My Hugo award votes 2015 part 3 – Novellas

All nominees in the novella category originated from the puppy lists –most of them from the rapid puppies list. The stories were even worse than in the other categories. I wonder what kind of mindset you must have, if you really think these represent the best writing of the year. Three stories by John C. Wright? Really? I do understand something about what the puppy organizers claim they are trying to say, but by nominating these stinkers they lose all possible credibility. (The paranoid drivel about social justice warrior conspiracy doesn’t really give a picture of most stable psyches, either).The question isn’t about stories. It is about sad little men who can’t face that the world is changing. There is no question how my voting will go in this category. I would be hugely surprised if the award goes to somewhere else than “no award”. Of course, it is possible that the gamergate idiots have bought the election…let’s hope it isn’t so.



“Pale Realms of Shade”, John C. Wright (The Book of Feasts & Seasons, Castalia House)
The story starts as a sort of supernatural thriller. A detective has been murdered and his ghost has been waked up. His wife wishes that he should reveal his murderer and rule out the suicide in order to release the insurance compensation. (I wonder how the suicide is even suspected as apparently the victim was shot several times). He then meets temptations before finally he gets an atonement. The first few chapters offered some promise – the writing was slightly clumsy, but the premise as itself seemed interesting. Alas, the story went from below average to mediocre and eventually to ridiculously bad. The writing was clumsy, there were sentences like this: “Sly had come across the dead body of a man who had — let’s be frank with this now — I rode him pretty hard some times.”. What does that even mean? The plot went from allegorical to pounding heavy-handed religion with a sledgehammer. What we learn from this story: a freethinker is about same thing as a devil worshipper. One of the worst things I have read.

One Bright Star to Guide Them, John C. Wright (Castalia House)
A sort of continuation of the Narnia books by C.S Lewis. A group of children has had adventures in a magical and as a child and they have brought back a few magical items, like a sword, a book and a shard of magical mirror. One member of the group encounters the magic cat, who used to help them in the fantasy land. Then he tries to find the other children, but one of them has turned to a devil worshipper, one has died and one has grown old prematurely and is pretty disillusioned and passive. And then there are some battles against evil and some pretty confusing scene changes. And the characters give each other’s extremely pompous expository long speeches about what they encountered and what they did in childhood. Most of the story was very clumsy and overwrought writing. What we learn from this story: You should blindly follow your [religious] leader and you’ll get to be a Christ figure in another world. Another of the worst things I have ever read.

Big Boys Don’t Cry, Tom Kratman (Castalia House)
A rip off of the Bolo series by Keith Laumer. A have read only a few of those, but there were much more interesting than this story. An intelligent tank has been badly damaged. It is being dismantled for scrap and that opens new connections to the brain of the tank and it remembers past missions and experiences which have been restricted from the active memory. They consist mainly from more or less bloody battles and very detailed descriptions of the turrets of tanks and so on. The writer sure seems to love his guns! On the other hand, his knowledge of physics is really badly lacking. In one place, he describes antimatter mines which are able to harm the tanks described in the story through the thinner armor plating at the bottom. As 50 grams of antimatter corresponds an explosive power worth of 150 Hiroshima bombs it will undoubtedly slightly harm the armor. Or vaporizes everything within a few dozen meters. The writing is fairly clumsy, worse than Laumer’s, but vastly better than Wright’s. What we learn from this story: pacifists should be hanged at the nearest lamppost. And feminists are badly disturbed people who push worlds to civil war just because they want to be as good as men.

“Flow”, Arlan Andrews, Sr. (Analog, 11-2014)
Continues an earlier story, which happens apparently on a post-apocalyptic earth or on another planet. A man who earlier sold ice goes to visit a larger city with a slightly higher level of civilization. The story consists mainly from sightseeing and how the “hero” is trying to find things to steal. There is practically no actual plot at all. The world as itself is fairly interesting, but a good story should be some kind of real plot going on. Little happens here other than descriptions of the world. I didn’t like the first installment and I didn’t like this one. Compared with the other nominees the writing is vastly superior, though.


