You are in a maze of twisty little passages, and your uncle killed your father

Hamlet as bad D&D

Thanx to Tor.com.

Continuity

Jo Walton on sf as ongoing dialogue

Thanx to Tor.com.

Not physically present

Of course 9-1-1 dispatchers are First Responders.

Thanx to Metafilter

Cooties

It is perfectly obvious that the Republican Party has been repeatedly flinging feces at Hillary Clinton for over 20 years, but that is what monkeys do. What is less noted is that The New York Times has been doing the same thing in its own genteel, understated, newspaper-of-record manner. Charles Pierce notes the latest example, a cutting-edge application of the Law of Contagion to make the new developments in the ongoing Anthony’s Weiner story all about Hillary’s campaign. I have to say The Post was at least amusing, headlining their story HUMA CUTS WEINER OFF.

Not *that* eldritch!

At the 2001 Worldcon, a panel discussed sf and romance, and Catherine Asaro, who writes both (sometimes at the same time) said that it’s like jazz and ballet: The jazz audience wants to see what you’ll do, and the ballet audience knows what you’ll do and wants to see if you’ll do it well.

I think that distinction applies even more to audiences than to genres. Many readers want to read a story where the good guy battles dragons or villains and wins. The good guy may of course be a good gal, and of any of the pigmentations humanity comes in, but the important thing is that the basic structure not be messed with. This strikes me as a lot of what the Sad Puppies were about before Vox Day commandeered them for his own hateful purposes. Brad Torgersen, for instance, complained that Mercedes Lackey was Not Playing Fair when she got us to identify with her protagonist, only to reveal that he was Filipino gay.

On that theme: From the File 770 lettercol, a discussion of how the Sad Puppies don’t like horror that’s too horrific.