Should we stop making link lists like this and just post some content already?

No? Alright then...

Reading Experience tells us why The God of War is "a novel that reinforces the most retrograde notions of what a 'serious' novel should be like, leaves one lamenting not just the persistence of the kind of formulaic 'literary fiction' this novel represents, but also the inability of so many critics to evaluate this fiction in other than the most vapid, critically submissive terms."

This article kind of makes me want to buy a Sony Reader.

I do not, however, want to buy the Readius pocket eReader. Not that it doesn't look cool, but according to an article in the NY Times, "The price is not yet set, but Thomas van der Zijden, vice president for marketing and sales, said the Readius would be more expensive than the Kindle, which now is selling for $359."

I'm sorry, these ebook readers are much too expensive. The first person to get one down to $150 is going to make a bundle. How much can those eInk displays cost to produce, anyway?

How not to run an on-line magazine (or just about anything).

Finally! The truth about literary criticism!

This interview with Alan Moore is worth reading, if only for this anecdote:

I was turning 40 and thinking, Oh dear, I'm probably going to have one of those midlife crisis things which always just bore the hell out of everybody. So it would probably be better if, rather than just having a midlife crisis, I just went completely screaming mad and declared myself to be a magician. That would, at least, be more colorful. So, I announced, on the night of my 40th birthday party — probably after more beers than I should have had — that, ''from this point on, I'm going to become a magician.'' And then the next morning you have to think, Oh, what have I said now? Are we going to have to go through with this? So I had to go about finding out what a magician was and what they did.

Bonus, here's Dave Gibbons talking about Alan Moore, Watchmen and the Watchmen film.

Is Tor's new blog not that big a deal? Scroll down to comments if you want to see a lot of discussion and vitriol.

You know, I wrote "SF" in an email to a friend of mine and he became very confused because he thought I was talking about San Fransisco. Another example of genre labels being annoying. Not a link, just an aside.

But then, "Science fiction and fantasy are particularly derivative genres. It’s very hard to get away with anything original in either without people challenging its right to be included among the ossified pantheon of Heinlein and Robert Jordan.". Is this still true? Is it less true than it used to be? Perhaps more true?

This review has made me want to read Chabon's new collection Maps and Legends, which I was going to pass on. Just goes to show why reviews are a good thing.

On that subject, here's an interview with Chabon about genre.

Scalzi points us to an article (in Spanish) about the state of Science Fiction in Spain.

Speaking of Spanish, ever wondered why México is spelled with an "x" and not "j" like it's pronounced (in Spanish)? This article (in Spanish) explains it all. (Nothing to do with anything, not in English, don't care.)

Why Philip Roth still rules, having a grand time putting on those who take his work too seriously.

ReGenesis is on Hulu! Hooray! Here's an example of a show that was too good for it's own good. It was a little Canadian thing buried on some cable station and then it became popular, so what happens? It gets bought out by an American studio who cancels it so that they can remake it in America, for the networks, with a whole new cast. Which is another in an endless set of examples of how TV and film can eagerly trample all over a good thing.

And lastly, Michael Ross explains exactly why oil wealth is so bad for third world countries.