Marshal Zeringue has several blogs, and one of them is the “Page 69 Test.” The premise is this; would a reader, opening a book at random and reading page 69, have an understanding of what the book’s about? Interesting test! Here’s a recent column.
File 770 offers an excerpt from Tear Down the Throne by Jennifer Estep.
J.D. Evans’s Reign and Ruin is the winner of the Seventh Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off , in what I’d describe as a photo finish (just one-tenth of a point ahead of the runner-up).
ChiCon 8 has updated its membership numbers.
Nerds of a Feather reviewed Holly Black’s latest, Book of Night.
CNN Style provides a photo roundup from Monday’s Met Gala event. This year’s theme was “The Gilded Age, an Anthology of Fashion,” and as you will see, stars were faithful to the styles of the 1880s-1910s. Hah! Just kidding—no, they weren’t.
Here’s a ten year old article from Nature about SFF’s “Radium Age.”
Game development company Bungie has failed in its copyright infringement case against Aimjunkies, a “game cheat” site. Among other things, the judge states that while Bungie alleges copyright infringement, they provided no substantive evidence.
Tomorrow is May fifth, also known as Cinco de Mayo, so here is a video on how to make a perfect margarita from a woman in Australia. And I don’t think the orange liqueur really “rested in battle.”
Atlas Obscura is now offering puzzles on Mondays, starting with this one.
Gizmodo reviewed Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. Warning, this review contains a big spoiler.
I can’t remember who it was–I think either Dorothy Heydt or Evelyn Leeper–who talked about her page 117 test on usenet’s rec.arts.sf.written. Like the page 69 test, you read a page in the book and if you’re intrigued, think about buying/checking out the book. That gets you past the first chapter which is often the most-reworked and polished chapter in the book.
Now if I don’t know an author, I usually get a sample first because I’m using BigRiver.
I think this IS really good for seeing the quality of the prose/ characterization, etc, deeper into the book.
I hadn’t heard of BigRiver before.