EVERDEEN: My father gave me the book as a gift. When I was young, my dad would buy me these really nice hardcover classics as gifts, and I always felt really regal about it, like it was a tome and I was going to become so much smarter. I loved this book immediately. I’ve always been a big fantasy reader, but this was one of the first books I'd read that had such a relatable…
Nicole Chung: In your Author’s Note at the end of Carry On, you wrote that after creating Simon and Baz and telling some of their story in Fangirl, you just weren’t ready to let go of them. Why did these two characters mean so much to you, and were you at all surprised to find yourself continuing their story? Rainbow Rowell: I think I felt like I’d created these characters and this whole world, but…
There’s no running from worldbuilding anymore. A tidbit of information about The Hunger Games films or "Game of Thrones" leaks, provoking fans and news outlets alike into a frenzy. Entire wikis are meticulously curated for each series, every line and scene analyzed for maximum informative potential. The ability to craft an expansive fictional sandbox for readers to immerse themselves in has become as important as plot lines or characters in determining the enduring popularity…
What happens when you revisit the woefully misremembered science fiction of your youth? Joe Howley (Latin teacher) and Johannah King-Slutzky (internet wraith) ask adults to re-read their genre favorites from childhood. For the fourth installment in our series, we talked to bona fide adult Rahawa Haile, an Eritrean-American short story writer with a day job in the title insurance industry. We spoke with Rahawa via Gchat about how Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination…
Previously in this series: If Natalie Dormer Were Your Girlfriend
1. If Sarah Polley were your girlfriend, she wouldn’t be annoyed if you showed up to the Toronto International Film Festival with cat hair on your carefully pressed shirt. She’d lean into you during screenings and you’d smell her hair and sigh.
2. If Sarah Polley were your girlfriend, she'd hold your hand at anti-austerity protests and share your
A follow-up question to yesterday's post about alternate worlds with sentient animals: is the Redwall universe coterminous with our own? That is to say, do humans exist somewhere near Mossflower County? Are the scattered animal strongholds of Salamandastron and Redwall Abbey more like the Shire in Middle-Earth, which is populated exclusively by non-humans but perfectly aware of the existence of humans, or are they more like The Wind in the Willows, where humans have been entirely replaced by…
Watching Game of Thrones is an interesting undertaking if you're a woman who likes women. One the one hand: hey, a fantasy series with lots of distinct female characters who are, on the whole, about as developed as you’re likely to get in a mainstream franchise set in a world that draws a significant amount of inspiration from ye olde chattel days. On the other hand: seven hells, does a lot of woman-hating happen on…
The ruins of the Tormented Necropolis were charred and smoking. The limp, motionless bodies of the Quicksilver Companions littered the landscape, bristling with arrows, many of which were being methodically and efficiently removed by the Night Dwarves. Each arrow gave up its place in their flesh reluctantly with a loud thunk.
Previously: A Canticle for Leibowitz. Peter Beagle is one of my absolutely favorite writers, so I was fairly surprised last year when I realized I'd never even heard of his first novel, A Fine and Private Place (which he wrote when he was nineteen. What were you doing when you were nineteen? I remember what I was doing, and it wasn't writing beautiful novels). The title comes from Andrew Marvell's To His Coy Mistress: "The grave's a fine and…