“The Plural of Helen of Troy”, John C. Wright (City Beyond Time: Tales of the Fall of Metachronopolis, Castalia House)
A private detective of sorts works at a town which detached from time and is ruled by some sort of time masters who are able to do almost anything. The pretty confused and convoluted plot involves Helen of Troy/Marilyn Monroe and a version (or versions) of apparent John Kennedy. People are trying to kill former versions of themselves and battle against some sort robotic law enforcers. The setting itself is pretty interesting, but the story is badly overlong and rambling. This was perhaps the best of the Wright stories – which isn’t saying much. With some drastic cuts there just might be a tolerable story here somewhere. What we learn from this story: rapists should make amends for women they rape – they should at least be ready to marry those women.


My voting:
1. No award

Ilkka Koivisto: Ovela lintubongari ja muita tarinoita

A collection of short stories written by a former curator of the Helsinki Zoo. The stories are simple, naïve and containing preaching about small problems. The best example ever I have ever seen of a book, which is published solely on the name of the author (who was pretty known in Finland a decade or two (or three) ago). A first time author would never, ever, had been able to publish this.

Kokoelma lyhyitä novelleja. Tarinat ovat aiheiltaan vaihtelevia. Monessa lintubongaus tai ainakin luonnossa liikkuminen on jos ei muuta niin tärkeä sivuaihe. Uskottomuustarinoita myös oli useampi, yhdessä tarinassa uskoton mies jää kiinni typerällä tavalla, toisessa taas pettäjänainen kokee äärimmäisen kaukaa haetun koston. Ainakin kahdessa tarinassa soitto jo melkein unohdetulta nuoruudenrakkaudelta estää juuri tapahtumassa olevan itsemurhan. Tarinoiden henkilöt jaarittelevat pitkiä, kertomukseen juuri mitenkään liittymättömiä, puolifilosofisia yhteiskuntaa pinnallisesti ja naivisti kritisoivia puheita. Kirja oli nopeasti luettava ja varsin tyhjänpäiväinen. Paras osoitus ikinä siitä, että kustantajat julkaisevat kirjoja kirjoittajan nimen perusteella. Tätä kirjaa ei ikimaailmassa olisi julkaistu jonkin aloittelevan kirjailijan kirjoittamana – se ei ole ikinä päässyt edes ensimmäisen kustantamon testilukijan ohitse paperinkierrätysroskista pidemmälle. Hyvä, että ei tarvinnut tästä mitään maksaa, vaan kirja oli Helsingin sanomien ilmaiskirjana luettavissa.
231 s.

My Hugo award votes 2015 part 2 – Short stories

All nominees in this category originate from the “puppy lists”. And it shows. I wonder why selected these stories to their slates. There are mostly a celebration of mediocre writing and extreme stupid plotting. The only decent story was Totaled by Kary English. As the nomination was manipulated (and stories were mostly bad) I will vote “no award” for the first place and put the only decent story to the second place.


“Totaled”, Kary English (Galaxy’s Edge Magazine, 07-2014)
A neuroscience scientist is killed in a car accident and her brain is used for testing a new method of keeping a brain alive. She ends as a brain in a pot, and is able to finish her research- and sees her children for the last time. Not bad, a pleasant surprise considering from where the nomination came. The story could have been longer, now it felt slightly rushed. By far the best of this sorry bunch.

“On A Spiritual Plain”, Lou Antonelli (Sci Phi Journal #2, 11-2014)
A planet with poor mineral deposits has an extremely strong magnetic field (that is extremely strange, as a strong magnetic field hints to very high concentration of metals.) The natives believe in the afterlife and they have proof. The dead ones stay with them for a long time as the planet's strong magnetic field keeps their essence intact. Then the first human death occurs, and the man stays "alive" as a ghost of sorts. The minister helps him to the pole of the planet where it is possible for the "souls" to disperse. I wonder why the priest is pushing so extremely heavily for the trip and for something which is essentially a suicide when the person himself is somewhat ambivalent? Another clumsy story with very heavy-handed Christian morality - and very strange morality as such.

