Tuesday News: Dragon Con’s convicted co-founder, Chinese delivery drones, Owls, Fan Fiction, and JD Salinger goes online too early

JanetPublishing NewsAmazon / Dragon Con / fan-fiction / Waterstones3 Comments

DragonCon Co-Founder Ed Kramer Pleads Guilty Sentenced  – Let’s get the icky stuff out of the way first. Ed Kramer, co-founder of Dragon Con, has pleaded guilty to several counts of child molestation, 13 years after his first arrest in 2000. It was only last August that Kramer was sued by Dragon Con’s Board of Directors, who wanted to buy him out and create a new corporation without Kramer’s involvement or ownership. Kramer settled with the board shortly before his trial was set to begin, and his current plea deal seems to have substantially reduced both his sentence and his time actually served.

“Kramer entered guilty pleas to three of six counts of child molestation on the original indictment — one for each alleged victim — with the state offering not to prosecute the other three,” reports The Gwinnett Daily Post. “Under the nine-condition agreement, District Attorney Danny Porter recommended a sentence of 20 years to serve five for each count, to run concurrently. Because of 26 months previously served in the Gwinnett County jail and while incarcerated in Connecticut, Kramer will actually serve 34 months.” The Mary Sue

China could become the first country to legalize parcel delivery by drone – So while Jeff Bezos has only just announced the possible use of drones to deliver Amazon goods (cue the conspiracy theories), China is already testing out this mode of delivery. Even a bakery in Shanghai has tried using drones to deliver pies (“Pie in the Sky” – get it?), although they apparently did not first get permission from the local civil aviation authorities. Still, other companies are quickly getting into the mix. Adds a whole new layer of meaning to the concept of multitasking.

“SF Express is testing a drone it has built for delivering packages to remote areas, according to Chinese media reports. The drone can hit an maximum altitude of 100 meters (328 feet) and deliver parcels within two meters of its target. It’s not clear what sort of weight these puppies can handle, but Beijing journalists calculated that it probably can’t carry more than 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds).” Quartz

Introducing O.W.L.S.  – This has to win the award for best response ever to Amazon’s drone announcement. Make sure to read the Q&A portion of the post, as well. I expect to see Barnes and Noble check in with carrier pigeons next. Waterstones Blog

The Daily Dot – ‘I Ship It’ is every fangirl’s new anthem – So the YouTube channel notliterally has posted a parody of Icona Pop’s “I Love It,” retitling and reworking the song into a fan fiction anthem, “I Ship It.” The video currently has 109, 715 views (probably many more by the time this story posts), which adds more than a little credence to the prediction that the song marks both fan fiction’s arrival as a mainstream phenomenon and the need for a catchy meta anthem. As the Daily Dot put it,

“Who needs the original when you’ve got lyrics like ‘I know that they are siblings but I think there’s something more’? “ The Daily Dot

JD Salingers unpublished stories leaked online  – Three unpublished stories that until now have been viewable only in university library reading rooms, have made it online, and have even been sold on eBay. One story, donated to Princeton’s library, was not to be published until January 27, 2060, which would mark the 50 year anniversary of Salinger’s death. The other two stories reside in the University of Texas library, and were also not to be published until later in the century. In the case of the Princeton story, “An Ocean Full of Bowling Balls,” the University speculates that someone may have copied the story longhand and then typed it out on their own computer later. All stories appear to be authentic, and raise all sorts of ethical issues about how and when and by whom a story should be made public.

“Kenneth Slawenski, a Salinger scholar and biographer, who has read the stories in the university libraries, told the website BuzzFeed that the text appeared accurate. ‘While I do quibble with the ethics or lack of ethics in posting the Salinger stories, they look to be true transcripts of the originals and match my own copies.'” The Guardian

Janet

isn't sure if she's an average Romance reader, or even an average reader, but a reader she is, enjoying everything from literary fiction to philosophy to history to poetry. Historical Romance was her first love within the genre, but she's fickle and easily seduced by the promise of a good read. She approaches every book with the same hope: that she will be filled from the inside out with something awesome that she didnʼt know, didnʼt think about, or didnʼt feel until that moment. And she's always looking for the next mind-blowing read, so feel free to share any suggestions!

→ Janet