Bitchin' Blog Posts
Links and News
by SB Sarah | by SB Sarah | July 20, 2012 | Friday at 11:40 am | 19 Comments
It's a sad day here, with bad news, it seems, from every direction, from shootings to drought to cruelty. One thing I find in romance is optimism, a belief that things will work out, that it's important to keep going when shit gets awful, and I'm having a hard time today locating my optimism. It's around here somewhere. Maybe I need to read more books.
Either way, I have an assortment of links to neat and interesting things to interrupt the RITA Reader Review-a-palooza.
Be Ye Warned, I have a LOT of reviews to post, as I want to share all the reviews that people have submitted, and make sure that every book receives 1 review. I'll also have a poll on Friday to see if we can guess the RITA ® winners - and I'll update as the winners are announced on Friday. I apologize in advance for the flood of reviews, but I want to make sure everyone who sent in a review is featured. And big huge thanks to everyone who has participated. It's a lot of reviews, but it's a lot of fun to discuss the nominated books, too.
RITA ® is a registered service mark of Romance Writers of America, Inc. and is used with permission.
Link time!
News broke yesterday via WickedLilPixie of the class action suit filed by authors Judith Arnold, Gayle Wilson, and Linda Barrett against Harlequin LTD. There is a website about the case with the documents and further details. For a clear summary and commentary, have a look at Jane Litte's examination of the documents. The discussion is also incredibly educational.
Harlequin CEO Donna Hayes has responded by saying, "Our authors have been recompensed fairly and properly for their work, and we will be defending ourselves vigorously."
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Jenni sent this link to an older article about the discovery of one of the earliest known sex surveys, discovered in 1973 by an historian who was cataloging the papers of Dr. Clelia Duel Mosher, "who taught in Stanford's hygiene department around the turn of the 20th century."
Seriously. This is amazing.
Mosher was an intellectual badass:
Mosher's scholarly aim soon became clear: to prove that women were not inferior to men, and that frailties chalked up to sex were really the effects of binding garments, insufficient exercise and mental conditioning. Her master's thesis, for example, showed that women breathe from the diaphragm, as men do, rather than from the chest, as was believed at the time. She concluded that this so-called biological difference was really due to tight corsetry.
This article is amazing - and Dr. Mosher herself was amazing, too. There are a few copies of her work in print, including an updated version of her book Health and the Woman Movement in paperback. How sad that someone so intellectually focused on women's sexuality passed into obscurity.
Thank you for the link, Jenni.
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Weather.com asks that crucial question: Which came first, Fabio the hurricane name, or Fabio the Fabio?
I once did some copying of a work that dealt with Hurricane Ike, and hot damn if Eisenhower's picture wasn't superimposed on pictures of the hurricane.
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Via Eve Savage: what would happen to YA novel protagonists? Yahoo:Shine asked authors how their teen protagonists would turn out as adults. The answers, some of them, are very thoughtful.
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If you use a lot of Kindle highlights (I do) this web app might rock your world: Findings collects all the lines you've highlighted and puts them in a very elegant and easily-shared interface. Link via Lifehacker, via Swiss Miss.
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In case you missed it: Outlander: the series? COULD HAPPEN.
Susana Polo at The Mary Sue writes,
The seven books in the Outlander series are hard to pin down to a single genre: romance? historical fiction?science fiction? fantasy? military history? But with True Blood and Game of Thrones both on the air, it seems like it might be a pretty interesting experiment for networks, and one that could be spun in any number of ways depending on who picks it up.
Now those are some casting decisions that will be much discussed online.
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It appears this Goodreads review, replete with animated gifs, is the king of all viral reviews of 50 Shades of Grey. Enjoy.
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Ann wrote to me regarding Carrie S's recent Comic Con report:
In CarrieS's ComicCon report, she mentioned meeting the creators of Girl
Genius, and others in the comments enthused about the comic. Let me
recommend it to you as a different sort of romance story that the readers
here might enjoy.It's intelligent, funny, dramatic, and has some excellent romance; they call
it gaslamp fantasy, having started it before steampunk came into fashion.
Phil and Kaja Foglio have been writing and drawing it for years, and it only
gets better. The TvTropes main page gives a good description (the
GirlGenius discussion board has over 850 pages).
I predict I'll be reading this for hours this evening. Who's with me?
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And finally: sales and things!
Rock Hard Olivia Cunning is on sale at 80% off with code romance80 - July 20-22, 2012 at Kobo only.
Kobo also has a special section of new Harlequin Books, and you can use coupon codes on them, too. Want some coupon codes? There's jun2720de (20% July Only), for example.
And here are two book sales I found:
- Unlocked by Courtney Milan * $0.00 * A | BN | K | S | ARe
- Hourglass by Myra McEntire * $1.59 -$1.99 * A | BN | K | S | ARe
And now, back to the reviews!
Filed: General Bitching, The Link-O-Lator
Tagged: news, harlequin, ebook sales
Lisa Pegg said on 07.20.12 at 03:52 PM • [link]
Sale on paper books at half.com: Get $15 off $50 in books using coupon code EARLYBIRD15 through July 23. It’s being promoted as an early bird back-to-school sale, but I think I’m going to use it to stock up on old Judith Krantz books (which have been haunting me since RHG’s review).
Annmcn said on 07.20.12 at 04:31 PM • [link]
Eee! You printed my link. *ahem* Anyway, one amazing thing about Girl Genius is that the fandom seems to be pretty even between men and women, and all ages. I’m 60, but my 28 year old son reads it faithfully, too, and on the discussion boards, both women and men talk about fanservice and also the relationships. Very non-excluding.
