One of the more oddball Greek myths I am fascinated with is that of Zeus and Ganymede. It’s NSFW so buckle up, and like most Greek myths, differs according to who tells it. Basically, Ganymede was a comely youth who caught the eye of Zeus so Zeus kidnapped him in the form of an eagle, …
American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang First Second Books, 2006 American Born Chinese is a graphic novel about the experience of Asian Americans trying to come to terms with their heritage in mainstream American society. It was published in 2006, so it’s a few years short of its much-deserved twentieth anniversary –- it’s still …
Pretty much all fantasy writers are familiar with Greek myths, or they should be: they’re one of the unfailing constants of Western Culture. The Iliad, which told of the fall of Troy (and the Trojan horse.) The Odyssey, about the hero Odysseus’s epic journey to find his way home. Theseus and the Minotaur, Icarus who …
A Tale of Two Castles by Gail Carson Levine Harper Collins, 2011 The past year has seen a resurgence in cozy fantasy. In this subgenre the characters are genial, the stakes low. It’s slice-of-life, not slice-of-death, and centers on community and friendship. It’s been led by the runaway success of the self-published Legends & Lattes …
I dream about a certain bookstore/library sometimes. It’s not one I’ve seen in real life, but a combination of all the ones I’ve ever known. It always has the kind of books I am interested in: fantasy and science fiction, art and design, sociology and science and history and all the weird ways these intersect. …
If you’ve read my posts on AI versions of Narnia’s White Witch, Green Witch, and Queen Jadis of Charn, you’ll know I have a fascination with exotic costumes. I blame this on watching the Sonny and Cher Show in the early 1970s. (Some of my grade school designs for Cher would have put present day …
Recently on the Midjourney Reddit users have been posting the pics generated by using a prompt of their Reddit usernames, so I tried the same. Granted I have a leg up because it’s so descriptive and concrete. Using just Cobalt Jade, we get some kind of attractive mineral or gemstone formation. Neat! Cobalt Jade + …
The letter F is full of energy. It’s fiery, furious, florid, fuming fun. It’s also very earthy. Take flora and fauna, fungi, fornication, fucking. It’s the naughtiest of letters and the most disreputable. To name a character with an F is to make the reader look and think twice, like with this list. (To soften …
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