Quick five thoughts here tonight...

1) Check out L Chan's To Build a Bridge Out of Song which is one of the better short stories I've read recently, with a really enthralling setting that I hope he's made use out of elsewhere.

2) It's not often to see out genre get some mainstream media attention, so it was nice to see this on the Guardian website - a top 10 roundup.

3) BBC America decided to release images from their adaption of Pratchett's City Watch. I use the word adaption for want of a better one; even after keeping up with the news, it was still like being told you're getting beer and instead getting a glass of water with some grain and hops on a plate next to it. I'm going to avoid giving into nerd rage here today, but I struggle to think of a Fantasy TV series that has made more of an attempt to alienate its pre-existing audience, and by now I'm happy to be alienated.

4) Seems everything's about new reader recs these days! After seeing the FF Facebook list (which caused us some puzzlement on the FF forum), it got me thinking about other ways to get more accurate recommendations. One idea I like is if you thought up a bunch of metrics on stuff that's important to readers - Type of Action, Scale, Setting, Grim or Not, Diversity, that sort of thing - then gave a value to each. So, say, Daggerspell would be Action/Magic/Drama, Kingdom sized over multiple centuries, Pseudo-Feudal Celtic, Kinda Grim, White with Prominent Ladies. And people could look at that and go "Eww" or "Cool" or "Hmm". I might start playing with the idea in future reviews

5) It's funny how as life goes we change as readers. And by funny I mean completely normal and not really that interesting to most people other than yourself (just like this blog boom boom), but it shakes you a little when you recognise it. I picked up some of Conn Iggulden's Ghengis Khan books and found myself a bit bleh'ed out by the general distance of the narrative tone. I'd have found it totally normal as a kid.