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T. went to school on the Burley Kazoo!
Jul. 15th, 2009 11:18 amNo, not a musical instrument. A trailabike. R. drove. The transition was apparently tricky; I'll try to pick him up the same way so he has more of a chance to get used to it.
Jul. 15th, 2009
Altho, speaking of no rest for the wicked, John Ensign has announced he is running for re-election to his Senate seat in 2012. I guess that means he _won't_ be running for President?
Returning to the review at hand (altho the prezzies to Ensign's lover's kids are sooooo tempting to comment on, particularly given that there's apparently some effort to emphasize the gifts complied with tax law. Because _that's_ the part that really matters here):
In this second entry in the Immortals After Dark Series, a Valkyrie named Kaderin the Cold-Hearted finds herself unable, for the second time in her millennia long life, to kill a vampire. This time, the vampire is Sebastian Wroth, brother to Nicholai Wroth who we met in the first series. He applied some leverage to the Valkyrie coven to get them to recognize his marriage to another Valkyrie named Myst. The first time Kaderin was unable to kill a vampire in battle, he turned around and killed her two twin sisters, and she's been guilt-ridden about it ever since, except somebody (presumably a deity) made it impossible for her to feel anything at all (hence the title "the Cold-Hearted". She meets Sebastian, he wants to die (he didn't want to be Turned into a vampire by his brother Nicholai in the first place) and isn't shy about saying so. Instead, they dry hump like crazy, Kaderin gets her emotions back, freaks out and departs. And Sebastian decides he has met is Bride (One True Soulmate). Sebastian goes off to get blood from the butcher and buy himself some decent clothes and then chase her all over the world after discovering that he doesn't need to have been a place to teleport (Standard Issue Vampire Trait, called "tracing") there. He can just visualize Kaderin and pop! There he is. You can imagine how she feels about this.
Meanwhile, the Talisman's Hie (a paranormal Amazing Race run by the goddess Riora) is starting. It happens 4 times a millennium and Kaderin has been winning it for a long time. This time, a witch named Mariketa the Awaited, a Lykae (Scottish werewolf) named Bowe (first cousin to the werewolf in the first book, and we met him briefly in that entry) and numerous others have entered. Sebastian stalks Kaderin and decides to enter to win it for her. Hmmmm. The witch curses Bowe so he can't regenerate, but otherwise it's basically a contest between the vampire, the werewolf and the valkyrie, and a siren named Lucindeya (who I'm _still_ worried about stuck in that ice cave -- I hope she gets rescued in a later book) for a bunch of goodies. The ultimate prize is a two-time-use travel-in-time key that lets you go back and retrieve something (as long as it isn't too disruptive). Kaderin and Bowe have numerous arguments in colorful parts of the globe while casually dealing with other supernatural interference.
This book overlaps slightly with book #3, which is Bowe and Mariketa's romance, and there are some assumptions in this entry that you remember stuff from book #1, but Cole is fairly good about supplying enough information to let you treat these as stand-alone novels if you are so inclined.
Again, you know whether this is your kind of thing or not. Obviously, there's a Happily Ever After -- this is a romance after all.
Returning to the review at hand (altho the prezzies to Ensign's lover's kids are sooooo tempting to comment on, particularly given that there's apparently some effort to emphasize the gifts complied with tax law. Because _that's_ the part that really matters here):
In this second entry in the Immortals After Dark Series, a Valkyrie named Kaderin the Cold-Hearted finds herself unable, for the second time in her millennia long life, to kill a vampire. This time, the vampire is Sebastian Wroth, brother to Nicholai Wroth who we met in the first series. He applied some leverage to the Valkyrie coven to get them to recognize his marriage to another Valkyrie named Myst. The first time Kaderin was unable to kill a vampire in battle, he turned around and killed her two twin sisters, and she's been guilt-ridden about it ever since, except somebody (presumably a deity) made it impossible for her to feel anything at all (hence the title "the Cold-Hearted". She meets Sebastian, he wants to die (he didn't want to be Turned into a vampire by his brother Nicholai in the first place) and isn't shy about saying so. Instead, they dry hump like crazy, Kaderin gets her emotions back, freaks out and departs. And Sebastian decides he has met is Bride (One True Soulmate). Sebastian goes off to get blood from the butcher and buy himself some decent clothes and then chase her all over the world after discovering that he doesn't need to have been a place to teleport (Standard Issue Vampire Trait, called "tracing") there. He can just visualize Kaderin and pop! There he is. You can imagine how she feels about this.
