God of Jades and Shadows by Silvia Moreno Garcia

God of Jades and Shadows by Silvia Moreno Garcia

Obituary:

I literally went numb when I read that Chadwick Boseman, who played, among other roles, King T’Challah in Black Panther, passed away from cancer. Boseman’s courage, grace and generosity extended far beyond his screen roles to his day to day life. He will be greatly missed, but he left us a legacy of hope.

Natural Disasters, Where to Donate:

New Orleans city government posted a number of places to donate. By the way, World Kitchen Central does wonderful work. They have been here in California too, providing meals to evacuees and firefighters.

The California Fire Foundation was founded by firefighters.

Charity Navigator provides some information about various foundations.

Giveaway:

One commenter with a USA mailing address will get a copy of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s fantasy novel, Gods of Jade and Shadow. Read our reviews to see if it’s something you’d like. (Spoiler alert: It probably is.)

Books and Writing:

What early drafts reveal about the writing process.

Oprah Magazine lists 120 Black-Owned Bookstores. There are a couple of comic book stores in the list.

Library of the Unwritten, by A.J. Hackwith, sounds interesting.

The Mary Sue has an excerpt of C.L. Polk’s newest, The Midnight Bargain.

Last Saturday was Independent Bookstore Day. Here are a few links about the day, and about bookstores. The Mary Sue names a couple, and provides the link to Bookshop.com. Bookriot offers some suggestions for celebrating the day, and bookstores. The Publishers Weekly article offers a litany of other obstacles to the celebrations; not only the pandemic, but fire and flood as well. Still, bookshops persevere. (By the way, any day can be Independent Bookstore Day for you.)

TV, Streaming and Movies:

Honest Trailers takes on The Witcher. I may have posted this before; apologies if I did. It still makes me laugh.

The New Mutants is in theatrical release—how weird it that?—and the reviews are not good. The Mary Sue collected some. In all fairness, it’s kind of hard to rate a movie that, through no fault of it, is judged against the yardstick, “Is it worth risking my life to see in a cinema?” It does sound like most of the problems are within the film, though.

Dune! Again! December, 2020, in theaters! Maybe! Empire offers up some choice covers with the stars of the latest adaptation of Frank Herbert’s a-deposed-prince-regains-his-realm story. But… seriously, no Harkonnen cover?

On the other hand, I am definitely up for a movie about Nikola Tesla!

Games:

The opening sentence of this review tells you everything you need to know—but read the rest, it’s fun.

Science and Tech:

Wind energy continues to make gains in USA energy production.

The appointment of a former One America News cable outlet newsreader and campaign worker for Ted Cruz as a spokesperson for the FDA did not work out very well. After eleven days in the position as “senior spokesperson” during which time the FDA inflated the benefits of a plasma treatment for Covid, and then walked back those exaggerated claims, Emily Miller was released from the position.

A Russian national is accused of attempting to bribe an unnamed company’s employee with $1 million to load malware into the company’s database. (It’s been confirmed the company was Tesla.)

Author

  • Marion Deeds

    Marion Deeds, with us since March, 2011, is the author of the fantasy novella ALUMINUM LEAVES. Her short fiction has appeared in the anthologies BEYOND THE STARS, THE WAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE, STRANGE CALIFORNIA, and in Podcastle, The Noyo River Review, Daily Science Fiction and Flash Fiction Online. She’s retired from 35 years in county government, and spends some of her free time volunteering at a second-hand bookstore in her home town.

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