Voicemail: a comment on writing with dyslexia leads to a discussion on tools for helping writers on their draft read-throughs.
Interview: Matt Wallace, award-winning writer for Variant Frequencies joins Michael, Summer and Michael to talk about his first print foray, a short story collection titled "The Next Fix" coming out from Apex Publishing in March.
Matt also talks about his upcoming work at Stranger Things, projects possibly being turned into film, and more.
The Library: This time around: Whitechapel Gods by S. M. Peters; tpb release of Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay; A Rush of Wings by Adrian Phoenix; Dragonmage by Andre Norton and Jean Rabe; Starship: Mercenary by Mike Resnick; Iron Kissed by Patricia Briggs; The Sorcerer's Plague by David B. Coe;
Submitting Listener comments: If you have any suggestions or comments, please let us know!
Link: Matt Wallace
Link: Matt Wallace's LiveJournal
Link: Apex Science Fiction and Horror Digest
Link: Murky Depths Speculative Fiction Anthology
A side note on your comment about Kidney Tourism -- a recent article on CNN online touches on a problem with such ventures -- the body parts transplanted aren't always given up willingly.
In New Delhi, for instance, a ring of kidney thieves has been luring people with the promise of a job, knocking them out, and then literally stealing their kidneys, leaving them dazed, with a hell of a scar to remember their kidney by.
The article can be found here: http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/01/29/india.transplant/index.html
That program is Read Please. you can get it at http://www.readplease.com and no Summer it won't do net speak. 🙂
The urban legend comes true.
I was just listening to this episode and heard your skepticism about the Mercy Thompson book by Patricia Briggs. Don't judge the book by its genre -- the series is definitely worth reading. It doesn't fall into the romance-genre trap of making its hero and heroine perfect. Mercy is not the biggest, baddest, sexiest shapeshifter on the block, she's just the only one willing to poke her nose into other nonhumankind's business. (Werewolves, vampires, and fae tend to keep to their own kind, but Mercy's the only "walker," or coyote shapeshifter, alive as far as she knows.)
And while the back cover blurb plays up the love-triangle aspect of her relationships with two werewolves, the mystery is the main focus of the story. The love triangle actually plays a part in character development and in illuminating aspects of werewolf pack culture.
(You know how fans start these campaigns to send specific items to TV networks to persuade them to save a show? Maybe we can start a campaign to bombard Laurell K. Hamilton with the Mercy Thompson series books, along with little notes reading, "Look! Genre books can have plots! Try it!")