Book-publishing mega-corps getting on your nerves? They’re changing. Some are selling to European companies: “Publishing, alas for all the authors among us, is a small business in the scheme of things.” And the number-crunching for 2005 says that kid’s books and YA are still the hot thing.
Laura Barrett’s Robot Ponies is a haunting song with lyrics that would make Philip K. Dick swoon: “They feed on plastic bags, cut up like lettuce right out of your hand…” Click play to hear it.
Clive Thompson writes up 6 indie games, all free (my fav: RSVP), saying “If you really want to see innovation, there’s only one place to go: Off the grid.” Peter Butler lists the 10 best free games at Download.com (my pick is Mono). Also making the rounds: the […]
“Google Robots are our human-like machines that walk the earth to record information. They do no harm, and they do not invade your privacy.” This satiric FAQ from 2030 nails the GoogleTone: reassuring, occasionally witty, and not above the occasional exclamation mark.
Joe Haldeman on Syriana: “I saw it as a kind of modern interpretation of the James Bond film… I don’t think the viewer is supposed to totally understand it, either; you sort of absorb it.”
Orson Scott Card’s alternate history of the American frontier, Red Prophet, is soon a graphic novel (preview at Newsarama): “We felt that a book set in history like Red Prophet should have a ‘Great Illustrated Classics’ kind of feel to it.”
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The Cultural Gutter 