Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Too much of my wish list is on pre-order.

I haven't read anything that's seriously impressed me lately. Blood Song was all right, especially if you like Rothfuss and other similar brick-authors, but not grand. Sharon Shinn is deeply meh.

I ought to be reading Shadow and Bone. What else?

Only marginally relatedly: The phenomenon of the uber-wealthy booking famous rock acts for their private parties is well established. How rich would you have to be to essentially buy your favorite writer? It could be a writer-in-residence type thing, especially useful for those who still have day jobs, or even just trouble paying the bills. Inspired by Catherine the Great and Diderot. S/he gets to live in your guest cottage, you get to read the new work first. Maybe you buy the author's immense collection of tabletop miniatures to subsidize the writing.

If we're going to have very rich people supporting charity or the arts, I want to see more wacky and idiosyncratic patronage schemes.