I admit to being really irked that Harry Potter isn't out for Kindle yet. But I certainly don't call Rowlings mean names for it. At least, not in public.

Amazon in general screws authors and publisher in the way the handle kindle, or for that matter printed books, especially small publishers. My publishers prefers that people order through B&N because they never know when Amazon will delay shipping for months or play some other sort of game.

Well, I think you CAN blame Rowling for the lack of ebooks because she wants to host them exclusively on Pottermore. But most authors have no control over those things!

I am annoyed that the physical books of Timeless have shipped, when the Kindle version isn't available until March 1, but WTF? Why would I complain to the author?!?

Well, she's right there, on the Internet, asking to be harassed. Duh.

they don't make these decisions, afaik. Relatedly, I don't believe that Netflix holds streaming videos back all by themselves.(Which is not Literary...I'm just sick of thinking "Wonder if I'll like this movie," only to read "grate flick...please put on streaming!1" eight billion times. Make Sumner Redstone do it instead, know what I'm saying.

I am annoyed that the physical books of Timeless have shipped, when the Kindle version isn't available until March 1, but WTF? Why would I complain to the author?!?

Well, she's right there, on the Internet, asking to be harassed. Duh.

I am SO falling down on the job!

Arthur at Ferretbrain reads all of Conan so you don't have to: [link]

Warning for LONG. But also pretty damning: he basically concludes that, unless you're a completist or committed to learning about the history of the fantasy genre, you can do much better and avoid the overt and offensive racism and sexism.

Why do I take it so almost personally when people say Suzanne Collins is lying about not being familiar with Battle Royale? I don't know the lady. I don't owe her anything.

But, seriously, why do people think researching the topic involves reading every novel everyone's written remotely related to the theme? That is contradicting what many of my writer friends do--they stay away from things they might end up regurgitating in their work.

It's not like it's a seminal work of lore that she needs to stay consistent with (like I might have done vampire research before writing Twilight, mayhap). It's just a treatment of the concept, and it's not mainstream American, so it makes it less likely that she'd have come across it less than deliberately.

It just makes me mad when people decide "Oh, that person neither of us knows is lying because *I* know better." When what it really sounds like to me is that they think she's lying because they'd lie in that situation, or something. I'm just naive enough for that to not be my default position of cynicism and distrust.

That is contradicting what many of my writer friends do--they stay away from things they might end up regurgitating in their work.

Exactly.

It bugs me too, mostly because the comparison is so superficial, and The Hunger Games is much more than just kids killing each other, which is basically all there is to Battle Royale.

Battle Royale seems like a thing that would be easy to overlook.

I never heard of it until these debate started.

Also the debate that came up about Firefly being a rip off of Cowboy Beebop. I don't know how familiar Joss is with anime but I'd never heard of the series until people started saying he'd ripped it off.

I'd never heard of Battle Royale, either.