Meanwhile, the Talisman's Hie (a paranormal Amazing Race run by the goddess Riora) is starting. It happens 4 times a millennium and Kaderin has been winning it for a long time. This time, a witch named Mariketa the Awaited, a Lykae (Scottish werewolf) named Bowe (first cousin to the werewolf in the first book, and we met him briefly in that entry) and numerous others have entered. Sebastian stalks Kaderin and decides to enter to win it for her. Hmmmm. The witch curses Bowe so he can't regenerate, but otherwise it's basically a contest between the vampire, the werewolf and the valkyrie, and a siren named Lucindeya (who I'm _still_ worried about stuck in that ice cave -- I hope she gets rescued in a later book) for a bunch of goodies. The ultimate prize is a two-time-use travel-in-time key that lets you go back and retrieve something (as long as it isn't too disruptive). Kaderin and Bowe have numerous arguments in colorful parts of the globe while casually dealing with other supernatural interference.
This book overlaps slightly with book #3, which is Bowe and Mariketa's romance, and there are some assumptions in this entry that you remember stuff from book #1, but Cole is fairly good about supplying enough information to let you treat these as stand-alone novels if you are so inclined.
Again, you know whether this is your kind of thing or not. Obviously, there's a Happily Ever After -- this is a romance after all.
a novel approach to bibliomancy
Jul. 15th, 2009 11:38 amNormally, bibliomancy is accomplished by taking something (like a Bible), opening it to a random page and arbitrarily pointing at a passage and that using that passage as a sort of fortune cookie or magic 8 ball to help make a difficult decision or otherwise guide one in life.
Some time ago, I noticed that I have a Great Affection for Doom. It's good to recognize things like this, otherwise one's emotions can lead one into vast complications and trouble. But if you know what you like, you can go instead find a nice, safe version of it to satisfy the urge and call it good. In my case, since I know I really Love Doom, I can do things like worry about Peak Oil and Climate Change by buying bicycles and attempting to run errands on them, rather than, say, bunker up in the countryside and hope the ammo holds out when the mindless starving horde from the city try to come steal my stockpiled Ensure. Which, I might add, was a retread of the choices available for Y2K. I also vastly enjoyed Y2K. In that case, I called a bunch of people to make sure the garbage would still get picked up and the water/sewer and electric would still work. I have my priorities straight (altho I did also use it as an excuse to buy gold coins. Pretty!).
Dorothy Sayers, I think using her character Lord Peter Wimsy as a mouth piece, said something about how you can look at a person's library as a way of understanding who they are as a person. You can see the successive skins they have shed, as they mature and change in the course of their life. Of course, you can't do that if they _get rid_ of things, but True Bibliophiles have trouble getting rid of books so there's generally a good amount of evidence lying around. I think this would have been in one of the short stories, but it's been a solid couple decades since I read it so I'm probably confused.
In any event, it has always been in my head since she articulated that so very clearly, that one way to understand myself is to understand why I like the books I like. Particularly when, as is all too often the case, there is no obvious redeeming feature to the book, and quite a lot to loathe. It will be in this spirit that I'll be posting a bit about Immortals After Dark and romance in general, paranormal/urban fantasy, more specifically.
Some time ago, I noticed that I have a Great Affection for Doom. It's good to recognize things like this, otherwise one's emotions can lead one into vast complications and trouble. But if you know what you like, you can go instead find a nice, safe version of it to satisfy the urge and call it good. In my case, since I know I really Love Doom, I can do things like worry about Peak Oil and Climate Change by buying bicycles and attempting to run errands on them, rather than, say, bunker up in the countryside and hope the ammo holds out when the mindless starving horde from the city try to come steal my stockpiled Ensure. Which, I might add, was a retread of the choices available for Y2K. I also vastly enjoyed Y2K. In that case, I called a bunch of people to make sure the garbage would still get picked up and the water/sewer and electric would still work. I have my priorities straight (altho I did also use it as an excuse to buy gold coins. Pretty!).
Dorothy Sayers, I think using her character Lord Peter Wimsy as a mouth piece, said something about how you can look at a person's library as a way of understanding who they are as a person. You can see the successive skins they have shed, as they mature and change in the course of their life. Of course, you can't do that if they _get rid_ of things, but True Bibliophiles have trouble getting rid of books so there's generally a good amount of evidence lying around. I think this would have been in one of the short stories, but it's been a solid couple decades since I read it so I'm probably confused.