“Turncoat”, Steve Rzasa (Riding the Red Horse, Castalia House)
Posthumans (who are human personalities uploaded to computers), who work with “real” AIs are fighting against biological humans. A ship AI starts to resist the posthumans, who apparently want to exterminate the mere biological humans. The story starts with a boringly described battle, which feels like a transcript of a war game. The Ai starts to get doubts due to a verse from the bible, and eventually does what the spoilerific title tells. And the story ends with a reference to obscure character from US history. (The name didn’t say anything for me and using the Google gave little help as the name in question is fairly common. ) A fellow blogger helped me out eventually. Why would a future computer intelligence know or care about such fairly insignificant centuries old detail or person? A pretty bad and stupid story.

“The Parliament of Beasts and Birds”, John C. Wright (The Book of Feasts & Seasons, Castalia House)
Men have disappeared from the world (which was very sinful, there were venereal diseases and people were cremated without proper rites) . Animals discuss what has happened and who should take the lead. They discover that they talk "in the language of Adam" and walk in two feet. And the horror of the horrors - they are naked. All that is written in very pondering language. Extremely, ridiculously bad story, by far the worst of the nominees and with a wide margin. What we learn from this story: if you take up the religion, you turn to human and if you don't you stay animal and you must probably be killed at some time.

“A Single Samurai”, Steven Diamond (The Baen Big Book of Monsters, Baen Books)
A samurai warrior burrows into the brain giant lizard which is devastating everything is closing to a major city. The creature apparently has very unusual anatomy with large air filled empty spaces besides its’ brain. He doesn't do the logical thing (hack the brain to pieces with his samurai sword as it supposed to be too big for that) but rather kills himself which somehow magically destroys the beast because the sword is destroyed if the samurai dies and that somehow that kills the monster, also. Kind of far-fetched. A very stupid and not too well-written story.


My votes will be:
1. No award
2. “Totaled”, Kary English

Analog Science Fiction and Fact, July-August 2015

A varied bunch of stories. A serial (which I haven’t started yet) takes a lot of space.


The Smell of Blood and Thunder • novelette by Liz J. Andersen
A veterinary doctor who works sometimes for interstellar community tries to settle a dispute between intelligent fleas, dogs and cats. Light and very stupid, not as good as the previous installments of the series. ***-
Breakfast in Bed • shortstory by Ian Watson
A man realizes that he slipped to an alternative reality or time stream as his arm isn’t over the bedsheet but rather under it. And then he discusses that realization with his wife. In boring detail and confusing things happen. Another short and stupid non-story.**½
Potential Side Effects May Include • shortstory by Marissa Lingen and Alec Austin
A young woman takes part in the study which studies ways to remove anxiety reactions. The treatment works very well, but some degree anxiety at some situations might be really usefully. At first she worries about it especially after a dangerous situation, but then decides not to feel too anxious about that. A pretty good and well-written story, which might have been longer. ***+
Guns Don't Kill People • shortstory by Jacob A. Boyd
A very short story which involves guns, clones or something like that and some sort of inspection. A LOT of backstory and very hard to get into, I didn't get into it at all and didn't really get it.**
Pincushion Pete • shortstory by Ian Creasey
A man who works for rights of “intellectually challenged” is found to have many mental genetic engineering patches in his mind. It is alleged that his is addicted to patches and he must leave his job. But he certainly isn’t addicted; he can stop using the patches at any time. Or at least after he tries the latest one… ***+
The Narrative of More • shortstory by Tom Greene
An anthropologist/ "missionary " studies a newly found planet which apparently was colonized by humans centuries ago. All humans who are left are gatherers who use hardly any tools and seem to be completely without any tendencies to co-operate any way. How could a human society work like that? The story is told by short portions of notes the anthropologist makes. A very good and interesting story. The protagonist should have seen what was coming. ****-
The Tarn • novelette by Rob Chilson
A village of apparent idiots starts to dig a nearby pond for valuable remnants of an earlier civilization on the basis of vague rumors. All characters add "ah", "heh" and other grunts to their speech, and so appear complete idiots - and also behave mostly in idiotic way. The writing is very flowery and irritating. Overlong and stupid story- which I didn't finish. *
Tumbling Dice • shortstory by Ron Collins
A man who can influence dice wines against a casino. He gets an offer he can’t refuse, meets an exotic woman and must make a decision. Structurally pretty interesting, but plot wise nothing unusual – but isn’t supposed to be. A pretty satisfying story nevertheless. ***
Dreams of Spanish Gold • shortstory by Bond Elam
A computer which apparently runs things impersonates a human and finally understands what it is to be human. A short – perhaps too short - , but well-written story. ***½
Sleeping Dogs • novella by Adam-Troy Castro
A retired spy has been hiding on a backward planet for years fishing living “under the radar” spending his time fishing and living peaceful life. After he retired he was imprisoned for a while. One day the man who was responsible for his incarceration appears to the village. It can’t be a coincidence, or can it? A well-written story which seems to continue an earlier story. ( it appears this story was originally written as a sequel to the “Prisoner” TV-series, I can see the continuity even if some of the serial numbers has been filed away. A pretty nice story, but it is just a segment of a larger part and I really don’t get the logic of the main protagonist. Is he supposed to be insane at the end or does he just behave like it? ****-
Ashfall • shortstory by Edd Vick and Manny Frishberg
After a volcanic eruption bees are suffering, but a young computer hacking youngster teaches the robotic bees how to co-operate with the real bees. A very short story or rather a scene. Ok story as such, but it is just a setup. ***

