Shark Attack!

It's not as bad as it sounds. Today, the Great White EBook Shark took a bite out of Monstrous Affections. But ever since that Benchley incident back in the '70s, sharks have really gotten a bad name when it comes to playing rough.

The Great White EBook Shark website is a very constructive kind of shark attack. The Shark as he/she calls him/herself takes bits of prose that strikes the Shark's fancy. As the name suggests, the site is in the business of highlighting and promoting ebooks, by pre-digesting the writing on a word-by-word, em-dash by em-dash, colon-by-comma level.

So far, the Shark has wondered how devout Christian readers might feel about the introduction of the Crucifix glitch in Peter Watts' Blindsight; analyzed the comma-conjunction structure in Kelly Link's Magic For Beginners; and taken a close and loving look at an oppressively long and evocative paragraph from Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

This afternoon, the Shark had a good long sniff at "The Mayor Will Make a Brief Statement and then Take Questions" - and swam by, leaving the text unmolested.

Here's the verdict:

OK, I give up. There is nothing to say except that the following story is very, very creepy – and very, very well written.
Next time, I must remember to trail a little chum in the water. That drives the sharks crazy, I'm told.

Here's the link.

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