In any event, it has always been in my head since she articulated that so very clearly, that one way to understand myself is to understand why I like the books I like. Particularly when, as is all too often the case, there is no obvious redeeming feature to the book, and quite a lot to loathe. It will be in this spirit that I'll be posting a bit about Immortals After Dark and romance in general, paranormal/urban fantasy, more specifically.
While politics play a major role in romance/fantasy novels/series involving werewolves, vampires, etc., the politics in question are not of the who-do-you-support-for-mayor variety (I'm sure there's an exception somewhere, and I hope you'll tell me about it). But it might be possible to impute some political stances to the paranormal/supernatural/immortals of various series.
(1) How do they feel about health care?
In general, supes (short for supernatural) have the ability to regenerate. If they are vampires, they might need to drink blood. If they are werewolves, it will generally happen automatically, unless they've been poisoned with silver or something. If they are witches, they can drink a potion, cast a spell, go to their happy place, etc. In general, supes have limitations that make it difficult for them to hold down a high-paying job with benefits: they might be unable to tolerate sunlight, unable to work for a couple days around the full moon, required to participate at a second's notice in a bunch of illegal Pack related business, etc. In practice, supes who might be able to hold down a high-paying job with benefits don't do so anyway. Either they flunked out of college because they couldn't control their power, or they are Ancient and Very, Very Rich.
Some supes have mortal friends, and they do worry about those mortal friends, especially when they get hurt by being kidnapped or otherwise damaged in a fight. Usually, the solution is to make them drink blood so they heal magically.
There are exceptions (notably in Harris' Stackhouse series, in which somebody winds up in the hospital in almost every single entry), but in general, supes avoid the health care system. When they do interact with it, they're looking for doctors who don't report bullet wounds and they pay cash.
It's not a sure thing, but I'm betting the supes don't have a strong feeling one way or the other about mandatory health insurance coverage for all.
(2) Taxes?
Do supes pay taxes? Well, it seems fairly likely that the uber-rich supes are going to take advantage of their uber-richness to hire good tax lawyers and minimize their tax exposure. The ones not holding down regular jobs may or may not have a strong opinion about taxes, but to the extent that their money worries are severe, they probably would like FICA to be a lot lower. It's unlikely you could hold their attention for long on the subject of tax policy, but they likely have the usual knee-jerk lower-would-be-better response.
(3) Parenting Issues
Supes reproduce. A lot. Which is kind of weird, given how many cross-species couples there are, and how female vampires/werewolves/whatever are supposedly Entirely Extinct and making more is Very, Very Difficult and tends to result in the death of the candidate. It is rarely made clear who delivers these babies, except when the babies are born before the arrival of the skilled birth attendant (like, no one was ever going to show up), or are caught by hubby or the coven or whatever. Usually, babies appear between books (after the romance focused on their parents, and before their parents are the doting parents of 1 or more while a sibling/friend/packmate/coworker/etc. is going through difficulties attempting to hook up) and display many of the characteristics of Soap Opera Children. Could Moms Rising convince some of the women-supes to support their platform of paid maternity leave, affordable high-quality child care, health insurance for all children, etc.? Given how few of the supes have jobs to go back to, and given the above comments on supernatural regeneration/healing, it seems a little unlikely, however, mama's commitment to the rest of the pack/other vampires/etc. does create dilemmas in which she needs someone to watch the kids while she kicks butt (if you know of a SAHD (stay at home dad) supe, I _really_ _fucking_ _want_ _to_ _read_ _that_ _now_. I mean. HAAAAAWWWWT!). Usually, a sibling/coworker/packmate/whatever (who also had her own book at some point in the series) steps up to the plate.
Moms Rising 0.
(4) Peak Oil/Climate Change/Conservation/Energy Security
I've put these all in one bucket, even tho they have slightly different appeal to slightly different groups of people. They all, however, amount to an effort to modify the way that we consume energy (reduction and/or substitution and/or sequestration).
Supes tend to have the capacity to run very fast over long distances including over broken ground in the dark. This limits their need to hop in the car to run to the store (not that we ever actually see a supe hop into a car to go to the store to buy milk or a 6 pack or whatever. Or, for that matter, trot, fly, trace, etc.). I don't know that I've ever read about a supe on a bicycle (that would be damn cool, tho), installing solar panels on the roof, a wind turbine on the estate, converting the limo with the blackened windows to run on biodiesel, etc. And there's a hella lot of airplane travel first class and/or in private jets and/or helicopter. On the one hand, really old supes are really used to not using fossil fuels. On the other hand, they are sucking them down as fast or faster than mere mortals now that they have them.
