was at Dartmouth, I had a housemate (female and Asian, of course) whose depression got so bad at one point that my other housemates and I had to stage an intervention. Although society (and the Asian American community's expectations) consistently push the idea that failure is not an option, I'm at the point in my life where I can say, it's okay to be a failure at something. I've had people tell me that certain options were closed to me, but in reality, there is always opportunity. If someone trips me up, I'm going to try my damndest to get back up again. And sometimes, I just wonder if society has the morbidly romantic expectation of depressed Asian women committing suicide. The arts certainly doesn't do anything about dispelling it. It just makes me furious when those naysayers win by pushing someone towards oblivion. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 8:36 AM : The Thursday Threesome: "Alien versus Predator" Onesome: Alien-- movies and paranormal horror stuff: your cup of tea? ...or did Mary Poppins just about take you to the limits on films. I don't like gore in horror so I don't watch horror films very often. The only horror I'm usually into is the fictional short story kind. Twosome: versus-- ...related to some of last week's answers: Do you ever go to the movies versus staying at home and waiting to rent them or see them on the tube? It depends on the movie. If it's one I'm really excited about, I might go to the movie theater. If it's borderline, I usually wait until it comes out on DVD. Of course at the moment, both options are moot because I'm not interested in any movies right now. Threesome: Predator-- pricing at the theatres: how are the prices locally for you? Can you afford an evening show and popcorn? ...or is it a matinee with a bottle of water smuggled in? I have no idea. The last time I saw a movie in the theater was Casino Royale, and that was many states away. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 6:46 AM : Tuesday, May 15, 2007 Those Course Evaluations, Again Since the last time I got evaluated by surly undergrads, I've come to the conclusion that course evaluations are a bunch of bull anyway. One can sort of predict what sort of evaluations to get by the demeanor of the students--if they actually ask for help and participate, then their attitude towards the class is probably going to be better. As for the students who lounge around and do nothing and still expect an A... Well, let's just say I got a particularly long and angry evaluation in direct contrast with all my other evaluations. I get the feeling that this student is not only ranting about me but the university system in general. But hey, if you've registered for a class with a kazillion students, having at least one TA around is pretty much a given. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 7:29 AM : Monday, May 14, 2007 Where Be All The Tribbles? LOLTrek. (via Word Salad II) Maybe you have seen this already, but this is all sorts of awesomeness. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 7:11 AM : Sunday, May 13, 2007 Two Links Tales of the Plush Cthulhu. (via MonkeyFilter) Stuff toy carnage, Lovecraftian-style. Perturbed on Pern. (via Kate Elliott) A feminist smackdown of McCaffrey's Pern novels. To be honest, when I read them in my early teens, I just thought the idea that bonding to a dragon was cool. I was dense to everything else going on in those books. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:16 PM : Saturday, May 12, 2007 Reviews in Brief Bah. If I put these off any longer, I'd have a kazillion books needing to be reviewed. So here are my brief opinions. If you want summaries, go to Amazon. Chrysalis: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of Metamorphosis by Kim Todd. Although there isn't too much known about Merian, naturalist and artist of the late 1600s, Todd does a good job at filling in the spaces. The biographer doesn't merely focus on Merian's life (interesting that she escaped her husband by going into a religious commune--divorce was not the thing to do back then--even though there was evidence that Merian wasn't that religious). There's also the context of the times to consider: the concept of metamorphosis--which had intrigued Merian her entire life--was closely tied to debunking some of the scientific theories of the day like preformation and spontaneous generation. Too bad the stuffy (ahem, male) scientists after her derided her for being commercialist (well, she had to sell off some of her scientific specimens to get food on the table) and fanciful (actually, a lot of her sketchbooks were "modified" by future artists who thought the new pictures would sell better). Really interesting reading on both scientific and feminist standpoints--highly recommended.Mountains So Sublime by Terry Abraham. It's a postcard sized book filled with old photographs, paintings, and drawings as well as excerpts of letters from 19th century British travelers to the Rockies. The thing I liked the best about this little book are the travelers' descriptions--lush, vivid, a language lover's dream. I didn't pay very much attention to Abraham's analysis (there is such thing as too much analysis) but he did have one important point. These British travelers were still steeped into the class system, and they viewed the "equal" American like British lower middle class. Through this lens their opinion, that Americans were crass in their industrial drive and myopic to the land around them, was much less out of any environmentalist attitude but