Fare Thee Well, Miss Snark - and Some Other Stuff

Miss Snark, the literary agent, has posted her last post. There are hundreds of comments on her announcement post and over 20 trackback links (so far). Her blog has brought us Killer Yap, "The Crapometer," Snarklings (a "devotion of" is the proper term of venery), clueguns, nitwittery, and a glimpse behind the scenes of the life of a literary agent. Thankfully, she's leaving the blog up for access to its archives. I'll miss my daily dose of Snark.

Now, several Kleenex later, on to the other stuff:

I am a fan of Alternative History. I'm addicted to Harry Turtledove's series of alternative US histories (Settling Accounts, Great War, Colonization, American Empire, and so on - he's prolific), S M Sterling (Conquistador, Dies the Fire, Oceans of Eternity, The Peshawar Lancers, etc.), Eric Flint's 1632 & 1633. There are others, of course, with the earliest one I've read being Philip K. Dick's Man in the High Castle. The art of "what if" to perfection.

I mention this, not only because I like to share what I read, not only in the hope that fellow travelers will reveal themselves, but also because I just started* reading the Subterranean Online magazine and there's a great little fiction article there by John Scalzi (Old Man's War, The Android's Dream) called "Missives from Possible Futures #1: Alternate History Search Results" and it's very funny. So, I hope you'll go read it. I think #5 scenario is my favorite.

*I just started reading it because I wandered over to Subterranean Press to do my advance order for a limited edition** copy of John Scalzi's The Ghost Brigades and then decided to wander around the site and "hey!" I said to myself, "there's an online spec fic magazine here, too!"

**I wish I could justify the pricetag for the "lettered" edition. Maybe someday I'll win the Super Lotto.

Mystery Writer friends - do you have Hey, There's a Dead Guy in the Living Room on your reader or otherwise bookmarked? I discovered it recently and it's been a consistently good read. For some reason I always want to call it "Hey, There's a Dead Guy on the Couch." I have no idea why.

Returning and editing to add: I recommend that Snarklings go read the lovely post on 101 Reasons to Stop Writing. The blogger there has also created some nifty buttons, here's the one I like:



It links to Miss Snark's blog, and the creator would appreciate your comment on 101R2SW saying you're using it.

dawno