G.B. Gabbler
On Hephaestus becoming less hideous:
Stuff Dorian’s stocking with gum:
THE AUTOMATION is too big for a stocking stuffer, probably. But you can still cram it in your brain for free here.
GABBLER RECOMMENDS: TV Show Search Party
Yeah, what they said:
#BLAThoughtOfTheDay – you should stuff your brain with these writer words while also stuffing your face
EPICS
No narcissism here. Nope.
BookTuber Tuesday – Library at Mount Char
Check out other book vlogs we’ve featured here.
Have a book vlog video you want us to check out? Submit a link below in the comments and it could make the CIRCO blog.
[“BLA and GB Gabbler” (really just a pen name – singular) are the Editor and Narrator behind THE AUTOMATION, vol. 1 of the Circo del Herrero series. They are on facebook, twitter, tumblr, goodreads, and Vulcan’s shit list.]
Social Medea: No Binary Athenian Philosophy
{Feast your eyes}
Tweets of the Week: Nest Egg
#TBT Feline Automata
[Author-as-God, Author-as-Brand]
8) With the mock interviews and reviews, were you aiming to start a conversation about authorial identity and the problem of readers reading authors rather than books?
That would be lovely, yes. Because that’s exactly what we do: we read authors. At present I am being interviewed by the New York Times not for the quality of my writing (which, by any standard, is tremendous and perhaps even “top-notch”) but because I may or may not be Thomas Pynchon. This is unfair to my work – especially if I am not Thomas Pynchon – as well as to the many other writers out there who are being denied access to their own possible readerships on the grounds that they are not Thomas Pynchon.
[Self-published author gets interviewed and the main point isn’t that they self-published? Spoof gets treated like the real deal for NOT being the real deal? Am I in heaven?]
[“BLA and GB Gabbler” (really just a pen name – singular) are the Editor and Narrator behind THE AUTOMATION, vol. 1 of the Circo del Herrero series. They are on facebook, twitter, tumblr, goodreads, and Vulcan’s shit list.]
THE AUTOMATION got a review in Tales of the Talisman Vol. 10 issue 4:
Check out “Tales of the Talisman” Vol. 10, issue 4 for a book review of THE AUTOMATION.
Click to order on Amazon.
Like Tales of the Talisman on Facebook.
[“BLA and GB Gabbler” (really just a pen name – singular) are the Editor and Narrator behind THE AUTOMATION, vol. 1 of the Circo del Herrero series. They are on facebook, twitter, tumblr, goodreads, and Vulcan’s shit list.]
GABBLER RECOMMENDS: A History of Robots
Combines two things we love: WheezyWaiter and robots in myth.
[“BLA and GB Gabbler” (really just a pen name – singular) are the Editor and Narrator behind THE AUTOMATION, vol. 1 of the Circo del Herrero series. They are on facebook, twitter, tumblr, goodreads, and Vulcan’s shit list.]
GABBLER RECOMMENDS: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell – BBC
My only qualms with the show? That there’s no brilliant way to incorporate the novel’s splendid footnotes and all the stylistic atmosphere therein. Waiting on episode 4! 
[“BLA and GB Gabbler” (really just a pen name – singular) are the Editor and Narrator behind THE AUTOMATION, vol. 1 of the Circo del Herrero series. They are on facebook, twitter, tumblr, goodreads, and Vulcan’s shit list.]
On Naming Automata:
Maud.
[“BLA and GB Gabbler” (really just a pen name – singular) are the Editor and Narrator behind THE AUTOMATION, vol. 1 of the Circo del Herrero series. They are on facebook, twitter, tumblr, goodreads, and Vulcan’s shit list.]
Original image from: https://www.flickr.com/photos/opencage/4921938
Tweets of the Week: Why do birds suddenly appear?
From a review on Amazon:
We really need someone to buy this for us:
We found this fascinating:
[“BLA and GB Gabbler” (really just a pen name – singular) are the Editor and Narrator behind THE AUTOMATION, vol. 1 of the Circo del Herrero series. They are on facebook, twitter, tumblr, goodreads, and Vulcan’s shit list.]
The code which the Narrator and I live by:
“The story is not all mine, nor told by me alone. Indeed I am not sure whose story it is; you can judge better. But it is all one, and if at moments the facts seem to alter with an altered voice, why then you can choose the fact you like best yet none of them are false, and it is all one story.” – Ursula K. Le Guin in The Left Hand of Darkness.
[“BLA and GB Gabbler” (really just a pen name) are the Editor and Narrator behind THE AUTOMATION, vol. 1 of the Circo del Herrero series. They are on facebook, twitter, tumblr, and goodreads.]
The Human Show: Free Will [video]
From NPR: On Amanda Palmer – “There’s More To Asking Than Just Art”
There’s more to asking than just art? There’s more to art than just asking.
‘But in thinking about the art of asking, Palmer misses its most basic tenet: In our society, certain kinds of people are allowed to ask for things, and certain kinds of people are not. She writes as though the biggest obstacle to getting the help you need is a reluctance to ask — not, say, ingrained social structures having to do with race and class.
Who is allowed to ask for help? Who is heard when they ask for help? Whom do people want to help? These are basic questions that get little or no attention in The Art of Asking. Instead, we are coached in letting other people help us: “Your acceptance of the gift IS the gift,” she says.
Palmer accidentally hits on truth when she writes, “Effective crowdfunding is not about relying on the kindness of strangers, it’s about relying on the kindness of your crowd.” “Your crowd” is the crucial phrase. Here, she’s of course talking about her fans — as opposed to random strangers. But the uncomfortable, unexamined reality behind her thesis is that you must have a fairly wealthy, leisured and skilled fan base in the first place. Not everyone can ask their crowd for help, because not everyone has a crowd that can help.’
-Annalisa Quinn, for NPR.
Read the rest.
[“BLA and GB Gabbler” (really just a pen name) are the Editor and Narrator behind THE AUTOMATION, vol. 1 of the Circo del Herrero series. They are on facebook, twitter, tumblr, and goodreads.]
Greek Mythology 201: What the Movies Miss
This. SO this.
If you’re anything like me, you’ve likely noticed this by now. Flashy visuals, postmodern takes on how god (or in this case the gods) don’t care/may as well be dead, trying to be hyper historical without a sense of what makes the story what it is, extreme fashion choices or drab all-white ensembles that look like they came directly out of Party City, and twenty new takes on Zeus that all seem to ignore one of the most fundamental (and disturbing and thus understandingly ignorable) pieces of his character.
The Greek Myth movie.
Between every strange, well-meaning, or outright deviating interpretation, Hollywood has hit the books again and again with entirely mixed results. I hesitate to say that there have been any interpretations of film myth that have really hit the mark, but there are things heading in the right direction, and things I wish we’d avoided entirely.
So…
View original post 1,548 more words
On authors stalking and reviewers being afraid to speak #HaleNo
What the hammer? What the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? // October roundup:
In case you missed the whole month of October on this blog/are too lazy to keep on scrollin’, here are some highlights:
We asked the Internet why J.K. Rowling didn’t self-publish her Robert Galbraith novel if she really wanted her pen name to stay a secret.
Gabbler wrote an essay over post-apocalyptic stories.
We shared some thoughts on Lev Grossman’s The Magicians series and Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series.
Gabbler recommended a bunch of crap. Like Halloween Songs and this comedian.
We gave you a look at B.L.A.’s original manuscript for THE AUTOMATION preface.
Here is a reminder of some of our social media accounts.
Out now – in paperback and ebook formats
