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So there’s a "Who do you write like?" meme making the rounds. You paste a chunk of text into the analyzer, and it tells you whose work your own most resembles. It’s supposedly based on word choice.

It is, in fact, based on something that comes out of the back end of a bull in all sorts of fascinating shades of brown.

I just ran the analysis several times, on different samples of my writing. Each was multiple pages in length. And I got a different author almost every time. Apparently I write like Margaret Atwood and Leo Tolstoy and Rudyard Kipling and Vladamir Nabokov. Five samples, four authors. (I got Atwood twice.)

These are all samples from the same novel.

So, yeah, I think I’m quite content saying that

A) I write like me, and

B) This "analysis," even for a silly little Internet gizmo, is more than a tad flawed. 😛

Turns out the whole "Who Do You Write Like" meme was put in place by a vanity press, as a means of driving Google traffic to their links.

Just so you’re aware who you’re accidentally helping when you click on it. (Yeah, I had no idea either. Thanks to Jim Hines for pointing me to that link.)

So I have just watched, on DVD, the entirety of the one and only season of The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.

I was a fan of the show when it was first run, back in 93-94, but I hadn’t seen a single minute of it since. So I’d forgotten how really cool and just damn fun it was. (I also hadn’t realized I’d missed so many episodes the first time though.)

Perfect by any means? Of course not. I thought it went a little downhill after they wrapped up the Orb mythology, for instance. But overall? That was a damn fun show, and I’m more sorry now that it didn’t get a second season than I was at the time.

If you’ve never seen it, and if you enjoy shows with more than a touch of camp–but also some real story and character–and you aren’t offended by a touch of sci-fi sprinkled in your westerns, you owe it to yourself to take a look.

I need some new soundtracks.

See, most of the music I listen to these days is movie soundtracks. (Orchestral only. No lyrics.) I find that they’re the best sort of music for when I’m writing, and I also like using them as gaming background.

But I’m starting to get tired of my current rotation. So give me some suggestions.

1) I tend to prefer horror/sci-fi/fantasy soundtracks to others, but other recommendations are okay.

2) I already own a lot, so odds are good that I’ll already have at least a few of your recommendations.

3) Let’s skip the obvious, okay? Assume that I’ve got already got Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Lord of the Rings, and other movies in the "So huge you’d have heard of them even if you lived in orbit" variety. 😉

4) Some of my favorite composes include Hans Zimmer, John Williams, Randy Edelman, and (sometimes) Danny Elfman and James Horner, when they’re not just stealing from themselves. Not saying that I want you to limit yourself to those–in fact, I want the exact opposite, and I have plenty that I love from other people–I’m just giving you a general feel for the sort of stuff I like.

So, have at. What should I be listening to?

Writer and editor par excellence Jennifer Brozek has posted both a review of The Conqueror’s Shadow, and a brief interview with me, at the Apex Book Company site. Take a look and see what you think.

I know that Jennifer’s a pretty discerning reader–she’d have to be, given the number of anthologies and periodicals she edits–so I’m absolutely thrilled that she reviewed the book as positively as she did. 🙂 The interview itself goes into some of my thoughts/motivations when writing TCS, but also touches on some of my upcoming projects.

Despite the fact that I’d seen it months ago, and even posted it on this site some time back, I am oddly thrilled to see that Amazon now has the cover art for The Warlord’s Legacy.

It’s a writer thing. Either you get it, or you don’t.