This does not sound like a Must Reduce Carbon Footprint kinda crowd.
As for what their belief system might be on the subject of extinction, climate change and so forth, I think it's safe to say that people who have direct and regular contact with deities (like, their parents or grandparents or whatever) might have a very different perspective on the relevant science.
(5) Sex?
Supes in romances have a lot of it, but it is relatively vanilla. Sure there might be a little of the tying up and tying down, and there might be a little doggy style, but it's mostly petting, licking, and tab P slot V action, with the occasional three-some (not all the same gender and almost always with the interactions between the two of the same gender highly limited). For all the interspecies action, there's remarkably little same-sex action, and no species with more than two genders (in romance/supernatural novels published recently by mainstream presses -- I'm sure you can find something out of Ellora's Cave). (I don't know what LKH has gotten up to recently. I'm assuming it's more of the everyone and everything having at the Golden Orifice, but if it got more interesting than that, I'd like to hear about it. And if you don't know what that meant, you don't really want to.).
(6) Toleration
The major conflict in a lot of supe romances is of the Forbidden Love variety, but some of it is of the They Must Not Know What I Really Am variety (Sookie Stackhouse being a perfect example of that). Eventually, through blackmail, the production of grandchildren, ascending to a throne, abandoning one's past, or whatever, an accommodation is found, but even once the Pack reluctantly accepts that one is sleeping with a Whatever, or the other Vamps have grudgingly accepted that you are doing a Whatever, or you've decided you didn't like your Coven after all, or you want to Effect Change from Within, there is still a huge chunk of prejudice against your mate floating around. And you tend to become friends with other people after they wind up in the same situation.
Why do I feel like this stuff is aimed squarely at readers whose extended family and kinship network (at least the one they were born into) is so conservative it's basically safe to call them bigots, but of course no one will because they are Family?
And I think I should be a lot more grateful to Charlaine Harris and her Sookie Stackhouse than I often feel. Her political world is way sophisticated compared to most of the rest of what is out there.
(1) How do they feel about health care?
In general, supes (short for supernatural) have the ability to regenerate. If they are vampires, they might need to drink blood. If they are werewolves, it will generally happen automatically, unless they've been poisoned with silver or something. If they are witches, they can drink a potion, cast a spell, go to their happy place, etc. In general, supes have limitations that make it difficult for them to hold down a high-paying job with benefits: they might be unable to tolerate sunlight, unable to work for a couple days around the full moon, required to participate at a second's notice in a bunch of illegal Pack related business, etc. In practice, supes who might be able to hold down a high-paying job with benefits don't do so anyway. Either they flunked out of college because they couldn't control their power, or they are Ancient and Very, Very Rich.
Some supes have mortal friends, and they do worry about those mortal friends, especially when they get hurt by being kidnapped or otherwise damaged in a fight. Usually, the solution is to make them drink blood so they heal magically.
There are exceptions (notably in Harris' Stackhouse series, in which somebody winds up in the hospital in almost every single entry), but in general, supes avoid the health care system. When they do interact with it, they're looking for doctors who don't report bullet wounds and they pay cash.
It's not a sure thing, but I'm betting the supes don't have a strong feeling one way or the other about mandatory health insurance coverage for all.
(2) Taxes?
Do supes pay taxes? Well, it seems fairly likely that the uber-rich supes are going to take advantage of their uber-richness to hire good tax lawyers and minimize their tax exposure. The ones not holding down regular jobs may or may not have a strong opinion about taxes, but to the extent that their money worries are severe, they probably would like FICA to be a lot lower. It's unlikely you could hold their attention for long on the subject of tax policy, but they likely have the usual knee-jerk lower-would-be-better response.
