Read the whole thing.

This was the part that I didn’t know about:

3: Wal*Mart will demand a higher discount.
Discounts in the US must be offered to all accounts on equal terms, by federal anti-trust law (such as the Robinson-Patman Act of 1936). There was a major lawsuit on that very subject in the 1990s, when the American Booksellers’ Association sued a number of publishers over terms.

That was the only part of his post I didn’t know about, but it makes sense. Check out the rest, though. It’s interesting stuff.

Charles Stross digs up one-star reviews of classic fiction on Amazon.com.

My favorite:

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare:

Son of Sammy wrote: “i just read this book. everybody like always talks about how great it is and everything. but i don’t think so. like, it’s been done before, right?? soooo cliched. omg.”

Honestly, I can’t stop laughing over this.

The bad, early version of seven pretty good movies.

It’s funny to see that ALIEN was originally called STARBEAST. I feel a close, loving kinship with other writers who would pick such awful titles.

A couple places online recently (re)posted an article about the 11 worst blogs on the internet.

I know. I’m not going to link to it, but I am going to quote from their choice for Worst Blog Written by a Fictional Character. Read this:

I took the bag of meth and threw it as far as I could. Fortunately, it landed on a mine and exploded. Unfortunately, the alligators were caught in the cloud of meth dust that resulted and they began freaking out. They tried to attack the rhinos, who were having none of it. I stood there for a time watching the fight. The rhinos seemed to have the upper hand for a while, but the alligators had meth on their sides. They drove the rhinos back, right into the drifting meth cloud. That really turned the tables. By this time, all of the animals were heavily under the sway of the drug. The battle raged back and forth, but none of the combatants sustained serious injuries. After a while, the two sides ceased their fighting and wandered into the tiger’s house to scrub the tile and vacuum. I paled in amazement at the power of this drug and the horrible potential that it had to rob creatures of their minds.

I don’t care what anyone says. That is awesome.

I have a couple interesting links about comic books. First is this article about comic pricing, printing costs and profits.

Next is a post about the cancellation of Blue Beetle, a comic I happen to like. The language at that link is NSFW.

One thing John Rogers said about the cancellation of Blue Beetle is that it had a three-year run, which would be pretty good for a TV show, or a movie with two sequels. The analogy doesn’t really work, though. It’s 36 issues of 22 page booklets, hardly any story at all in each.

I don’t know. I liked it and wanted more. Sue me.

I should mention that I’ve been reading an awful lot of comics lately, and it’s begun to wear me out. There are no little moments, no scenes where a character picks out clothes for an important trip, or wanders around a supermarket. Sure, there are scenes where someone sits alone and thinks, but it’s always on the cusp of a huge battle or after the world has been destroyed or something.

That’s not a bad thing. It’s a compressed form. But I think I’m going to need a sprawling fantasy novel next.