a barn's ignoble heads

A couple of days ago, I went to the local Barnes & Noble to see if they had an SF book I was looking for. They did. I then decided to look at the F/SF section's two shelf units displaying new hardovers and trade paperbacks. And discovered that it's now down to one single shelf unit and it shows only hardovers. From now on, if you're looking for new trade paperbacks, and you don't already know what's new, tough. I asked a salesperson about the change and, as I expected, the decision had been made by the headquarter's idiots. She didn't call them idiots. I did, but she appeared as impressed as I was over the imbecility of people who make decisions and who cares about the people who are out there who know the business? Who cares if the writers of paperbacks and trade paperbacks who provide most of the store's 'content' can't make a living because people don't know about them?

from the days when they didn't yet call it that

A couple of days ago, I started reading Harry Harrison's "A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!", a recently reprinted novel from 1972. It's an alternate History of that year, in which England begins the Grand Project of building a tunnel between Europe and America, and its engineer is a descendant of George Washington who's had to live with the shame of his ancestor's role in the crushed Rebellion. This basically is a steampunk novel, except that it'd be about 15 years before KW Jeter would come up with that word. The beginning takes a less fanciful approach to worldbuilding than current steampunk stories do. Halfway thru though, I began getting the uncomfortable feeling that the author was making things up as he went and consistency be damned. I could handle the idea of a steampowered locomotive with a primitive atomic engine as its heat source, but we then went from an airship that was cutting-edge technology to hovercrafts and helicopters. That's when my suspension of disbelief broke. I guess I'll skip the rest of the book. So it goes.

Tinkerbell with a gun

"Somebody's got to stop Tinkerbell from shooting everyone."
- Burn Notice's Sam about Fiona, Michael's significant other