(3) Parenting Issues
Supes reproduce. A lot. Which is kind of weird, given how many cross-species couples there are, and how female vampires/werewolves/whatever are supposedly Entirely Extinct and making more is Very, Very Difficult and tends to result in the death of the candidate. It is rarely made clear who delivers these babies, except when the babies are born before the arrival of the skilled birth attendant (like, no one was ever going to show up), or are caught by hubby or the coven or whatever. Usually, babies appear between books (after the romance focused on their parents, and before their parents are the doting parents of 1 or more while a sibling/friend/packmate/coworker/etc. is going through difficulties attempting to hook up) and display many of the characteristics of Soap Opera Children. Could Moms Rising convince some of the women-supes to support their platform of paid maternity leave, affordable high-quality child care, health insurance for all children, etc.? Given how few of the supes have jobs to go back to, and given the above comments on supernatural regeneration/healing, it seems a little unlikely, however, mama's commitment to the rest of the pack/other vampires/etc. does create dilemmas in which she needs someone to watch the kids while she kicks butt (if you know of a SAHD (stay at home dad) supe, I _really_ _fucking_ _want_ _to_ _read_ _that_ _now_. I mean. HAAAAAWWWWT!). Usually, a sibling/coworker/packmate/whatever (who also had her own book at some point in the series) steps up to the plate.
Moms Rising 0.
(4) Peak Oil/Climate Change/Conservation/Energy Security
I've put these all in one bucket, even tho they have slightly different appeal to slightly different groups of people. They all, however, amount to an effort to modify the way that we consume energy (reduction and/or substitution and/or sequestration).
Supes tend to have the capacity to run very fast over long distances including over broken ground in the dark. This limits their need to hop in the car to run to the store (not that we ever actually see a supe hop into a car to go to the store to buy milk or a 6 pack or whatever. Or, for that matter, trot, fly, trace, etc.). I don't know that I've ever read about a supe on a bicycle (that would be damn cool, tho), installing solar panels on the roof, a wind turbine on the estate, converting the limo with the blackened windows to run on biodiesel, etc. And there's a hella lot of airplane travel first class and/or in private jets and/or helicopter. On the one hand, really old supes are really used to not using fossil fuels. On the other hand, they are sucking them down as fast or faster than mere mortals now that they have them.
This does not sound like a Must Reduce Carbon Footprint kinda crowd.
As for what their belief system might be on the subject of extinction, climate change and so forth, I think it's safe to say that people who have direct and regular contact with deities (like, their parents or grandparents or whatever) might have a very different perspective on the relevant science.
(5) Sex?
Supes in romances have a lot of it, but it is relatively vanilla. Sure there might be a little of the tying up and tying down, and there might be a little doggy style, but it's mostly petting, licking, and tab P slot V action, with the occasional three-some (not all the same gender and almost always with the interactions between the two of the same gender highly limited). For all the interspecies action, there's remarkably little same-sex action, and no species with more than two genders (in romance/supernatural novels published recently by mainstream presses -- I'm sure you can find something out of Ellora's Cave). (I don't know what LKH has gotten up to recently. I'm assuming it's more of the everyone and everything having at the Golden Orifice, but if it got more interesting than that, I'd like to hear about it. And if you don't know what that meant, you don't really want to.).
(6) Toleration
The major conflict in a lot of supe romances is of the Forbidden Love variety, but some of it is of the They Must Not Know What I Really Am variety (Sookie Stackhouse being a perfect example of that). Eventually, through blackmail, the production of grandchildren, ascending to a throne, abandoning one's past, or whatever, an accommodation is found, but even once the Pack reluctantly accepts that one is sleeping with a Whatever, or the other Vamps have grudgingly accepted that you are doing a Whatever, or you've decided you didn't like your Coven after all, or you want to Effect Change from Within, there is still a huge chunk of prejudice against your mate floating around. And you tend to become friends with other people after they wind up in the same situation.
Why do I feel like this stuff is aimed squarely at readers whose extended family and kinship network (at least the one they were born into) is so conservative it's basically safe to call them bigots, but of course no one will because they are Family?
And I think I should be a lot more grateful to Charlaine Harris and her Sookie Stackhouse than I often feel. Her political world is way sophisticated compared to most of the rest of what is out there.
Supes, Sex Ed and Disease Prevention
Jul. 15th, 2009 12:25 pmIn a previous post, I described a little about Supes (supernatural characters in urban fantasy/romance books/series -- such as vampires, werewolves, etc.) and sex (heterosexist, manual, oral and tab P slot V -- very little anal, altho more than a few years ago). Romance novels have gone through some changes over the decades in terms of the amount and kind of sex depicted and whether that sex included depiction of contraception (of any sort) or condoms-as-prophylaxis. There was a brief period of time when it was absolutely de rigeur for someone to fumble opening a foil packet, and frequently described as adorable/cute/sexy that she had no mortal clue how to put it on him. There was, sadly, rarely the let's-go-to-the-CVS and buy some protection scene that characterizes the beginning of a lot of relationships. No, these characters were prepared without that preparedness freaking anyone out (altho sometimes there was a joke in there about it was a really big box or whatever).