more their own bias that certain people were better than others.Night Life by Elizabeth Guest. Vampires in Vegas. This plotline has been done before, so ho-hum, right? Well, not exactly. Guest has managed to weave in vampire and Egyptian mythology to make a fresh concept. Unfortunately, this book suffered from an almost completely random side character cameo, a last minute villain, and an abrupt ending. I wonder if the author was forced to cut down on some stuff...100 Words To Make You Sound Smart edited by Susan Spitz et al. I'm not sure this even qualifies as a book. It's more like a word list. A word list that brings to mind 11th grade vocabulary tests. They say these words will make you sound smart and not pretentious. I don't think so. There were some words which I have a special fondness for (byzantine, scintillating) yet others that would make most speakers sound like they're trying too hard (spartan, sycophant, philistine, narcissist). And then there are the words which I hope some people never learn (boondoggle) because like schadenfreude and kerfuffle it could be thrown into public overuse and misuse. My advice: use this for SAT prep, not for everyday conversation.The River Knows by Amanda Quick. There was enough (perhaps heavy-handed) foreshadowing that anyone could tell who the bad guys were in this Victorian romantic suspense, but that didn't stop me from reading it. The major problem I had with this novel is that I felt this sense of detachment between the main characters and the mystery they were trying to solve. Maybe it was because the psychological angst each of them were dealing with seemed a bit over the top. Or maybe it's just Quick's sly way of saying that the Victorians were an overwrought bunch. Anyways, the dialogue had me chuckling because the author was obviously making fun of genre assumptions and conventions.The Demon You Know by Christine Warren. After the first two books of the series (She's No Faerie Princess and Wolf at the Door) I was expecting another fun read. But, no. I found the heroine to be really, really, really annoying. I think it was this whole Catholic guilt thing she had going on. I mean, come on. Do all Catholics have this guilt complex? And the ending--a little too convenient.Enslave Me Sweetly by Gena Showalter. You'd think that with aliens and secret agents, you'd have something resembling the X-files, but this is more like a thriller starring characters with strange skin colors. It was okay for about two-thirds of the way through the book--I can sort of buy into the scenario that two agents are trying to break up a sex slavery ring while (futilely) fighting their attraction for each other--but then it gets weird. For some reason, it put me into mind of Piers Anthony without the puns (which still isn't necessarily a good thing). Jarring, to say the least.[posted by S. Y. Affolee on 12:09 PM : Friday, May 11, 2007 More Bookish Random pet peeve for the day: Excessive use of exclamation points give me eyestrain. If you use too many exclamation points, I will not take you seriously. This triply goes to any punctuation offenders who are over the age of twelve. Solidity and the Hugos. (via Naomi Novik) The Bookslut rants about how most of the nominees for the Hugo awards are males. And compares females to plants. Um. I think the metaphor is a little over-the-top. Besides, women these days aren't passive and rooted to the spot. (I'd like to think I'd be some sort of fungus. Very Lovecraftian and insidious, heh.) Oh what I wouldn't give to lounge around the house in my underwear all day! (via the snarkalicious Dionne Galace) I'd go mad if I sat around and did nothing all day, but that's just me. The really interesting thing about this post is the dichotomy, the idea of the either/or situation. Either you get a job and be a so-called productive member of society or be an artist. It's reinforced by a certain attitude in academia (with the exception of beer and skiing, of course!) which demands that you be married to your work. Can't I do both? Sure, I'd have to be a Jekyll and Hyde about it, but at least I'd be able to do two (abet seemingly completely different) things that I love. Driver Obeys Directions, Gets Car Hit by Train. Maybe this is a foreshadowing. The robot overlords will soon have us right where they want us. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 6:05 PM : Thursday, May 10, 2007 Pay No Attention to the Website Updates So I got around to fixing the archive page so that links to the last four months of stuff (i.e. my blatherings) are now available. Updated the bookrolling page although I still haven't finished the reviews yet. Soon, I hope. And last, but not least, the list of short stories page. I finally got the opportunity to create a "bibliography" section, added a story to the ones currently making the rounds, and two to WIP. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 11:18 PM : Bookish Cauldron Bubble, Add Leeks and Celery: 100% Guaranteed Ways to Create an Amazing Fantasy Novel That People Will Totally Read. (via The Flamboyant Cuttlefish) Well, fantasy adventure has always been a staple of speculative fiction so that was no surprise, but urban fantasy has definitely been on the rise lately. The article points out many of the cliches of the genre that writers (wannabe or otherwise) should take note. For more about fantasy cliches, I'd recommend getting a copy of The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynne Jones (I'm in the middle of that right now). Unshelved. A librarian comic! Really, it's funnier than it sounds. From the Paperback Writer, I find out that most of the book buyers are Baby Boomer women who think they can write a book themselves. So I went digging around to see where those stats came from--turns out over eight years ago from Publishers Weekly. I wonder if those stats are still relevant today. But I did come across this huge page of book publishing stats. Something interesting about book covers: On the average, a book store browser spends eight seconds looking at the front cover and 15 seconds looking at the back cover. Sales Reps show covers or jackets and give a sales pitch that averages 14 seconds. The Older-and-Wiser Hypothesis. (via 3quarksdaily) What is wisdom anyway? Psychology researchers seem to think it's a combination of generosity, social savviness, and emotional maturity. Well, no wonder wisdom seems to get the short shrift these days. The Thursday Threesome: Super Mario Brothers Onesome: Super-- heroes and comic book characters? Have you seen "Spiderman 3" yet? Will you? No and probably not. If a movie doesn't perk any sort of interest the first time I hear about it, there's little chance that I will watch it. However, I did see the first Spiderman movie--I even did the whole "stand in line with costumed fans to get tickets" deal. But these days, I'm just disinterested in movies in general. Now travel shows on the other hand... Twosome: Mario-- Brothers led one gaming revolution: are you a gamer? Online? ...or is this one of those things you just don't even notice? No, I'm not a gamer. I don't play any kind of games that often anyway. Yes, I know I sound very boring. But every so often, I do fire up the random interactive fiction game. Then again, I spend the same amount of time fantasizing about writing one of those games--if only I knew someone with the programming expertise to wrangle with the code for me. Threesome: "Brothers-- in Arms"? Just listening to some old Dire Straits this evening: how about something new on your music radar you can share with the gang! I've been listening to the soundtrack to The Illusionist because the score was written by Philip Glass. But don't ask me about the movie. I have no idea what it's about. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:02 PM : Wednesday, May 09, 2007 Tangled Bank #79 Go read the latest edition of Tangled Bank over at Epigenetic News. Mmm. Science-y goodness. (Or maybe I'm just hungry. Haven't had lunch yet.) [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 12:07 PM : Tuesday, May 08, 2007 Really Random Rhetorical Rambling I get the impression that many fiction writers are lawyers, used to be lawyers, or have done something in law at some point in their lives. So are lawyers wannabe writers? Hm...would the world be a better place if we had less lawyers and more writers? [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 11:29 AM : Monday, May 07, 2007 Sigh Stupid Shirts. I can't believe apparel companies just slap things on t-shirts and hope nobody notices. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 7:22 PM : Saturday, May 05, 2007 A New Challenge? Script Frenzy, brought to you by the folks who created National Novel Writing Month. This time, the goal is to write a 20,000 word screenplay or stage play in the month of June. I'm not too hot about writing scripts, but just out of curiosity, I logged on with my Nano account--and it worked! I guess I'll try it out--I'll just look at it as a big exercise in dialogue rather than something I might try to pitch to some big studio executive (who won't care anyway). And if I decide to post anything further about this, it'll be over at Writing Sya. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:56 PM : Friday, May 04, 2007 One Of These Things Is Not The Same Hey, Tits-For-Brains! (via F-Words) No. Just, no. Bookbiz Linkage. The 2Blowhards have some interesting links to various articles discussing the different reading preferences of males and females. Here's an interesting quote from the Guardian article: "What I find extraordinary is the hold the male cultural establishment has over book prizes like the Booker, for instance, and in deciding what is the best. This is completely at odds with their lack of interest in fiction. On the other hand, the Orange prize for fiction [which honours women authors] is still regarded as ephemeral." But then again, I don't know. The only book I've read on the women's list is To Kill A Mockingbird, but that one's also on the men's list. I sometimes read romances, which a lot of people consider trashy women's fiction, but I don't have any inclination to read what romance fans consider classic, like Pride and Prejudice. I didn't like Wuthering Heights, and when I tried Georgette Heyer, I put the book down after the first chapter because I had the strong urge to stab my eye with a fork. On the men's list, I'd definitely recommend Heart of Darkness and The Grapes of Wrath. So what does this say about me? Am I brainwashed by the patriarchal establishment? Or am I just contrary? Also via the 2Blowhards: Do girly names obstruct scientific progress? Apparently not is the general consensus due to small sample size in an economist's (!) study. This reminded me of yesterday when I had to talk to an administrative assistant to reserve a conference room and she totally gushed when she heard my name (Oh! It's so pretty!). I wanted to roll my eyes and tear my hair out. I hear this reaction all the time. If only my parents had named me Tim as they had originally planned.... The Steampunk Forum. (via who else, The Steampunk Librarian) Oh man, do you know how much time you could waste in here? Or maybe that's just me. Yes, I'm a sad, sad uber-geek. