Sidetracks - July 14, 2014

[helloladies]

Sidetracks is a collaborative project featuring various essays, videos, reviews, or other Internet content that we want to share with each other. All past and current links for the Sidetracks project can be found in our Sidetracks tag.

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➝ I had a complicated reaction to The Other Half of the Sky, but in the end I found lots of stories I loved. I'm really excited there's going to be a successor, To Shape the Dark. Really great news!

➝ And then Seanan talked about fanfic some more.

➝ Yay, more best of lists for the half-year! The first half of 2014 has been a bit meh for me on the original fiction side, but it's fun to live vicariously through others!

• Books I Enjoyed Most Thus Far in 2014 - First Half Six-Pack Plus 2 Shots
• MIND MELD: Our Favorite Science Fiction and Fantasy of 2014 (So Far)
• Halfway There: The Best of 2014 To Date
• Short Fiction Recs: 2014 So Far (I'm proud of myself because I've read "Autodidact" already!)
• Statistics + My Favorite Books So Far (2014)

➝ How to train your internal editor by Mary Robinette Kowal. Excellent advice!

➝ Lupita Nyong'o Braids Hair. I love this video. It's so affectionate and insightful. I love this woman; how does a hair braiding video make me cry? I'm such a meatball.

➝ First actor cast for The Expanse! I have no clue who he is! I'm super excited to hate this dude for the first season.

➝ VIDEO: An Interview with Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, Authors of the New EXPANSE Novel, CIBOLA BURN. A few things about this video:

• "I replace all that with explosions." OKAY SO NOW I KNOW THAT TY FRANCK AND I ARE EXPLOSION SOULMATES. Explosions! *\o/*
• "I never let facts get in the way of awesome."
• THEIR FRIENDS TOLD THEM NOT TO WRITE IT???? I'M DYING. THEY'RE ALL FIRED.
• I want to know who argued that plot got in the way of good science fiction. WHO WAS THIS? This is worse than subtweeting, Daniel Abraham! THIS WAS EVIL.
• Their version of romance is a coffeeshop AU. Beautiful.

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➝ Jezebel says we should enjoy Hugh Jackman's ass 'for the sake of equality.' I just do what the internet tells me to do.

➝ I have some much more serious links coming up, so I suggest you fortify yourself with this cool Maleficent cupcake.

➝ And maybe this "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" fanvid "Five Colours". *Sigh* I really wish I knew how to see MLP if you live in the UK.

➝ "Narrative of Fragments" discusses the rise of the lyric essay in an age of fragmented experience. I think I'm going to have to read this several times to get all of its meaning, but I thought it offered several interesting points that went beyond 'Those kids today with their devices *shakes fist*'. I liked the idea that novels can offer truth because they're somehow less perfect than a carefully curated, fragmented essay but I'm a big fan of lyric essays too.

➝ Brian McClellan, one of Orbit's authors has written "The Cost of a Good Book" as a response to Hugh Howey's attack on Hatchette. My takeaway — the cost of publishing a book in any form is kind of staggering.

➝ A useful post clearly explaining what you can and can't buy with food stamps in America (the clue is in the name). A retail worker has also added commentary to explain that you're even restricted to particular kinds of food and explains how cashier systems prevent you from buying anything but food. This is the one to aggressively forward to anyone who pulls out that 'people on benefits are robbing us all' crap.

➝ Better Supes is a Tumblr where people submit drawings of superheroes based on superhero costumes little girls create. The only thing that could make this better is if people wrote comment fic for these drawings.

➝ Allow me a quick bit of self-promotion. I'm over at Shiny New Books this month reviewing "We Were Liars" by E. Lockhart. Spoilers — I liked it.

➝ Raven Cycle Readathon! I 100% encourage you to get involved.

➝ Pemberley Digital's next project will be a gender bent version of Frankenstein. I kind of drop in and out of watching "Emma" (I like it but can never remember when it's on even though I'm signed up to the Twitter feed) but I'm really excited about this new development.

➝ Finishing up with Foz Meadows amazing "Welcome to Supernatural, the straightest of straight shows with absolutely no homoerotic subtext whatsoev—" The Winchesters get harder to resist each day.