And can a reader find lube in a romance novel? Of course not. (Not even, I might add, in a book in which a post-menopausal women is depicted as getting it on three times in one night, altho that was in no way relevant to urban fantasy.)
Fortunately, there doesn't seem to be anyone wandering around these books clueless as to what is going to happen (go visit a Regency for that hilarity). Sarah and Candy did an excellent job describing common author errors in writing sex scenes in their vastly entertaining _The Smart Bitches' Guide to Romance Novels_ (location of the hymen, being most notable, but they also talk about recovery time for men). In general, there aren't that many virgins wandering around (altho there are a few). There is a lot of emphasis put on how big the outie is vs. how tight and wet the innie is, but I'm prepared to overlook that.
What I have more trouble with is that characters in urban fantasy don't seem to worry about STDs at _all_. Now, in some instances, this is explicitly covered: vampires can smell infected blood, vampires have special powers to filter out the Badness, werewolves are immune, blah, blah, bleeping blah. In the 2nd book in the Immortals After Dark, the (still mortal) witch has a contraceptive patch which she insists on using, even tho the werewolf wants to knock her up as quick as possible to prove to himself that she is his Mate. She's not going for that, cause until she converts to immortal, having the 2-3 offspring litter of a 7 foot tall Lykae will probably kill her. This strikes me as an interesting conversation to be having (altho a bit reminiscent of some of the themes in Stephanie Myers books), but I also have to wonder: just because it isn't making the werewolf sick doesn't mean he's not still a carrier. Why doesn't anyone worry about that?
If you remapped all the werewolves and vampires and whatever to some ethnic group, all that stuff about their big dicks goes from being HAAAWWWTTT to being a problematic stereotype. And all that Forbidden Love/what will my coven think becomes all-of-my-family-and-friends-are-raging-bigots. All that I-don't-use-condoms-or-birth-control becomes all too reminiscent of the girls I grew up with, who figured if you planned ahead, it made the sin worse. And the one-true-love/soulmate/blah blah bleeping blah just sounds the justifications of someone thinking with their hoo ha instead of their head.
I'd kinda still like to have the leaps tall buildings, kicks serious butt, recovers from major trauma quickly qualities. But could someone please make the worrisome parallels Go Away? Or better still, put a hat on that before you stick it anywhere.
And can a reader find lube in a romance novel? Of course not. (Not even, I might add, in a book in which a post-menopausal women is depicted as getting it on three times in one night, altho that was in no way relevant to urban fantasy.)
Fortunately, there doesn't seem to be anyone wandering around these books clueless as to what is going to happen (go visit a Regency for that hilarity). Sarah and Candy did an excellent job describing common author errors in writing sex scenes in their vastly entertaining _The Smart Bitches' Guide to Romance Novels_ (location of the hymen, being most notable, but they also talk about recovery time for men). In general, there aren't that many virgins wandering around (altho there are a few). There is a lot of emphasis put on how big the outie is vs. how tight and wet the innie is, but I'm prepared to overlook that.
What I have more trouble with is that characters in urban fantasy don't seem to worry about STDs at _all_. Now, in some instances, this is explicitly covered: vampires can smell infected blood, vampires have special powers to filter out the Badness, werewolves are immune, blah, blah, bleeping blah. In the 2nd book in the Immortals After Dark, the (still mortal) witch has a contraceptive patch which she insists on using, even tho the werewolf wants to knock her up as quick as possible to prove to himself that she is his Mate. She's not going for that, cause until she converts to immortal, having the 2-3 offspring litter of a 7 foot tall Lykae will probably kill her. This strikes me as an interesting conversation to be having (altho a bit reminiscent of some of the themes in Stephanie Myers books), but I also have to wonder: just because it isn't making the werewolf sick doesn't mean he's not still a carrier. Why doesn't anyone worry about that?
If you remapped all the werewolves and vampires and whatever to some ethnic group, all that stuff about their big dicks goes from being HAAAWWWTTT to being a problematic stereotype. And all that Forbidden Love/what will my coven think becomes all-of-my-family-and-friends-are-raging-bigots. All that I-don't-use-condoms-or-birth-control becomes all too reminiscent of the girls I grew up with, who figured if you planned ahead, it made the sin worse. And the one-true-love/soulmate/blah blah bleeping blah just sounds the justifications of someone thinking with their hoo ha instead of their head.