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 9:07 PM : Thursday, May 03, 2007 Memes The Thursday Threesome: Innate Organizational Skills Onesome: Innate-- talents? Do you have any you're willing to share? Maybe perfect pitch? ...or the ability to tie a cherry stem into a knot with your tongue? How about a "sense of direction"? Surely you can toss something out to the gang to to wonder about... None that I can think of. I know, I'm boring. Twosome: Organizational-- style? "A place for everything and everything in its place"? ...or maybe, "the bills are somewhere in that stack" and the calendar still says "2006"? What's your system? Things are sort of organized. Threesome: Skills-- How are you about power tools? ...and tools in general? Are you a user or do you call someone to assist? I can use a screwdriver and a hammer. The usual household things. Power tools--no. A Book Meme (via The Book Lover) Science Fiction, Fantasy or Horror? I like all three. Hardback or Trade Paperback or Mass Market Paperback? Does it matter? As long as I get my hands on a book, it doesn't matter what format it's in. Amazon or Brick and Mortar? Big clue: I'm paranoid about online transactions. Barnes & Noble or Borders? Damn. There are no Barnes & Noble nearby. Hitchhiker or Discworld? I've read both. But the humor gets sort of old after a while. Bookmark or Dogear? Bookmark (although these days the "bookmark" is usually a piece of scrap paper or a receipt since I don't have an actual bookmark in my possession). Dogearring is sacrilege. Asimov’s Science Fiction or Fantasy & Science Fiction? I subscribed to Asimov's for a couple of years when I was a teenager. Good stuff. Alphabetize by author, Alphabetize by title, or random? I try alphabetizing by author, but right now, my bookshelves are a mess. Keep, Throw Away or Sell? Mostly keep. Sometimes sell. Or donating. Throwing a book away is an even bigger sacrilege than dogearring. Keep dust-jacket or toss it? Keep. Read with dustjacket or remove it? I read with the dustjacket. I'm rather careful with books in general and do not try to make too much wear and tear. Remember, no dogearring. No creasing the spine. No flinging it about as if it were a sack full of rubbish. And definitely no reading in the bathroom. Short story or novel? I like both forms of fiction. Stop reading when tired or at chapter breaks? When I need to stop reading, I just stop reading. I don't just stop at chapter breaks. "It was a dark and stormy night" or "Once upon a time?" Depends on my mood. Buy or Borrow? Most books, I borrow. But if there's a book that I want to add to my collection, I buy it (although I'd troll the used book stores first). Buying choice: Book Reviews, Recommendation or Browse? Ninety percent of the time, I browse. Sometimes I take a recommendation. Book reviews rarely sway me to buy a book (maybe borrow it). Lewis or Tolkien? About the same, I think. Collection (short stories by the same author) or Anthology (short stories by different authors)? The answer should be obvious since I made a fan site for YBFH. Tidy ending or Cliffhanger? Both would get me rather annoyed, although the latter more so than the former. Morning reading, Afternoon reading or Nighttime reading? Any time is good to me. Standalone or Series? I don't have the attention span or patience for series. New or used? Used, if possible. Favorite book of which nobody else has heard? My default answer for favorite book is The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley. (Aside: Do you know McKinley will have a new book out later this year? Cue major fangirl squeeing.) But I think everyone's heard of that book before. When I went to get McKinley's last novel, Sunshine, the ditzy bookstore clerk was gushing over it--well, actually her favorite novel was Beauty--so I don't think it's such a cult classic anymore. So how about The Poison Master (despite its title, it is science fiction) by Liz Williams? I think the fact that I actually went through the trouble of looking for a copy online, even though I don't even like shopping online, after reading a library copy says a good deal about my opinion for it. Top 5 favorite genre books of all time? Hm. I think it would be easier to just pick a top one from each genre. The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley - fantasy - Yes, a kick-butt heroine did make an impression on a young girl. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco - mystery - The detail, the intellectual puzzles, the tinge of horror, what's not to love? The Tomb and Other Tales by H.P. Lovecraft - horror - My first introduction to the master of overwrought terror. Neuromancer by William Gibson - science fiction - I'm not sure I'd say this is a favorite, but it sure makes one think. I actually prefer short stories in this genre rather than novels. Mischief by Amanda Quick - romance - The first book of this genre I've ever read. It's a little silly in retrospect, but still, I did like it. Favorite genre series? Didn't I say that I didn't like series? Currently Reading? See my bookrolling list. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 7:48 AM : Wednesday, May 02, 2007 Stab Me in the Eyeballs Recently, I've seen a lot of people using the word "loose" for "lose". Arg! I'm not a grammar fanatic, but there's only so much of one mistake I can take. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 7:43 PM : |
