Category: Shame

Dear gentle reader: this blog has been operating continuously since I was a teenager. The writing below is at least a decade old. In that time every molecule of my body has been replaced, along with many foolish ideas and flighty beliefs. I want to keep some of those things public out of an honesty and humility I owe the world. I trust you to carry that context with you.

Mars needs pull quotes

What are some of the brightest lights in webcomics saying about Brendan Adkins and Ommatidia?

“I didn’t know about it.”

–Tycho Brahe of Penny Arcade

“Asshole.”

–Scott Kurtz of PvP, at the Emerald City Comicon

“Pretty slick, but my shout-out is not without motive.”

–Kristofer Straub of Starslip Crisis*

* Kristofer Straub was paid $50 during book creation for unrelated reasons

Hey, look, I found a good way to link books!

John Joseph Adams asked what are your top ten SF-F books not written by white men? Actually, he asked it in two parts: a top-ten list of nonmen, followed by a top ten list of nonwhites. Like everyone else who’s responded so far, I can do a list of women easily; embarrassingly (and typically), of the SF-F authors whose race I actually know, almost all of them are white (the late Octavia Butler seems to be a common exception). I might be able to do a nonwhite list, but it’d be almost all comics creators.

Anyway, my top-ten-women list demonstrates a pretty strong pattern.

  1. The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood
  2. Howl’s Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones
  3. Magic for Beginners, Kelly Link
  4. Tehanu, Ursula Le Guin
  5. The Homeward Bounders, Diana Wynne Jones
  6. A Wind in the Door, Madeleine L’Engle
  7. The Hero and the Crown, Robin McKinley
  8. Lioness Rampant, Tamora Pierce
  9. The Dark is Rising, Susan Cooper
  10. Tie: Deep Wizardry, Diane Duane, and The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

Is it usually this obvious that my literary development halted in middle school?

Er. Hem. Ahem hem.


What are… what. What are some good.

podcasts.