I'd kinda still like to have the leaps tall buildings, kicks serious butt, recovers from major trauma quickly qualities. But could someone please make the worrisome parallels Go Away? Or better still, put a hat on that before you stick it anywhere.
rationing health care
Jul. 15th, 2009 08:34 pmhttp://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/magazine/19healthcare-t.html
Peter Singer doing a summary of quality adjusted life years and deciding where to spend health care dollars. He does the usual setup to show that, no, we don't _actually_ have an infinite amount of health care resources and, yes, we are engaging in de facto rationing because not everyone has equal access, and then describes quality adjusted life years as a rationing mechanism. Basically, it's sort of like cap-and-trade for health care: we only have this much money to spend on health care, so let's spend it where it gets us the most.
It turns out that while I'm all over the rationing of health care, and would even happily support this strategy, there are some massive problems with it. It is tremendously easy to get suckered by Pharma's studies showing that if you just put expensive drug X in the water (or whatever), everyone will not die of Y and therefore live forever. Ignoring the fact that they will instead die of A, B, and C, possibly totaling out at more deaths faster than if you never treated anyone at all.
Yes, once again, I've bent something apparently unrelated back to my usual screed against disease definitions which spiral out of control, scare the shit out of people, and result in treatment morbidity and mortality equal to or in excess of whatever it was everyone is so terrified of. Or, don't bother being screened for cancer, but be willing to consider treatment if it becomes symptomatic.
Or, simplest of all, don't go looking for trouble.
Peter Singer doing a summary of quality adjusted life years and deciding where to spend health care dollars. He does the usual setup to show that, no, we don't _actually_ have an infinite amount of health care resources and, yes, we are engaging in de facto rationing because not everyone has equal access, and then describes quality adjusted life years as a rationing mechanism. Basically, it's sort of like cap-and-trade for health care: we only have this much money to spend on health care, so let's spend it where it gets us the most.
It turns out that while I'm all over the rationing of health care, and would even happily support this strategy, there are some massive problems with it. It is tremendously easy to get suckered by Pharma's studies showing that if you just put expensive drug X in the water (or whatever), everyone will not die of Y and therefore live forever. Ignoring the fact that they will instead die of A, B, and C, possibly totaling out at more deaths faster than if you never treated anyone at all.
Yes, once again, I've bent something apparently unrelated back to my usual screed against disease definitions which spiral out of control, scare the shit out of people, and result in treatment morbidity and mortality equal to or in excess of whatever it was everyone is so terrified of. Or, don't bother being screened for cancer, but be willing to consider treatment if it becomes symptomatic.
Or, simplest of all, don't go looking for trouble.
Boats and Bicycles
Jul. 15th, 2009 09:09 pmhttp://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSTRE56E2TE20090715
DHL in Amsterdam has a canal boat office. It travels through an outer canal ring, with bicycles doing the final leg in the center, leaving the boat at one point and meeting up with it again later on in its journey.
DHL's competitors would, apparently, like to have their own canal boat office, but have not yet received approval from the city. DHL operates similarly in Venice, and a double-decker bus in London.
It's not obvious to me that this is "news", but it was both informative and entertaining and is in their "Life" section, so fair is fair. Read the whole thing; it's a hoot.
DHL in Amsterdam has a canal boat office. It travels through an outer canal ring, with bicycles doing the final leg in the center, leaving the boat at one point and meeting up with it again later on in its journey.
DHL's competitors would, apparently, like to have their own canal boat office, but have not yet received approval from the city. DHL operates similarly in Venice, and a double-decker bus in London.
It's not obvious to me that this is "news", but it was both informative and entertaining and is in their "Life" section, so fair is fair. Read the whole thing; it's a hoot.
weird e-book coverage
Jul. 15th, 2009 10:18 pmhttp://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/books/15ebooks.html
"For now, Amazon is taking a loss on each e-book it sells because it generally pays publishers half of the hardcover list price on new releases. So publishers who delay releasing e-books run the risk of losing sales, for which they are now getting higher margins than they are on print books."
So, on the face of it, this just can't be true. If they meant "each e-book which is otherwise available only in hardcover", it might conceivably be true. But are they _really_ taking a loss on all those Harlequins they sell?
This is at least them quoting someone else being an idiot:
"Mike Shatzkin, founder and chief executive of the Idea Logical Company, a consultant to publishers on digital issues, said he did not believe e-book buyers cannibalize hardcover sales. “People who read e-books don’t buy physical books, and people who buy physical books don’t buy e-books,” he said."
