You're absolutely right, some rather vicious girls do label guys "creeps" when it's just them exerting social power in a negative way. And calling someone a creep in public or to their face is rude.

This is an excellent point, and something that fans of public figures tend to have a problem with. There's a strong feeling among people who follow any public figure that that getting to speak to the person that you admire is a desirable thing. There's also the problem that, in a public setting, any sufficiently…

This explains *SO MUCH*. Thank you.

Don't we have a viking around here somewhere? I swear we have one.

No such thing.

Meow!

Seriously? I'm disappointed - a British journalist purchased all the fixins for a Ricin lab from a kitchen supply store for under a few hundred dollars (a bit less, sterling) a few years ago. It's distressingly simple, from the stuff I read before I got scared the internet police would not be amused at my research.

There are loads of books on toxic plants. Including all the books on edible plants I've ever read, which come included with a forward and a "how to not kill yourself accidentally" section. Were there any phrases that seemed directly from this one book?

I once boiled and sliced jalapeños. Once. Nearly gassed myself out of the house. (The roasted onion, chorizo and cream cheese stuffed jalapeños that resulted were totally worth it, though.)

I've read rather a lot of Ms. Norton over the years, yes. I've been reading sci-fi from the 80's onwards.

I didn't see her as falling for him at this point, even in the book. I saw her as being pragmatic. She's not secretly in love, she's playing the game and knows what she's doing. She's also not about to let them make her someone she isn't.

Heinlein - you definitely know what you're getting when you pick up a Heinlein book. Ditto Dick, Burroughs... not certain the others are memorable enough or had enough of a body of work out there to qualify as their own genre. But William Gibson did, and maybe Arthur Conan Doyle.

Aaand above, I completely missed seeing her name...

I completely missed seeing her name somehow!

Somehow I completely skipped seeing Anne Rice. Although I will argue that her writing isn't terribly distinctive or memorable, she did single-handedly revitalize the vampire genre.

Not a single woman on this list.

I'm going to take issue with your first statement, that the main reason it won't be studied is because the feminist movement doesn't want it studied. The conservative religious movement doesn't want it studied either, unless they can guarantee the results will support their agenda.

If it's fizzy, there's something really, really wrong.

I wonder if this will reinvigorate the reading groups over at the fanfic sites? I wonder how many new readers and writers will turn up over there? Is this the first wave of respectability for fanfic?

I now wonder what baking soda and lemon juice combined would actually do to satin sheets. It sounds fizzy and possibly bleaching.