Who said Forbes magazine has no sense of humor? Though 2 years old, this article about the best-off fictional companies of 2007, such as Cyberdyne and ACME, is funny stuff. I also salute their previous pastiche on the most expensive, exclusive fictional homes, including Pemberly and Tara, as well as Forbes' Fictional 15, an in depth review of the richest folks from our favorite fables.

Snerched from Making Light's particles.

Neil Gaiman, one of my favorite authors, was a guest last night on The Colbert Report, one of my favorite shows. What happened next was the apotheosis of cool. Check out the interview.

Fave line:
Neil: "Obviously, until you write F*** It, We're All Going to Die, the Newbery Medal is going to go to people like me."

Was sent a link to this post by vandonovan, about some excrutiatingly purple prose in a novel. One which was actually published by Ace in 1992. I couldn't even get through the whole thing before my eyes started bleeding.

I shall nevermore be afraid of my own written descriptions, thank you very much. Those two pages are scary enough for all of us.

Dunno if anyone else is obsessing as much as I am about the last book in the Harry Potter series, due out on Saturday, but I came across this bit of funny today that I thought I'd share, just in case you are. There are no spoilers of any kind for Book Seven in it, so breathe. Again.

Money shot: "Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore," said Cedric. "Killing students by criminal negligence since 1943."

Warning -- it's not kind to Dumbledore. At all.

As I don't really know my humorists from my satirists.

Link: The Are you literary? Test written by chatdumauvais on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

I'm stunned.

Got a rejection -- this is not the stunning part -- from Writers of the Future the other day that was not a quarterfinalist reject (that was it, the stunnery, right there.) And no, before you guess it was better than my usual, like say a semi or something, alas, it was actually worse, a non-placing story. The first one I've had in several years, in fact. Depressing about covers it. But then I sent out a new one for the quarter that ends today, uh, today, so, you know, f**k 'em.

Books . . . I'm just about done reading Undead and Uneasy, by Mary Janice Davidson. It's number six in the Vampire Queen Betsy series, which is funny and light and wicked in places. I mean, Betsy?? I think I missed one or two of the series long the way--I'm borrowing them from the library--but each can be read as a stand alone. And I'm not a shoe shopper or, in general, a fan of chicklit, but this series tickles my funny bone.

In other book news, wheatland_press is having a book sale, which is way cool, 'cause they put out a good product, and you know, free books! Check it out.

An interesting discussion here, following James Nicoll's links to two distinct positions on the issue of fanfiction, one from Cory Doctorow, and one not. Leaving aside my own current monumental obsession, I just wanna go on the record as saying, if anyone ever wants to use my characters, stories or (as yet unpublished) novels as fodder for tales of their own, well . . . that would be soooooo cool.

And wicked awesome, too.

. . . over Harry Potter fan fiction the last couple days. How bad could it be? I wondered.

Oh, the shame! The angst. The flagellations, self and otherwise. Not to mention the split infinitives, the Hermione Sues, Harry Stus, meeeeellions and meeellions of exclamation points, and AD/LV slash.

My eyes, my eyes!

I started by looking at fan fiction of other books, after finishing the next to most recent Jim Butcher tale, and eagerly awaiting my turn for the next one from the library. But Harry Dresden doesn't seem nearly as popular . . . or at least, his fans are not as prolific.

Only 2000+ pages of selections left to go through.

Via james_nicoll comes this tale of a total idiot of a "mother" and her treatment of her daughter at a bookstore.

I can't even express the holy crapness of this. I worked in a bookstore for several years, and never came across such a woefully ignorant person. Prb'ly just as well, 'cuz I don't do that great at keeping my opinions of such retardedness to myself. I mighta throttled the bitch.

Via Tobias Buckell comes this information about camels, books, and Kenya:

"Out in the desert in Kenya mobile tribes don’t have libraries, so bookmobiles are set up on camels. The Camel Bookmobile has 12 camels moving through 4 settlements a day to bring literacy to semi-nomadic people."

They've got an Amazon wishlist.

Go. Buy a book for literacy in Kenya. Break the camels' backs.