At The Guardian, Emma Brockes rants about the flood of Fifty Shades of Grey knock-offs. Personally, I don’t mind the Fifty Shades style covers at all. At least they look classy, which is a big step up considering what erotic romance and straight erotica covers used to look like (and often still look like). Though I’m really sick of the glut of billionaire BDSM erotica that is flooding bookstore tables everywhere, since I don’t find the scenario the least bit appealing.
While on the subject of book covers, the Cover Café has posted the results of this year’s contest for the best holiday romance cover. My comments are quoted, though my choice landed in second to last place. But then I know that my tastes are out of touch with those of the majority of romance readers. And indeed my favourite Christmas romance cover this year is this very understated cover for the YA holiday romance anthology Let it snow.
YA fantasy writer Susan Kaye Quinn has a good post on the differences between productivity and production capacity and why it is as important to feed the muse as just getting the words down.
The Guardian reports that Peter Parker will be switching bodies with the dying Doctor Octopus in the final issue of The Amazing Spider-Man, whereupon Peter Parker’s mind will die in Doctor Octopus’ body, leaving Doctor Octopus as Spider-Man. It’s comics, so nothing is really irreversible (plus Spider-Man is the series that cancelled its main characters marriage after almost twenty years in real time and killed off Peter Parker in the “doesn’t quite count” Ultimate universe), but looks like Marvel is jumping the shark – again.
There have been a bunch of notable deaths in the real world, too. Actor Jack Klugman, best known to generations (because the show is always being rerun somewhere) for playing the grouchy medical examiner in Quincy ME, died on Christmas Eve aged 90. Without Quincy and Jack Klugman’s portrayal of him making forensic pathology cool, we would probably never have had the various CSIs, Silent Witness, Crossing Jordan, Body of Proof, Bones, The Body Farm and any of the many other TV shows about forensics experts. British TV producer Gerry Anderson, the creator of beloved shows such as Thunderbirds, Supercar, Stingray, Space 1999 and UFO died on Boxing Day aged 83. And German born NASA engineer Jesco von Puttkamer died aged 79.
The Golden Globe nominations were announced some time ago. I don’t really have anything to say about this, because I haven’t seen any of the nominated films or TV shows nor am I likely to see them, because nothing there interests me. I guess I’m vastly out of touch with the current tastes of American audiences. Well, there’s nothing new there. Though am I the only one who finds it depressing that Kathryn Bigelow has gone from director who made interesting films like Point Break or Strange Days to filmic chronicler of the Afghanistan/Iraq/War on Terror?
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