Snobbery.

Ah, thanks. I ws thinking that most authors who didn't want that many people to pay for their book would at least like the idea of that many people reading the book, but I suppose there are people perverse enough that they are writing for a certain select audience and will get weird if someone wants to drop off a truckload of money and profile in their yard.

I believe at some point early in the brouhaha he said that his friends were laughing at him.

Well, hello? Satirist. Can dish it out but can't take it.

My impression of the guy is that he sorely needed to have his friends laugh at him.

I've just read a story in American Girls About Town, a collection of short stories in which couple's landlord dies and they go to the funeral. The landlord was Jewish so they need 10 men to make a "minion". Is this an actual alternative spelling of "minyan" or it is some horrible copy-editing error?

I also just read an enjoyable retelling of a Japanese folktale about fox-spirits called The Fox Woman by Kij Johnson.

Horrible copyediting mistake, sumi. Pretty sure. Actually, likely a horrible Word autocorrection never caught contextually by the copyeditor.

Yes, the horrible Word autocorrection seems very likely.

Question for the legendarily minded folk:

What is the name of the knight at the end of the Arthurian legend who flings Excalibur back into the Lake?

Signed, Too Lazy to Google When There are Spicy Brains to Sample

Edited for silent letters

What is the name of the night at the end of the Arthurian legend who flings Excalibur back into the Lake?

You mean the person? I think it was Lancelot, in most versions. In some versions, I think the sword sort of disappears without anybody keeping track of it.

I just finished reading book three of George R.R. Martin's Song of Fire and Ice series.

Wow. Talk about your HSQ.