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posted by [personal profile] kgbooklog at 07:47pm on 21/02/2009 under ,
(via Andrew Wheeler)

Apparently the BBC reckons most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here.
100 books )
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posted by [personal profile] kgbooklog at 07:20pm on 19/09/2008 under
Grab the nearest book. Find the 5th sentence on page 23. Append it to the paragraph below. Append your name to the list below of people who have contributed to the paragraph. Post the result to your LJ.


They also talk of our being guilty of injustice, and their being the victims of an unjustifiable war. Brandy, and Tom got increasingly close-mouthed and sour. Although a certain sense of tripartite society survived down to Christian times, the three classes described in the Eddic poem "Rigdthula" bear little resemblance to Dumezil's three. It is often argued, and still oftener thought, that none but bad men would desire to weaken these salutary beliefs; and there can be nothing wrong,it is thought, in restraining bad men, and prohibiting what only such men would wish to practice. At its nearest point the wall was little more than one league from the City, and that was south-eastward. When he saw Jack Hare jump towards the fire, and the Practical Man brandishing the toasting-fork, Sir Isaac grabbed the strings of gravitational force that bound Jack to his destiny and PULLED--- That's a seventy-four gun privateer, besides. To honour a group of British nobles, treacherously slain at a conference by Hengist's guards, Aurelius decides to erect a great monument near Amesbury. That being so, he did not chortle when he went upstairs. Let stand. This ensures that when the garbage collector runs, it has complete access to the memory in the heap and can perform its tasks safely without the threat of being preempted by another thread. And then you may begin to laugh. The data are stored in Column 1 and renamed "Age." Pull your hand back. I don't remember that any secrets were revealed to me, nor do I remember any avid curiosity on my part to learn something I wasn't supposed to--perhaps I was too young to know what to listen for. You don't remember how awful it is being normal. Highlight the desired state tax table and press Enter. Abraham had now reached a ripe old age, and the LORD had blessed him in every way. This doesn't alter either string, any more than 2+3 alters either 2 or 3. But then, Lukys would have had quite a bit to say about this entire disastrous escapade if he'd known about it.


1) Ranger Rick - 2) Rialian - 3) Elenbarathi - 4) Starsandfishes - 5) Echthros - 6) Doltaghey - 7) Ebonhost - 8) Tibicina 9) Browngirl 10) ceo 11) roozle 12) quietann 13) Dale (achinhibitor) 14) tigerbright 15) autographedcat 16) kitanzi xvii) annonyno חי)thnidu - 19) kgbooklog
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posted by [personal profile] kgbooklog at 05:07pm on 01/07/2008 under
(via [livejournal.com profile] le_trombone)
The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed.
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Strike out the books you have no intention of ever reading, or were forced to read at school and hated.
5) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them

100 books )
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posted by [personal profile] kgbooklog at 08:55pm on 24/06/2008 under
British magazine SFX did a survey of their reader's favorite SF authors, and several bloggers have been commenting on it (I heard of it from Andrew Wheeler). I'm not going to comment (there are a couple names I've never heard of), just italicize ones I've read, and bold ones I recommend (half-formatting means I only read/rec one work of theirs).
Names, names, names... )
Is urban fantasy not popular in the UK? Or is it only popular if written by a man? Rowling is the only female author of UF on this list, and yet they've included every male writer I can think of except Steven Brust and Stephan Zielinski.
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posted by [personal profile] kgbooklog at 08:27pm on 09/04/2008 under
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posted by [personal profile] kgbooklog at 09:58pm on 12/03/2008 under
I first heard of the WCCAs last year, and wondered then (and now) why some comics kept showing up over and over in many different categories. I think Girl Genius is the greatest webcomic ever, but should it be shortlisted for 7 categories? Shouldn't other comics have a chance too? With 20,000 eligible webcomics, shouldn't we be able to find more than three to nominate for Best Dramatic Comic? So I decided to count how many times each comic was nominated each year, quickly realized that GG didn't dominate this year's awards: Gunnerkrigg Court had 8 nominations, and Phoenix Requiem (a comic begun half a year ago) was shortlisted for 11 awards. Going back in time, Inverloch (by the same cartoonist as PR) had 12 in 2006, and in 2003 Megatokyo had 14 nominations and Penny Arcade 12.

