Saturday Miscellany – 11/7/15

Odds ‘n ends over the week about books and reading that caught my eye. You’ve probably seen some/most/all of them, but just in case:

• How DeLillo Nailed Us in ‘White Noise’ — Man…I need to re-read this novel. My first blog was called “White Noise” because of this book, and it’s been far too long since I’ve let it nail me.
• Literature vs. Genre – Seconds out (Part 1) — Mike Carey — a heckuva UF/Horror/Comic writer — writes a pretty good piece on this recurring theme. I particularly appreciate the line (as apparently the editors did, as they used it as a pull quote), “One thing you tend to notice after a while, though: it’s almost never writers of genre fiction who are picking the fight.” Killer last paragraph, too.
• The Guardian ran a nice Q & A with Nick Hornby this week. He was also on The Nerdist Podcast today, the first 20 minutes have been fun, looking forward to getting to hear the rest.
• TIME magazine had a little tidbit from George R. R. Martin on the ending to Game of Thrones.
• Rick Riordan dropped some news last week.
• The Case of the Missing ‘Encyclopedia Brown’ Movie — not only an interesting piece about the past and future of filmed adaptations, history of the series (that meant so much to me as a kid) I was unaware of.

This Week’s New Releases I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
• The Crossing by Michael Connelly — I’ve tried really hard not to learn anything about this book featuring Harry Bosch and Mickey Haller, but what little has slipped past my defenses has: A. ruined a bit of The Burning Room, which I hope to get to next week; and B. whet my appetite for this one.
• Made to Kill by Adam Christopher — I don’t know if I can read this without constant comparisons to A. Lee Martinez‘s The Automatic Detective, but it’d probably be worth a shot.
• The Builders by Daniel Polansky — Anthropomorphic animals in a dystopian-looking world. Myke Cole‘s blurb seals it for me: “Nobody does dark like Polansky. The Builders is Redwall meets Unforgiven, combining the endearing wit of Disney’s Robin Hood with all the grit and violence of a spaghetti western.”
• The Ark: Children of a Dead Earth Book One by Patrick S. Tomlinson — S.F. P.I. novel in a great setting.
• Black Wolves by Kate Elliott — a fantasy world going through cultural/religious/etc. changes. She wrote a Big Idea on Whatever for this.
• Mystic by Jason Denzel — a great-looking epic fantasy that’s not that epic. There’s a Big Idea for this, too.

Lastly, I’d like to say hi and welcome to Wizard for following the blog this week, and to Obsidian Blue and Marjorie for following the Booklikes version.