So, the most interesting thing in my Google Reader this week was the development of an 'e-skin' for robots that enables a sense of touch. There's a faily detailed article on the breakthrough here, but the potential leap forward in robot and cyborg technology is astounding.

In other, quite unconnection thoughts, Nathan Bransford has an excellent post on the problem of initial ideas, where we tend to hold too tightly to an initial idea instead of allowing the work's central concept to evolve as the work progresses. Robert Jackson Bennet has an interesting post discussing the difference between 'genre' and 'literature', and touching briefly on why each is so nonsensically snooty about the other, making gap-bridging near-impossible. Though I think he may have done well to examine some authors who've been bridging the gap for decades, such as Atwood and LeGuin (and indeed most spec fic "Masters"). But still - good points, thoughtfully made.

And I want to share a Chasing Ray post on a book that I, honestly, haven't read yet and hadn't heard of until this post, but the premise behind it is fascinating me, so I intend to find and read it in the near future. The book is The Thief of Broken Toys (Tim Lebbon), and it's (apparently) a story that builds fear and horror not out of gore or violence, but sadness. Which, for me at least, is an instant "I have to see how he's done that!".