1. Mikaela is doing an Old Races: ORIGINS give-away over on her blog! Go check it out!
2. The Disneyland for Deon page has been fixed and now accepts donations again. o.O Remember, I’ll (eventually) be writing a short story as a thank-you for helping Deon get to Disneyland, so if you want access to an exclusive story, go throw a few bucks that way and make a kid’s dream come true while you’re at it. :)
3. I’ve finished Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2312, which in some ways I liked a lot and in others found a little frustrating. Mostly I didn’t feel Swan’s voice was much differentiated from previous KSR protagonists, though the other two major POV characters were reasonably different. I liked the development of the romance and the world, I liked many of the choices the characters made, I just sort of felt like I could switch Frank out for Swan and it wouldn’t be significantly different.
The other problem I had with it is sort of…philosophical. It’s sort of “he didn’t write the book I wanted him to!”, though that’s not exactly accurate either, because I like what and how KSR does. But like the Science in the Capitol trilogy, which is some of my favorite writing ever, 2312 isn’t an enormously accessible book. I mean, I’m okay with that because I like hard SF and I’m willing to put the time in, but … I think the climate change theme that’s so central to these books is hugely, hugely important, and I think he realizes it brilliantly, and I want everyone to read it and understand what he’s seeing in our world that develops into his fiction, but…this is SF for SF lovers, not for casual readers. I still desperately want that gap bridged, and KSR writes so beautifully I want him to be able to do it, but he doesn’t. And I don’t think it’s even his goal, so I recognize that my frustrations are ill placed here, but…damn. I do so want that accessible, world-changing climate change SF story to be *out there*.
4. What else. Um. C’mon, Catie, you’re only managing a blog post every several days, surely there’s more going on than this…