This week! In the books!
It’s been a while since we’ve done a good ole link roundup, but I saw quite a few good links this week and I plan to share them with you herewith. As ever, if you see a link you think people would like, feel free to drop me a line at nathan@nathanbransford.com or tweet at me @nathanbransford.
Their watch has ended. Yes, after eight years of thrills, chills, and gratuitous nudity, Game of Thrones has come to an end. Sort of. Half of the Internet’s #content was GoT-related last week, whether it was fans sharing their MANY THOUGHTS DEAR GOD WE HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS or non-fans humblebragging that they don’t watch the show, but there were two articles in particular that caught my eye.
One, by Zeynep Tufekci in Scientific American, talked about how the show faltered as it switched from sociological to psychological storytelling. And the other, by Amy Davidson Sorkin in The New Yorker, was disappointed by the failure to capture the electoral politics that surely would have emerged as the houses of Westeros banded together to pick a leader.
And the memes. Lord have mercy the memes! Gotta go with this one as my favorite, but please do share your favorites in the comments:
In actual books news, literary agent Tracy Marchini gave an inside look into how she successfully pitched a picture book submission.
I loved this interview with mega-bestseller V.E. Schwab on her writing and publishing journey and think this quote needs to be broadcasted far and wide because it’s just so true:
J.A. Konrath’s blog is back, and he talked about how researching his new novel led him to interesting places in the gun control debate.
Writing can be cathartic. But also, as Austin Kleon writes, you also don’t have to write about the bad stuff.
In industry news, Penguin Random House is acquiring a 45% stake in independent publisher Sourcebooks.
Gotham Ghostwriters announced that they are launching a creative writing service to help authors who want to write novels.
And some non-books links that caught my eye. I loved this re-examination of the “JailBlazer” basketball team, scientists can’t rule out that there was an advanced lizard civilization at some point in the distant past, and this personal essay by Jia Tolentino on her journey with religion is so so beautiful.
I’ve been going back and updating/refreshing some of my old blog posts, including:
This week in the Forums: How do you choose your novel’s perspective?
Comment! Of! The! Week! I loved hearing your thoughts on the Game of Thrones finale, but have to go with Audrey for her articulation of some of the challenges of the final seasons:
And I think for me the WORST part was the loss of potential. If they’d just stuck with their own rules and pacing, then all of these twists could have been amazing! If given space to breathe, things like Dany’s slide into madness (or cruelty) and the Night King’s existential threat and Bran’s weirdo powers could have been fascinating. I WANTED them to be fascinating. I was 100% ready to buy into all of it at the beginning. But then, time and time again, something would happen and I would be like “that’s not right” or “why did they do that” or “hey, shouldn’t that trip have taken months” to the point where, by the final episode, I was numb and didn’t care what happened to the characters who (to me) had become mere plot-puppets in a world pretzled into shape around them. I went into the final episode with clinical curiosity rather than real heart, just wanting it to be over. Which is a terrible way to say goodbye to a show I’ve loved for so many years.
And finally, one last piece of GoT content of course. This fan video comprised of one second from every episode was pretty awesome:
Have a great weekend!
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So THAT”S what the back of Eilean Donan looks like! I wonder how many people will recognize it with the famous causeway/bridge not visible.
A big ‘AMEN!” to Victoria Schwab.
And congratulations to Audrey re Comment of the Week. I must check out this Games Of Thrones thing…