My kid was raised in a tolerant household and has gay relatives so I knew she'd be ok but man, I am constantly surprised by how homosexuality has become normalized within teen culture. Yes, there are pockets of fear/shame/violence but these are marginal and marginalized. I know there's a lot of work to be done but the…

I'm a big reader and enjoy spending hours with a book. I make time in my day and have a very flexible job that manages to pay me well so I sometimes forget that reading is a luxury for most people. I'm sorry for the elitist asumption that everyone has the time and energy to read 1000s of pages. Still, the esperience o…

This is actually a perspective I haven't thought about before. I've always thought of the "watching" experience are derivative of the reading one rather than as a choice between two destinctive modes of consuming a narrative. Although the idea of "spoiling" is a bit subjective. Now, when you read the books you will…

Good strategy. I have friends who've been reading the books since the very beginning, 1996. That's 17 years ago. We were young(ish) men back then. Spending 1/2 your life waiting for a series to end is fairly painful.

This is how you do a portrait tat.

You don't own a character. You don't not get to feel sad. The author doesn't owe you anything except a good story. This isn't meladrama where the bad end badly and the good well. This is a study in the vagaries of life and—god I can't believe I'm going to do this—and, much like Milton's Paradise Lost we the reader are…

Nice post. It's all f-ed up when you leave out the book timeline. I was under the impression from the book that the Freys still have a substandial host left to 'guard' the twins. Of course, there wouldn't be enough to take the rock.

like hdgotham said. It depends on if they'll be condensing some story-lines. I've read the books and one of the nice things about watching the show is seeing how they plot it. tldr: don't know.

Some people might call you down for being weak and needing a spoiler but when I finished book 3 (this show's season) I was so taumatized I did a quick wiki on my favourite (now a shorter list) characters before I could crack the spine on book one. I've never had to do that with any book before.

Please don't misunderstand me. The quality of the show is amazing. The acting is top notch and the setting/scene work blows my mind. I'm especially impressed with the very clever plotting and the way they condense storylines but also nod to the original source material. I am a fan of the show too.

I can appreciate that. I don't understand it myself but I also know some people like that. An inability to geek-out must be a bit like being colour blind (I kid. I kid).

I've never understood people who would rather watch the show than read the books. The books are full and quite rich and the structure of the story really works well. Compared to them the show is eye candy. Well paced and creative eye candy but just eye candy.

oh grad school.

kickstarter assassin fund. Whoever touches this project dies!

I think DC (Vertigo) 'got' this with the runaway success of Sandman, which had a massive female readership. They just haven't been able to follow that. The niche is being taken up with Graphic Novels of which the auto/biographical, romance, coming-of-age fiction, etc. genres sell very well to female readers. …

As per the two smart people (man_on and Pontifex) the active chemical/molecule has to be able to enter the alcohol. The that molecule has to be able to survive the gut and enter the blood stream and pass through the blood/brain barrier to have any effect. We need a giant list. Or a chemistry degree.

I like the speculation. But fruit is uncommon in the far north and there are no grains. I'll do some research in the ethnographic data I have access to and see what the hell this is about.

I'm going to hell for this:

I guess it depends on is the chemical compounds disolve in alcohol. I'm sure some chemist will show up here and correct me.

That's what I was thinking. Something is missing here.