The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu

The first part of a series which apparently is very popular in China. The story starts during the Cultural Revolution and ends in the near future. It tells a story of a science project, which was started in the middle of political turmoil and produced results which will shake the whole world decades later. I don’t believe that if I reveal that the main theme of the book is a contact with extraterrestrial civilization spoils too much. There has been a contact with extraterrestrials and it seems they won’t be friendly. The book is told large part by flashbacks and by just telling what has happened. The book really doesn’t follow the common writing advice “show, don’t tell”.

In the afterword, the translator states that he aimed to preserve the structure of language. That probably explains part of at places awkward writing. I pretty much disagree- I believe that the translator should aim to convey the plot and characters as smoothly as possible and not care about the linguistic structures of the original language. And this translator apparently also believes that the readers are morons and inserted copious amount of footnotes, which not only explain cultural details - most of which should be pretty clear from the circumstances and from the common knowledge of the Chinese history even a westerner with a normal education should have - but also some pretty basic scientific concepts. I was almost insulted by some of them. There also were some pretty bad problems with science, for example the scene where police was evaluating which of (all very small, too far too small for reasonable critical mass + triggering device) several bombs contained a real nuclear explosive with a scale was jaw-droppingly stupid. There were some other very stupid details: A character who specializes in nanotechnology states that the only form they are able to create from nanomaterial consists of a single filament. On the next page it turns out they have flat sheets of material - did the author manage to forget what he stated a few paragraphs earlier? Also, antimatter apparently exists in space in amounts usable for collection for propulsion? If there were such amounts of antimatter in interstellar space, there should be very common occurrences of matter -antimatter collisions with heavy radiation. And a virtual reality computer game, which is pretty crucial for the plot, apparently involves mostly only observing and it is so intriguing, that it induced people to betray everything, literally everything, - and is at the same time so complex that only the most intellectual people care to "play" it? Also, in China tree saplings grow to a forest in three years after planting?

I do have some suspicions of what kind of plot twist might explain some of the stupidities, but that Matrix-like twist would be a reader betrayal of all times and I don’t think the author will go there. But if everything in the book turns out to be a computer simulation it would explain many things. In spite of its’ flaws, the book was entertaining. But is it worth a Hugo – I am not entirely sure.

400 pp.