Saturday Miscellany—9/16/23

I’m putting the “misc” in “miscellany” today. I have a shorter (but will take you hours to get through if you play out every link) and pretty varied offering. I hope you find something to scratch an itch (or create one)

Odds ‘n ends about books and reading that caught my eye this week. You’ve probably seen some/most/all of them, but just in case:
“I Can Give It Away to Whoever I Want”: Fables Creator Declares Hit Comic Series Public Domain, But DC Disagrees—I’ve tried a few times over the years to dive deeply into Fables, but laziness (and trouble finding them when I want them) have kept me from it. But still, it’s hard to miss the drama around Willingham and DC. I wonder how this will play out.
The real spiritual journey behind Tod Goldberg’s fake-rabbi desert antihero—a good profile and I really appreciate the observations and ideas expressed about Crime Fiction (paragraph 4 is quite telling, isn’t it?)
Goldberg’s brother shared the video Craig Johnson in conversation with Lee Goldberg & cast members of Longmire at Live Talks Los Angeles this week. I haven’t finished it yet, but it’s well worth your time.
The Dark Humor of Millennial Crime Capers: 30-somethings can laugh in the face of anything—including death.
Tufa Songs: Songs mentioned in and inspired by the Tufa novels.—Alec Bledsoe posted this playlist to Facebook this week to go with the first four Tufa novels being put on Kindle Unlimited—”a Tufa-themed Spotify playlist made up of songs mentioned in the books, songs that inspired the books, and songs that have the same vibe as the books.” Good reading music even if you (tragically) haven’t encountered the series yet.
dresden files.—Flipphony put this out last year, but I didn’t see it until this week–a nice little video introduction to the Dresden files (there’s also one on the First Law that I should check out)
BookForager started Counting Down to SciFiMonth 2023—and I can already tell my TBR Stack is gonna grow
The Ultimate List of 46 Fantasy Books for Beginners—Oh, wow. There’s so much to mine here.
The Creation of The Fantasy Explosion Flowchart—when is Peat Long going to put us all out of our misery and publish a giant book on Fantasy fiction so we all have a good, one-stop, reference?
The Road to 100K Via Burnout—a good piece on burnout (something I’ve flirted with more than I probably realize)
Is There a Market for “Quiet” Children’s Books?—That’s a good question (and a good answer is given). The term “Quiet Books” is new to me, but I like it.

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman—The Thursday Murder Club is back in action–who cares what it’s about?
The Ninja’s Oath by Tori Eldridge—Lily Wong heads to Japan to rescue a kidnapped girl and deals with all sorts of other issues as well.
Shadow of Hyperion by JCM Berne—Rohan gets a call to help from Earth.
Catch Her Death by Melinda Leigh—Bree Taggert’s family are in the crosshairs in this book, and Dana’s suspect #1 in a murder. Should be an eventful read.
Federation Cowboy by Joyce Reynolds-Ward—”Caroline Starshine didn’t expect to find a job when she met Jeff Tophand…Nor did she expect to find drug smugglers, a conspiracy intended to overthrow two Galactic powers and turn them into an Empire, unusual allies, a new family, and…love.”
How I Won a Nobel Prize by Julius Taranto—this novel is “about a graduate student who follows her disgraced mentor to a university that gives safe harbor to scholars of ill repute, igniting a crisis of work and a test of her conscience (and marriage)”.