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Reviews, discussion and news about crime fiction. Occasional forays into books in other areas, publishing, science, the web and more.
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20 March 2009
First day of spring, according to Google
20 Mar 2009 21:41:31
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Sexism, yards and Tim
Browsing through my RSS reader after two or three days "off" leads to some interesting snippets. Women bloggers face a sexist atmosphere online, apparently. At a meeting in Austen, Texas, Rebecca Fox, a blogger and managing editor of mediabistro.com said "Name-calling and denigrating outspoken women creates a sexist climate online". Robert Scoble, another scion of the internet, said "…Whenever I post a video of a female technologist there invariably are snide remarks about body parts and other things that simply wouldn't happen if the interviewee were a man." The Times AlphaMummy blog asks its readers whether they think women are criticised more harshly for their opinions online. A man called Kentucky responds: "Sounds like a bunch of dimb tarts who couldn't hold their own." A woman respondent replies: "Kentucky you spelt dim wrong!" This is a perfect example of a brilliant non-aggressive, total obliteration, put-down which I find it hard to imagine a man would have managed - or me, I would probably have risen to Kentucky's bait. (I'm learning, slowly). On to more profound matters. I could not agree more with Dave Knadler when he writes: "Blogging is no piece of cake, what with the need to motivate the...
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Crime fiction clichés to avoid
I'm going to attempt to return to crime fiction; I've been short of inspiration for posts because of the Friend Feed discussion of links and blog posts. So, here goes. Via Mack Lundy (admittedly at Friend Feed!), here's a list at Mysterious Matters blog of "10 characters to put out to pasture". The post discusses the challenge for genre fiction of "balancing the tried and true with the new, interesting and exciting". While appreciating that staple characters are inevitable, the blogger never wishes to read again about the bitchy teenage girl; the sleazy male boss;the alcoholic, cold society woman; the garrulous neighbour; prematurely adult child; hard-as nails but secretly sensitive editor; snobbish matriarch; arrogant "dude" that the heroine nevertheless falls for; the wisecracking detective; and the town crazy. Well, my first reaction to this list is "get out more" - i.e. read more varied books! I read tons of crime fiction, but rarely come across these cliches, most of which I think must be limited to very particular subgenres. (I have come across them from time to time, of course, and not just in crime fiction.) However, there are certainly plenty of over-used situations and characters in the books I...
Maxine
Science editor who likes reading crime fiction
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Best American Mystery Stories 2010, ed. Lee Child
A most charming commercial. Happy spring, Maxine!
Martin Edwards just put a very nice comment on my blog "10 Crime Fiction Characters ..." It is also a kind of ´commercial´, or appetizer for his next Lake District book, and it really makes me want to read it :)
Posted by: Dorte H | 21 March 2009 at 11:17
Thanks, Dorte, I'll take a look.
Posted by: Maxine | 21 March 2009 at 16:25