I'm liking Control Point so far, but I admit, I went sort of unamused when the book said "Women are usually healers..."

I've stayed unamused.

Unfortunately, that's an easy assumption-trap to fall into. I have a VERY hard time imagining Myke being that misogynistic. I think it's more along the lines of genetic predispositions, similar to men tending to be more muscular, single-tasking and concrete-thinking and women being more dextrous, multi-tasking and abstract-thinking (and yes, there IS more to the thought-style division than upbringing/environment). So I wouldn't read into it.

As you point out, it started the craze, not the genre. It WAS newness for people who weren't SF/F readers before - modern fantasy existed for quite some time before it got rebranded as urban fantasy (I still prefer the name MF for childish-snicker reasons) and got snatched up and turned in some pretty specific directions... whence came the craze. Fortunately (by my estimation), it got a re-boost in a different direction, both from folks like Jim who worked within the over-genre but not in the craze subgenre, and from folks like Jim's wife who have taken the craze's direction and reappropriated it in a less craze-oriented direction.

... bah. I still dislike excessively-meticulous categorization of this sort, especially when something doesn't quite belong to one or another.

Gak.  So long as it's not one of those gawdawful Trying-to-be-profound montages with the sad girl drinking a glass of water and staring at a dirty spoon while pondering her sadness ones.

"I had a glass of water and was paralyzed remembering another time I had a glass of water and things were sad."

Thanks to you and the spousal lady!  Been itchin' fiercely to ramble and rant with my friends here.

They have a cream for that. But it doesn't handle the psychological side; you'll be itch-free but curled up in the corner, rocking and staring blankly into space.

Ahh, I'll try Google Docs and see if that clears it up.

And yes, they never want an attachment of any kind, so it's the query followed by five or 15 or 50 pages--whatever they request. I certainly don't want to take the time to re-type that many pages and I'd just mess it up anyway. The times that I did type it in, they still didn't arrive at another location properly. So Google Docs it is--I hope.

Thanks Shecky!

One other option: if you and the recipient both have the capacity to insert/read in-message images, try doing it as a PDF. Horribly bulky, but it's absolutely accurate.

B.S. in Marketing!!!

Which immediately qualifies you to work in the Redundancy Department of Redundancy.

I don't mind the traditional races much.  They're like any cliche, they don't really have impact.  The author says "elf" and my mind slaps a whole catalogue of traits onto them and we go on.  Traditional races, for me, are elves, dwarves, and possibly halflings. 

I don't mind new, as long as the author doesn't seem like he's trying too hard. "Um... they're um... people made entirely of... like... salt. Yeah. That's new, right? RIGHT?!"  Make them even semi-logical to the setting and I'll play along.

I really, really hate "they have pointy ears and live really long and are big into nature and are great archers and are called re'faji."  No, they're elves.  Don't do this.  Don't ever do this.  If you do this and we meet, I will fling things at you. Possibly only invective, what with me not wanting a battery charge, but nonetheless the hatred will be there.

Heh. Little project I'm half-assedly working on has the standard races but with the race "standards" out the window.