Tag: Benedict Cumberbatch

Stories galore (a story a day, week two)

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BooksAnother week, another batch of short stories and flash fiction! I read more than one story several days, since they were either flash pieces or simply shorter than average.

I know I should probably comment on the stories or review them in some fashion, but, well, I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. We’ll just say that not all of the stories were to my taste and leave it at that. But I am going to single out the stories that I thoroughly enjoyed, so at least you’ll know the ones that really hit the mark.

Here are the stories from this week:

  1. Salvage, by Margaret Ronald (from the anthology Ceaseless Steam, edited by Scott H. Andrews)
  2. Help Fund My Robot Army!!!, by Keffy R.M. Kehrli; and For Entertainment Purposes Only, by Jeremiah Tolbert (both from the anthology Help Fund My Robot Army!!!, edited by John Joseph Adams)
  3. Zero G R&J, by Mary Robinette Kowal; and A Memorial to the Patriots, by Jake Kerr (both from Help Fund My Robot Army!!!)
  4. Practical College Majors in a Robot-Dominated Society, by Nicky Drayden; Kitty Is Alive, Kitty Is Dead,
    by Jennifer Campbell-Hicks; and Investment Strategies in a Post-Apocalyptic World, by Nicky Drayden (all online at Daily Science Fiction)
  5. When the Lady Speaks, by Damien Angelica Walters (from the anthology What Fates Impose, edited by Nayad Monroe)
  6. Power Steering, by Wendy N. Wagner (from the anthology What Fates Impose, edited by Nayad Monroe)
  7. Ten Rules for Being an Intergalactic Smuggler (the Successful Kind), by Holly Black (online at Lightspeed Magazine)

My clear favorite this week is Zero G R&J, by Mary Robinette Kowal — and not just because it includes mentions of David Tennant, Nathan Fillion, Tom Hiddleston, and Benedict Cumberbatch. This story was laugh-out-loud funny on a day when I really needed it. (Thank you, Ms. Kowal.) I also thoroughly enjoyed Keffy R.M. Kehrli’s Help Fund My Robot Army!!!, which inspired the anthology of the same name, and I highly recommend Holly Black’s Ten Rules for Being an Intergalactic Smuggler (the Successful Kind), which reminded me a bit of Firefly.

Will there be more stories next week? Of course there will! I still have some anthologies to finish…

(Missed week one’s list, which includes the origins of this experiment? Here you go.)

Pinterest knows me better than most

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Earlier today, I was stalling on Pinterest. I ran out of fresh pins on my home page, so I clicked the new option “Preview! Explore Interests” to see what that might yield. It turns out that Pinterest has analyzed my 2500+ pins and now has a really, really good idea of what I like. I was extremely impressed with how accurate it was, especially since there were a few items like magic, spell books and wizards that I couldn’t really connect to my pinning activity. About the only things missing are otters and chocolate.

I admit, there were a handful of categories that had me scratching my head (John Steinbeck? January Jones? Trailer homes?!?), but most of it is spot-on. I also liked the way it made bigger photos for more frequently pinned subjects like writing and board games. And there were multiple variations on my favorite pinning topics: the Avengers, Doctor Who, the Hobbit, Sherlock and writing.

Here’s the abridged version, eliminating outliers and redundancy; links go to Pinterest:

red pandasmandalasstress relief
Tom Hiddlestonavengers teas
writingnovels terry pratchett
richard armitagecastleskittens
board gamesdr horriblefirefly
sherlockbritishdoctor who
swordschristian kanegerard butler
cosplaybraceletssteampunk
hobbitmagicwarriors

Writing Exercise: Hats off

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top-hat-1395333-m“She wore a raspberry beret…”
Prince, Raspberry Beret

Some of my favorite fictional characters are known for wearing distinctive hats. Dirk Gently (of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, by Douglas Adams) is described as wearing a dark red hat with a flat brim — “…an elegant adornment… if the wearer were a small bedside lamp, but not otherwise.” Moist von Lipwig (from Terry Pratchett’s novels Going Postal, Making Money, and the upcoming Raising Steam is more readily recognized by his hats than by his ordinary features — first a gold hat with wings, then a top hat covered in gold glitter. Sherlock Holmes is another hat person; his association with the deerstalker is so indelible that the BBC’s modern re-invention of the character (portrayed expertly by Benedict Cumberbatch) uses the hat in one episode as an attempted disguise. In each case, wearing a hat conveys something about the wearer: eccentricity, flamboyancy, confidence.

Accessories and other items of personal decoration can help paint a vivid picture of a character. This week, write a scene that uses one or more physical objects to define a character.