You May Have Missed... Links 18/09/08

Apparently Lloyds TSB is going to take over HBOS thereby creating a mortgage giant that, on a similar scale to Fannie Me and Freddie Mac, will control close to a third of Britain's mortgages.  This is only possible because the government are allowing them to by-pass competition laws.  So, because of a lack of regulation, a bank that is too big to fail looks like it might fail and, by ignoring regulation, the government is  creating a bank that is too big to save.  Crisis of Capitalism anyone?

• Niall Harrison at Torque Control looks at Justina Robson's short story "Legolas Does The Dishes" as featured in Postscripts 15.  Personally, I find Robson to be completely unreadable.  I've never finished anything of hers that I've started.

• Karen Burnham at Spiral Galaxy Reviewing Laboratory writes about the July/August issue of Analog and doesn't seem overly impressed.

• Theofantastique writes about Otherkin.  I adore the otherkin as they're effectively religious people stripped of the fig leaf of social acceptability that comes with age and size of community.  Much like Christians, the Otherkin pick up works of fiction and use them as the basis for systems of morality and identity.

• Jason W. Ellis at Dynamic Subspace puts up a three part essay about the relationship between the beliefs of Philip K. Dick and those of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Part two is Here.  Part three is Here.

EDIT : I forgot to add...

• Stuart Evers at the Daily Graun's blogs somewhat grumpily points out that The Wire isn't that original because Ed McBain's 87th Precinct Novels invented the police procedural ages ago.  Is that a backlash I can see off in the distance?  gotta love the hype cycle.

Comments

[Martin]

Stuart Evers somewhat grumpily points out that The Wire isn't that original because Ed McBain's 87th Precinct Novels invented the police procedural ages ago.

If he had said that then he would have been retarded. What he actually said wasn't retarded, just blindingly obvious: not everyone who watches police procedurals reads them.

[Jonathan M]

I don't know... I detect a reproachful tone :-)

[Joe Sherry]

I haven't read Robson's other stuff, but I find her Quantum Gravity novels compulsively readable. :)

[Jonathan M]

Yeah... I'm pretty much the only person who doesn't like her.

[Ren]

I read Keeping it Real (Part 1 of Quantum Gravity) and had trouble sustaining interest. I didn't find the book completely unreadable, but I won't be bothering to read any more of her books... life's too short. I might try a short story, though.