Sam said on 07.20.12 at 05:12 PM • [link]
I tried reading the first Outlander—god it was awful (and with all the batshit drama online from the author….) So not touching a show or movie or whatever. D:
DreadPirateRachel said on 07.20.12 at 05:23 PM • [link]
The GR review is amazing. +1,000,000,000 points for the GIF from The IT Crowd.
Andrea said on 07.20.12 at 05:23 PM • [link]
OMG, I loved the review of 50 Shades of Grey! I first heard about it here and out of curiosity looked it up on amazon - I do that, can’t resist looking up these insanely popular books and sometimes even reading them for that reason only. I used the Look Inside function and decided then and there that there is NO WAY I would spend money on that - even if it had a good plot, the writing would turn me off. So, that was that. But now this trilogy is getting big here in Germany (which means it has been translated)! They advertise on audible that it is now available as an audiobook (yeah, not buying that either…) and that it will be made into a movie (or did I misunderstand something there?). But this review definitely saved me from EVER reading these books (you know, just to know what it is all about) and provided me with a good laugh at the same time.
JaneDrew said on 07.20.12 at 07:36 PM • [link]
“GIRL GENIUS” IS MADE OF WIN AND AWESOME!.... and also explosions and gadgets and…..
I am so excited you will be reading it, and can’t wait to hear what you think.
CarrieS said on 07.20.12 at 08:06 PM • [link]
@Annmcn - I heard about Girl Genius when my husband, who loes it, said - you should read this and review it for that website you write for - it has tons of romance. He loves the adventure, I love the adventure, the romance, and Agnes’s character development, we both love the humor, and my daughter loves the Cinderella story that got thrown in as a bonus.
Scrin said on 07.20.12 at 09:06 PM • [link]
Seconded. Girl Genius is awesome.
Wait until you reach the Unstoppable Higgs.
The Other Susan said on 07.20.12 at 10:14 PM • [link]
OMG. An Outlander series??? OMG. OMG.
The Other Susan said on 07.20.12 at 10:15 PM • [link]
Know what else would be cool? A Green Darkness movie or miniseries. I wonder who bought the rights back in the day when Anya Seton wrote it? (published in ‘72)
DesLivres said on 07.20.12 at 11:21 PM • [link]
I’m enjoying the multi-reviews of particular books. The varied lenses tell me more about the books themselves.
Jimthered said on 07.20.12 at 11:29 PM • [link]
And for those who love GIRL GENIUS (the comic—who doesn’t love a real-life girl genius?), it’s worth noting that writer-author Phil Foglio did an absolutely wonderful, absolutely x-rated comic book called XXXENOPHILE many moons ago. While this is very explicit stuff, it’s also erotic, funny and well written (from the introduction to the (sadly out o’ print XXXENOPHILE BIG BOOK O’ FUN: “A lighthearted, but informative treatise upon some of the more esoteric and abstruse aspects of human sexuality, and how they can be improved for all concerned with the simple addition of Penguins, Marshmallows and the occasional Sock Puppet. No, really”), and an absolutel delight. I recommend digging up the print versions, but it’s available digitally at www.xxxenophile.com . And the Amazon entry http://www.amazon.com/The-XXXe… has a terrific cover!
GhengisMom said on 07.21.12 at 12:33 AM • [link]
I loved the review and thought she was hilarious. I agree with almost everything in Katrina’s 50 Shades review except for one thing: That women can’t differentiate real life from fiction. She was worried that women would read the book and think that relationships with abusive men are ok. I’m sick of this idea that women are too feeble-minded to be able to reason for themselves. I hate this! It’s the same idea as “Romance novels are dangerous because women won’t know they are fantasy and FICTION.”
If a woman uses this book to justify an abusive relationship, she already had her mindset about her abusive relationship. This book doesn’t make women think it is ok to be in abusive relationships. We know it is just a book! And I agree these books suck, but give the rest of us ladies some credit. You’re not that much smarter than the rest of us.
GhengisMom said on 07.21.12 at 12:36 AM • [link]
eh? drama? what did I miss?
I wasn’t a fan of the first book because there was just too much rape. I couldn’t take it so I never read the others.
Jenny Dolton said on 07.22.12 at 05:53 AM • [link]
Love, love, LOVE Girl Genius. Everyone should read it. Seriously. So much awesomeness and hilarity and genius-ness.
And I’m another one of the crowd who managed (barely) to get through the first Outlander book and vowed never to read anything by the author again… I just don’t get the appeal…
Theresa Meyers said on 07.23.12 at 11:16 AM • [link]
I’m with Jenny Dolton. Girl Genius is ADDICTIVE y’all, I’m just saying. When I first found it online I spent three days reading all the way back from the beginning of the series. So much awesome, with a kickass heroine. And both my kids are very into it too. I’d rather have my daughter be a fan of Gilgamesh Wulfenbach than Edward Cullen any day. Just sayin’.
CarrieS said on 07.23.12 at 01:13 PM • [link]
Theresa, I’m with you - Team Gil, all the way. Ay least, for Agnes - the Unstoppable Higgs rules overall, of course. I think Agnes is a great role mosdel for my daughter, even given the emphasis on her heaving bosoms early on. Her levels in badass just keep getting better and better.
Annmcn said on 07.23.12 at 05:08 PM • [link]
I dunno, Tarvek has been improving wonderfully (I always was fond of the Scarlet Pimpernel), and Klaus has his own appeal.
SusannaG said on 07.26.12 at 05:20 PM • [link]
That GR review is great, and so are her reviews of the two sequels.
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