[ETA] Fixed some numbers, added some numbers, links, and a table of categories. I also decided not to count awards that only had one nominee.
the raw numbers )
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posted by [personal profile] kgbooklog at 07:33pm on 10/03/2008 under
The 2008 Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards were just announced, and this year they provided a text list of the finalists and winners for folks with slow connections who don't want to wait for the two presentations to load. But they still don't provide actual links to the nominees, so once again I'm providing this service. First comic listed in the winner, bold are ones I like, italics I don't.
Read more... )
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posted by [personal profile] kgbooklog at 05:24pm on 04/03/2008 under ,
I woke up this morning to see snow on the ground. We sometimes go for years without seeing snow, and now we get it in March??

politics )
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posted by [personal profile] kgbooklog at 02:32pm on 02/12/2007 under ,
Inspired by these two posts on Making Light, I decided I may as well talk here about the comics that I like. I do booklog ones that I read first as books, or are completed webcomics, but that still leaves a lot out.

Print comics:
I'm not currently reading any, but Asterix was a big part of my childhood and is still a favorite of mine, even if the quality did go downhill after Goscinny died. And like everyone else, I love Jeff Smith's Bone and Gaiman's Sandman (everyone suggests starting in a different place; I prefer the short stories in volume 6 Fables and Reflections (and I don't normally like short fiction)).

Finished webcomics and online reprints:
Narbonic: contemporary daily comic about mad science, now being reposted with annotations

A Miracle of Science: science fiction about mad science (and robots, and AI, and nanotech, and groupminds...)

Inverloch: fairly typical high fantasy

Indefensible Positions: urban fantasy about applied philosophy (NSFW)

Buck Godot: repost of a science fiction comic (that link currently points to the last page of the first story, but I expect they'll fix that soon)

What's New With Phil and Dixie: repost of a comic feature that ran in Dragon magazine

Ongoing webcomics:
Alpha-Shade: a comic that manages a coherent story despite frequently changing its genre (unfortunately there's no archive page and it's impossible to directly link to the first page)

Chessire Crossing: amusing story involving several characters from classic kid's literature; updates an entire issue at a time

Crimson Dark: computer-rendered science fiction comic set in an interstellar war

Digger: fantasy comic about a wombat miner who gets lost; reminds me of Pratchett (part of the archives are subscription-only, but the first 300 pages are free)

Dr. McNinja: a very silly (even by comic standards) story of a doctor who is also a ninja

Erfworld: intentionally twee high fantasy

Flipside: another high fantasy comic (NSFW)

Freefall: humorous science fiction

Girl Genius: steampunk mad science

Gunnerkrigg Court: fantasy, science fiction, myth, and mad science in a boarding school

Haru-Sari: urban fantasy about a catgirl with a terminal illness and elves

Lackadaisy: St. Louis during Prohibition, with cats

Magellan: story about a superhero academy

No Rest for the Wicked: a mix of several fairy tales

The Order of the Stick: a stick figure epic fantasy story set in a D&D universe

Storm Corps: science fiction story about weather, aliens, and stories

So that's what I like. Anyone want to recommend similar good comics? I'm mostly looking for good stories, and prefer full page and color, but really don't care too much about the art so long as the text is readable and I can tell the characters apart. If you want to suggest a print comic, try to choose something I can get from my primary or secondary library.
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posted by [personal profile] kgbooklog at 12:16pm on 04/11/2007 under ,
(I've complained about this before, but it's something I'm still bitter about.)

I like complex stories about well-drawn characters dealing with the consequences of their actions, and so I prefer series of thick books; short fiction just isn't long enough to satisfy me. I will seek out shorter works that are part of a series I like, but even if I enjoy the story, I'll still wish it was part of a novel rather than a separate story.

And lately I've noticed authors going out of their way to add shorter works to existing series, especially in urban fantasy. I'm not going to read any more books by MaryJanice Davidson, since she has already done it at least twice (introducing new characters to the series both times). What worries me is that of the 10 authors currently writing contemporary fantasy series that I like, only two (Laura Resnick and Kat Richardson) haven't yet added any shorter works.

Why are they doing this? Sure, this may help sales of the anthologies, but if those sales are poor, it's probably because of people like me who prefer novels, and punishing us for that is more likely to cause us to stop buying the novels too.

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