Monthly Archives: July 2009

IBARW: Underdog Complex 4

 in Blog  tagged ibarw / thoughts by

It’s International Blog Against Racism Week. Links are being collected at . I wrote a longer piece on this that’s currently under submission, so I’ll just paraphrase here–based on my experiences with discussions of race, I think white Americans have a severe underdog complex. Our society glorifies the underdog fighting against impossible odds to get to the top, to "make it", to jump from nobody to superstar in the land of opportunity. Everyone wants to be the underdog; no one wants to be the Man, the Establishment, the Authorities, whatever. Discussions of race tend to bring white people face to […]

Review Links 2

 in Blog  tagged clint harris / fantasy magazine / links by

Somewhat off-topic, Clint Harris has a review of the Necronomicon (yes, that Necronomicon) up at Fantasy Magazine: Though essentially lacking pathos, a central protagonist, or a comprehensive notations guide to the strange terms and Escher-esque illustrations that boggled the mind, I found the book to be a triumph of the spirit. It’s clever and quite funny; you should read it. ETA: Read the comments too. You can clearly hear the swishing sound as the joke passes over some people’s heads.

Valhalla Rising (Clive Cussler)

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Valhalla RisingClive Cussler I’ve never read Clive Cussler before, but a relative of mine kept referencing him as writing fun stories (if not entirely realistic or profound), so I thought I’d check it out. It’s always nice to have a common ground of reading material–that’s one topic that skips right over all the awkward small talk. Her evaluation was pretty much spot-on, although I think I was expecting more in the way of obstacles. There’s really no point in the book where you have serious doubts about the outcome; it’s a blatantly vicarious story (more about that in a bit) […]

Imperfect Tense vs. Passive Voice

 in Blog  tagged linguistics / thoughts by

One of the things that irritates me most about the English language is the fact that the imperfect tense is nearly identical to the passive voice. As I first learned in my French classes, there are two main forms of the immediate past tense: the complete past and the continuous past. In French, those are the imparfait, the continuous or ongoing past (je travaillais quand il m’interrompt), and the passé composé, the repetitive or complete past (j’ai travaillé). In English, the imparfait is the imperfect (I was working when he interrupted me) and the passé composé is the simple past […]

Shorts

 in Blog  tagged abyss & apex / baen's universe / chizine / ideomancer / igms / lone star stories / shorts / the whole crew by

While at the moment I don’t have the time for a novel (to read or to review), I thought I’d link to a few short stories that I’ve found exceptional in the past. I’ll probably add to this list as I find or recall others. These have been published in Baen’s Universe, Abyss & Apex, Ideomancer, IGMS, ChiZine, and Lone Star Stories. "Cryptic Coloration" (Elizabeth Bear, Baen’s Universe). A Promethean Age story from Elizabeth Bear, set before the events of Blood & Iron with Matthew as a central character. Hard to pinpoint why I like this one so much, but the […]