Again, untrue on the face of it. Everyone I know who reads e-books also reads paper books (I'm not saying that no one reads e-books exclusively -- I just don't know them), altho not everyone I know who reads paper books reads e-books. I could quibble about the next sentence:
"E-books still represent only 1 percent to 2 percent of book sales."
on the basis of the word "only". I'm pretty sure picking up 1-2 percent of book sales over the course of the brief time the kindle has been out (and that's when the big jump happened, albeit in part because other formats became Much Cheaper) isn't something to call "only".
"while the most common price for an e-book has quickly become $9.99."
Really? Prove it. And tell me whether you're basing that on books sold or titles sold. And how you came by the data to make that assertion other than, say, pulling it out of your ass.
The article doesn't need this kind of error-laden garbage to be interesting. Discussing the trade-offs associated with when to release the e-version of a book is important and they laid out at least some of the issues. But they did miss several, because (and this is so typical) of their focus on books that are bought by a wide-range of buyers. Books bought by a smaller range of buyers (things that don't come under the heading of "general" fiction or "general" non-fiction) bring up a whole series of other interesting issues that it looks to me like at least some publishers have a great grasp on. Both fantasy and romance fiction is now running through a fine gradation of price and time points: you can get it in hardcover, then you can get it as a e-book, and then the e-book starts getting price cut, the paperback comes out, the e-book gets cheaper and cheaper, etc. Eventually (depending on which platform you are on), you may be able to buy that book and several more of a related nature/series as a "bundle" for less than a single one hardcover -- in fact, competitive with a single in paper. Baen and HQN both do this, and that's when they aren't just giving away early entries in a series for free to get you hooked on buying the new ones as they come out.
Just because the "respectable" publishers have their heads shoved so far up their asses they find it disturbing to deal with a title available at multiple price points doesn't mean the people really moving the product haven't figured this out.
"For now, Amazon is taking a loss on each e-book it sells because it generally pays publishers half of the hardcover list price on new releases. So publishers who delay releasing e-books run the risk of losing sales, for which they are now getting higher margins than they are on print books."
So, on the face of it, this just can't be true. If they meant "each e-book which is otherwise available only in hardcover", it might conceivably be true. But are they _really_ taking a loss on all those Harlequins they sell?
This is at least them quoting someone else being an idiot:
"Mike Shatzkin, founder and chief executive of the Idea Logical Company, a consultant to publishers on digital issues, said he did not believe e-book buyers cannibalize hardcover sales. “People who read e-books don’t buy physical books, and people who buy physical books don’t buy e-books,” he said."
Again, untrue on the face of it. Everyone I know who reads e-books also reads paper books (I'm not saying that no one reads e-books exclusively -- I just don't know them), altho not everyone I know who reads paper books reads e-books. I could quibble about the next sentence:
"E-books still represent only 1 percent to 2 percent of book sales."
on the basis of the word "only". I'm pretty sure picking up 1-2 percent of book sales over the course of the brief time the kindle has been out (and that's when the big jump happened, albeit in part because other formats became Much Cheaper) isn't something to call "only".
"while the most common price for an e-book has quickly become $9.99."
Really? Prove it. And tell me whether you're basing that on books sold or titles sold. And how you came by the data to make that assertion other than, say, pulling it out of your ass.
The article doesn't need this kind of error-laden garbage to be interesting. Discussing the trade-offs associated with when to release the e-version of a book is important and they laid out at least some of the issues. But they did miss several, because (and this is so typical) of their focus on books that are bought by a wide-range of buyers. Books bought by a smaller range of buyers (things that don't come under the heading of "general" fiction or "general" non-fiction) bring up a whole series of other interesting issues that it looks to me like at least some publishers have a great grasp on. Both fantasy and romance fiction is now running through a fine gradation of price and time points: you can get it in hardcover, then you can get it as a e-book, and then the e-book starts getting price cut, the paperback comes out, the e-book gets cheaper and cheaper, etc. Eventually (depending on which platform you are on), you may be able to buy that book and several more of a related nature/series as a "bundle" for less than a single one hardcover -- in fact, competitive with a single in paper. Baen and HQN both do this, and that's when they aren't just giving away early entries in a series for free to get you hooked on buying the new ones as they come out.
Just because the "respectable" publishers have their heads shoved so far up their asses they find it disturbing to deal with a title available at multiple price points doesn't mean the people really moving the product haven't figured this out.