Saturday Miscellany—5/2/20

Hey, it’s Saturday. Which looks a lot like every other day lately, but I’m sitting at a different computer than I was yesterday at this time. And I’m not typing nearly as quickly. How’re you all doing?

that caught my eye this week. You’ve probably seen some/most/all of them, but just in case:
           Independent Bookstores Get Creative to Survive the Long Lockdown: A business that relied on walk-ins and impulse buys has to find new ways to connect with customers.
           Coronavirus: Library books rearranged in size order by cleaner—The strangest COVID-19 symptom yet. (Hat Tip: Mike Finn)
           Fiction, fact and crows: How I wrote a zombie pandemic heist novel—Russell Day talks about the writing of his new novel, King of the Crows, and its strange publication context.
           One Man Audiobook Drops in a Few Weeks—Harry Connolly comes to audio! One Man soon, and the Twenty Palaces novels soon after. Hopefully this helps a lot more people discover the work (and helps me decide how to use Libro.fm credits for the next few months)
           SFF World Tour—Spells and Spaceships launched a series this week promoting “Science Fiction and Fantasy inspired by, set in and written by authors from every continent.” Cool series.
           Welcome to Wyrd and Wonder—a month-long celebration of Fantasy fiction kicked off yesterday. I’d hoped to come up with a few things to contribute, but…Reality has set in and that’s just not going to happen. Check out this great-looking set of posts instead.
           Why Read Fiction? 4 Common Reasons (and a New Rating System)—Blacksail Books wades into the choppy waters around rating/evaluating books with an interesting angle.
           Does My Mood Affect My Ratings?—Obviously, the answer is a yes—but how many of us take the time to reflect on it?
           How to Listen to Audiobooks!—a handy guide to diving into the medium (something I could’ve used a few years ago, turns out that I stumbled my way into a lot of these ideas on my own, would’ve been nice to avoid the stumbling though.)
           Pacing: What’s Good, Bad, and in Between—I didn’t mean to grab 2 Blacksail posts in one list, but I had to share this one, too. Good thoughts on pacing—and citing Sepinwall on Breaking Bad‘s “Fly” is a nice bit of icing on the cake.

That I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
           King Of The Crows by Russell Day—I’m only 1/4 through with this, but I’m already stressing about how I’m going to possibly talk about it (thankfully, I’m not alone). But the essence will be: BUY THIS NOW. Don’t care how long your TBR is, make it your next read…click the link there, read the Day piece above. I’m really excited about this thing, and will probably talk about it a lot this year.
           Critical Point by S. L. Huang—Cas Russell deals with the fallout from Null Set‘s revelations and tries to save a friend. This should be a blast.
           Of Honey and Wildfires by Sarah Chorn—a fantasy set in a Wild West-esque world, about family, love, loss and a magic that’s mined. I talked about it a bit earlier this week.
           Firefly – The Ghost Machine by James Lovegrove—hard to believe, but a run for Badger goes very, very wrong. River plays a significant role in this one, so it has to be good.

I’d like to say hi and extend a warm welcome tojyvurentropy and Om Prakash Khare for following the blog this week. Don’t be a stranger, and use that comment box, would you?