A.C. Wise

First, I would like to point you towards two recent pieces over at Strange Horizons: Nira and I by Shweta Narayan and The Spider in You by Sean E. Markey. (If you’re at all arachnophobic, and possibly even if you’re not, the second story is exceedingly creepy and itchy-making, but it’s still wonderful and definitely worth a read).

Second, a recommendation from Fantasy Magazine’s archives: The Small Door by Holly Phillips. I missed this when it was first published, but I’m glad caught it eventually. And hey, if you like it, and you subscribe to Locus, it’s nominated for a Locus Award, so go vote.

Third, speaking of awards, I continue to be awards-adjacent - Horror Library Vol. 3 made the final Stoker Ballot. Go, Horror Library!

Last, but not least, Bibliophile Stalker has a nice review of Cabinet des Fees #2, which can be found here.

In the process of house cleaning today I found a roll of ‘old skool’ film from right before I got my first digital camera that I apparently never had developed. So just in case you were wondering what turtles looked like in Hawaii six years ago, wonder no longer.

The Fix posted a very positive review of January’s Strange Horizons, including some kind words about Sisters of the Blessed Diving Order of Saint Peter and Saint Andrew.

storySouth’s Million Writers Award is now open for nominations. Self-nomination is allowed, so I did, cuz everyone else is doing it. Also, if there are going to be any cliffs, and the jumping off thereof, I’m totally up for that too.

Finally, go read this: On the Human Plan by Jay Lake. It’s quite good.

I’ll try to keep this short and relatively spoiler-free. I liked it; I thought it was well-acted, well-cast (despite early doubts), and I wasn’t bothered by the changes to the original story. The movie stayed true to the spirit of the original work, and did a good job of communicating the major points of backstory that were cut for length. I’m even okay with the changes to the end, which probably means I’m not a TrueFan (regardless of my devotion to Alan Moore and my firm belief that he can in fact fly and shoot fire out of his eyes).

My nitpicks are relatively minor and have to do with Zack Snyder’s directorial style. The hyper-violence worked much better for 300 than it did for Watchmen, in my opinion, and at times detracted from the gravity/power of certain scenes. Related to that - the way the action scenes were shot made all the characters look super-powered, when the true strength of the story rests on the fact that they are only human. All in all though, thoroughly enjoyable, highly recommended, and it sure looked purdy up on the big IMAX screen.

Besides books, another thing I frequently lust after is photography - prints, digital images, old, new - I love it all. I love taking pictures, and I wish I was better at it. I love looking at other people’s pictures, as you may have noted from some of the photoblogs linked on my sidebar. I love the “interestingness” function on flickr, where you can hit refresh over and and over again and get a random selection of gorgeous photos from various flickr users. I’m a photography junkie.

Being as such is the case, I was intrigued by this contest, being sponsored by Lenovo and Microsoft. I was further thrilled to see that Shreve Stockton, of the The Daily Coyote (whose photographs I also lust after) is one of the judges. So I decided to throw caution to the wind and enter, knowing I have no chance of winning. If, however, you are curious about the ideas I entered, and/or are foolish enough to want to vote for me, you can do so here and here.

Suitably, my ideas involve burial places and abandoned buildings.

Being A Round-Up of Randomness Under a Different Name

Michael Swanwick writes a short story on a Jarful of Keys.

Sad and beautiful: An abandoned book warehouse in England.

Kyle Cassidy takes beautiful photographs. Just in general. Seriously, spend some time poking around his site. He’s got some wonderful pictures of the Philadelphia Poe reading (linked from his journal) and a very cool series of pictures of fantasy and science fiction authors in their creative spaces at whereiwrite. Authors writing and/or surrounded by books - if it isn’t a fetish, it should be.

And some recommended reading top it off.

Dreams of Elephants and Ice by Mari Ness

Keepity Keep by Carole Lanham

Invasive Species by Janni Lee Simner

The Four Hundred Thousand by Livia Llewellyn

I’ve been inspired (thanks, Jeff!) to try posting an excerpt from a work in…let’s call it motion. I hesitate to call it a work in progress, because progress implies steady forward motion. This thing, which claims to be a novel, would be more accurately described as lurching violently in several directions at once (very few of them forward) in erratic fits and starts.

Since it seems highly unlikely that this beast will ever get finished, let alone see the light of day, it seems only fair that it should get at least one moment in the sun. So, without further ado, here is a thing. It has flies.

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