Jared Shurin's Blog, page 34

Stark Reviews: Ride in the Whirlwind (1965)

Stark says: Obliged.

Monte Hellmans Westerns are a strange breed. For one thing, its hard to talk about one without talking about the other. The Shooting and Ride in the Whirlwind were shot back to back, after the films financier reckoned that, if youre making one film, why the hell not make two? And while both are considered to be prime examples of revisionist, acid Westerns, theyre also very different films. As a Western, The Shooting, written by Carole Eastman, is female-led, abstract, u...

Alex Marshall on "Like a Bosch"

This past spring a humble museum in a small Dutch city mounted the largest Hieronymus Bosch exhibition in history. Along with nearly half a million other acolytes, I made the pilgrimage to s-Hertogenbosch, birthplace of the father of monsters. My way was snared with perils (I neglected to book tickets far enough in advance) but Providence cleared my path (the museum extended their hours, so I flew back to the Netherlands), and in the end I was given the keys to a garden of earthly delights (j...

SPFBO2: The First 24 Reviews!

I've finished my first passfor the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off!

I've read 3 chapters and/or 20% (whichever comeslast) of 30 self-published books. I've picked six of those books for further reading and proper reviews. One of those will then go on to the FINAL ROUND in the BLOGGERDOME. It'll be awesome.

Below, you'll find a quick introduction, a not-so-quick spiel about reviewing self-published books and 24 short reviews.

Caution - this post isloooong.

A quick introduction

In 1921 - this h...

Breaking the Glass Slipper on "Writing Characters of the Opposite Gender"

As humans living in the twenty-first century, Id like to think weve come a long way towards achieving equality between the sexes and rejecting established notions of gender. But is it far enough? After all, were still having these debates, highlighting prejudice, challenging ourselves to think outside the box. If gender equality truly existed, thered be no need to stage this conversation.

In fiction, men write women and women write men on a regular basis, some more or less successfully. Both...

The Wnids of Wniter, Long Content, and Hatsune Miku

The Winds of Wniterr

Automated Fanfic generator!If you're tired of waitingforThe Winds of Winter, here's my algorithmically generated conclusion:

Tyrion felt really dperessed one day. She had been slitting her wrists even more then normal. She had just found out that she was adopted. Her real parents turned out to be nobels from Europe. They had a upper class tower and were mighty richt! But she had none of that richness around. It made her feel pretty bad about herself so she listened to...

DGLA Nominations & Predictions

DGLA season has begun! Woohoo!

The nominations are out, butthey are not complete. Try to resist the urge to vote until after 27 May, as the DGLA have said they're still taking (and adding) crowd-sourced nominations until that date. Those folks will be at a pretty substantial disadvantage already. When you are ready, vote here.

The (current) nominees list and my predictions below.

Legend

Half a War by Joe Abercrombie Twelve Kings by Bradley Beaulieu The Skull Throne by Peter V. Brett The Dark...

Friday Five: 5 Old English Superstitions about May

April may be the cruellest month, but May is the one that has traditionally been given a bad press.

Perhaps it suits the English temperament to look around at spring-time - the rebirth and fresh growth of the lush green land, with rough winds shaking the darling buds - and come up with a list of possible unfortunate happenings that might ruin everything. Or perhaps there's good advice lurking somewhere beneath the surface; I leave it you to decide. So here are five superstitions about May, fo...

Will Eisner and Three Visions of New York

New York, New York.

Is there any city that has featured in as many stories, songs and films? Ok, maybe Paris, but ignoring that - definitely New York. The representations of New York are as varied as its famously melting-pot population, but there are threads and themes that connect them.

Will Eisners New York; Life In The Big City is a classic collection of vignettes and short pieces about New York, published between 1981 and 2000. It is perhaps the most famous graphic text dealing with the c...

Blogging, Bookselling, Writing: Everything is Weird

Problem Glyph by Eliza Gauger

Writering

I cannotstand writing about writing ( 'writering', naturally). Meg Fureyagrees:

Melvilles Moby-Dick contains hundreds of dull-ass, dryly written pages on ship parts, whale books and the minutiae of whaling. When I come upon an essay about a writer writing about writing on Medium, I abandon ship faster than I should have Moby-Dick. Why? Because there are other writers to read. Writing is a matter of doing and Id rather read the writers who explore thi...

The Young Elites by Marie Lu

After years of chewing over it and thousands of words of inconclusive blog posts, I still have very little idea where the division is between 'YA' fantasy and 'epic' fantasy (interesting - heated - discussion on this very point over atr/fantasy).

I mean, physically, it is generally around 15-20 feet - depending on the size of the bookstore. But as overarching, sub-genre distinctive themes? I got nothing.

Marie Lu's The Young Elites (2014) further muddies these opaque waters.The Young Elites i...