I just got a nice surprise, when I noticed that Rites of Passage had gotten a five star review at Amazon.com. I checked the listing for a totally unrelated reason and saw it was there.
And when you google “Buhlert”, my site is now the second result after the bunker that shares my last name. The third result is my Amazon author page. Meanwhile, my cousin the politician and a totally unrelated musician named Klaus Buhlert have both been relegated to the third page of the Google results. It’s probably odd that I have no issues being topped by a bunker, but that I would be upset if I was topped by my cousin or an unrelated musician.
And now for some links:
At the Book View Café, Ursula K. LeGuin has a great post about literary awards and “best of” lists and why she doesn’t much care for them.
There’s an interesting discussion about the lack of racial, ethnic and cultural diversity in contemporary romance at All About Romance. I agree with the poster that paranormal romance and urban fantasy are more diverse with regards to both writers and characters. However, historical romance, which the poster seems to prefer is even less diverse and more monocultural than contemporary romance, because historical romance is ninety percent white English Regency lords and ladies, five percent Scottish highlanders and the women (inevitably white) who love them and maybe five percent everything else.
In the Washington Post, writer R.D. Rosen, who is writing a biography of Cheeta, the famous chimp from the Tarzan movies, tackles the mystery surrounding Cheeta, whether he is really still alive (though one alleged Cheeta died a few days ago), whether Cheeta was always the same chimp and whether he really did everything he supposedly did. Found via Jay Lake.
The verdict is that the two alleged Cheetas are almost certainly frauds and never appeared in the Johnny Weissmüller films. But the story of Cheeta, last survivor of the Weissmüller Tarzan films, is a lovely bit of modern Hollywood mythology. It’s one of those Hollywood stories that almost certainly aren’t true (just like the one about Richard Gere and the gerbil – or was it a hamster?), but wouldn’t it be damned cool if they were?
This post by Ilona Andrews about the controversy of reader ebook price entitlement might be a good addition to your linkpost as well
http://www.ilona-andrews.com/2011/12/28/the-complaint-department/
Oh and Laura Anne Gilman just posted her last bit of weekly writerly advice at BVC
http://blog.bookviewcafe.com/2011/12/30/practical-meerkat%e2%80%99s-52-bits-of-useful-info-for-young-and-old-writers-week-52/
For the record, I always preferred Daktari’s Judy (and Clarence) to Cheetah ^^
Thanks for the link. That’s the best response I’ve yet seen to the Scalzi versus Dear Author grudematch. I put it in today’s post.
I was very fond of Judy and Clarence as well (for the longest time I thought that the MGM lion was Clarence). And of course, Lassie and Skippy the bush kangaroo from the Australian TV show and Charlie, the chimp who still pops up on German TV now and then. Come to think of it, there were a lot of great TV and film animals.