Monday Links

Hello, dear readers. It's Monday and suddenly very cold everywhere. Here's a few things to look at and play with during this Halloween week.

The Global Network of Dreams: More evidence of the impending, "technological singularity," that point at which Sky Net goes online and Linda Hamilton becomes an action-star, this website, acronymed "gnod"--which comes suspiciously close to "god"--is a self-adapting system that allows you to map your favorite authors and movies. For example, go here, type in G.K. Chesteron, and whole constellations of authors will explode from his name and you'll see that Louise de Wohl hangs near Chesterton's corner of the literary sky. It's a nifty way to find other authors you might like, plus it's just cool to watch.

If you're in need of something to scare the kiddies, never fear, there's not one, but two new articles of "macabre" and "spine-tingling" book recommendations for children and young adults. From across the pond, there's Amanda Craig writing in The Times about such writers as Vivian French and Korky Paul, and closer to home, in The Seattle Times, there's Stephanie Dunnewind writing about Kevin Emerson and Rosemary Clement-Moore, among others. Both articles make mention of Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, which, if I haven't mentioned it before, you can watch Gaiman read at the Mouse Circus.

And finally, a battle with wizards, goblins, and a sprinkle of fairy dust on the one side, and atheist extraordinaire Richard Dawkins on the other. Apparently, our Mr. Dawkins wonders of the negative effect of "anti-scientific" fairy tales. Perhaps he's never heard of that mathematical story of Jack and the Beanstalk, which, if I remember correctly, taught children about the relative economic scales of magic beans and cows.