Because I know you care about what I care about the Hugos.

[theweaselking]

The Hugo Award nominees are out.

Unusually for me, I haven't read any of the Best Novel noms, but I can say I have heard great things about almost all of them.
Best Novella: Haven't heard of any of them.
Best Novellette: Haven't heard of any of them.
Best Short Story: Wait, they still make those? Haven't heard of any of them.
Best Nerd Movie: Oh god, the top three nominations suck. Well, not "suck", just "don't deserve anything close to a 'best in year' award". I'd give it to Looper, Hunger Games second, "No Award" above the remaining three.
Best Doctor Who Episode Written By Steven Moffat: This category is terrible and everyone who nominates Doctor Who for it is terrible. I haven't seen the Fringe, but the Game Of Thrones was excellent and NO YOU MUST NOT VOTE DOCTOR WHO FOR THIS WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU THINKING. Also, all three of those episodes were twee, trite, and boring. They weren't even the best Doctor Who episodes, let alone the best Nerd TV.

The rest: Oh dear.

The entire 2012 Hugo slate makes me weep. Partly because I've never heard of most of them and thus am presumably missing out on the best things 2012 produced, and partly because the nominees I HAVE seen/read? Not good.

Comments

[lurkerwithout.livejournal.com]

Seanan McGuire is up for a mess of these, under her regular name and as Mira Gaunt. You'd probably like her zombie world trilogy and the prequel short story "Countdown" can be found online. "Throne of the Crescent Moon" was a pretty quality fantasy and bonus points for being non-Euro based...

I can't recall reading any of the three short stories. But other stuff by Kij Johnson and Ken Liu I've read has been good.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I've read the first two of her zombie novels, and have Deadline on a shelf waiting for me. Ditto Throne Of The Crescent Moon - my wife read both of them but I haven't reached them yet.

[skington.livejournal.com]

Throne of the Crescent Moon is horribly over-rated. The guy can't write, there's no character development worth speaking of, and the magic system is haphazardly thrown-together.

If you want non-Euro-based fantasy, read Guy Gavriel Kay's Under Heaven (sequel coming out Real Soon Now), or (possibly - haven't read it myself, but it's had recommendations) Elizabeth Bear's Range of Ghosts.

[missysedai.livejournal.com]

Best fan writer: Mark Oshiro. Seriously, check him out: http://markdoesstuff.com/

He's a real scream, he was just here for an event and hung out at my place for a couple hours beforehand. Great guy, loads of fun, and completely hilarious.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I *have* heard of him! Didn't associate his name with markdoesstuff, though.

[kafziel.livejournal.com]

Redshirts is quite good. Haven't heard of the rest of the Novels, but Redshirts is worth an award.

[fatpie42.livejournal.com]

I'm against "The Hobbit" winning any awards because it would be spun as a de facto victory for 48 fps (WITH headache-glasses) and that's clearly not a good thing. That said, I REALLY loved that movie. I thought it was so much more fun than the Lord Of The Rings movies ever were.

For around half of last year nothing seemed to be anywhere close to as good as "Cabin In The Woods". Sure, eventually some more worthy stuff turned up at the end of the year. But for a good long while it seemed to be the best thing out there.

"The Avengers" has been overrated enough already. Sure, it was a good movie, but asides from multiple heroes -no wait "X Men" so scratch that. The Avengers did nothing that hadn't been done before. Plus it had the cliched "great big battle scene at the end" thing, which kind of needs to die.

But yeah "Hunger Games" was really good and "Looper" was pretty good too.


Doctor Who:“The Snowmen”
Seriously? You know, since Moffat started running Doctor Who I've enjoyed every single Christmas episode. That wasn't the case before. But this one? This is the first one that I've actively disliked since Moffat took the helm. But I must say, I really loved "Angels Take Manhattan". I'm glad that's nominated at least.

Still haven't seen season two of Game Of Thrones (it's been on my rental list FOREVER), but I'm a pretty big fan of Neil Marshall, so I cannot wait to see "Blackwater" to see what he did with it. :)

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

That said, I REALLY loved that movie. I thought it was so much more fun than the Lord Of The Rings movies ever were.

Whereas I referred to it as "'A Walking Tour Of New Zealand' with some weird contrived action-y subplots that got in the way of the walking tour. But they should keep that homeless guy who insists he's a wizard, because he's funny."

Cabin In The Woods was Whedon being Whedon, and that always makes me feel a little icky. Dude has issues and keeps putting them on screen. The Avengers was Whedon being as Whedon as Marvel will let him, but WOW still all kinds of issues. It was a workmanlike and acceptable Extruded Superhero Product, that did not disappoint, but "best of the year"? Seriously? No.

The Hunger Games wasn't the best of the year, either, but it was better than No Award. And Looper was actually quite good.


The entire Best Doctor Who Episode Written By Stephen Moffat category needs to die. Oh noes, last year there was a DRAMATIC UPSET and a Doctor Who episode written by Neil Gaiman IMITATING Stephen Moffat won! Sure, it was twee, trite, boring, and combined the worst elements of Gaiman's work with the worst excesses of Moffat's work without bringing in either of their virtues, but that's totally different, right?

"Blink" deserved the Hugo. None of the other recent Doctor Who nominees did, but their tasteless fans are drowning out actually good works anyway.

(That being said: Blackwater is excellent. And always makes me laugh because of Martin's complaints, while writing the episode, about "what idiot" wrote the book because didn't "that asshole" know how HARD this would be to FILM?)

[dscotton.livejournal.com]

I'd take the Hunger Games over Looper. Looper was entertaining to watch but none of the plot made any damn sense. It all depended on people being incredibly stupid. It was frustrating when I thought about it afterward and the whole thing fell apart.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Making no sense is no bar to being awesome, especially when all you need is "makes sense for the characters to act that way" even if an objective observer with time to think would do differently.

And if you're going by "makes no sense" as a disqualifier, you can't possibly vote for Doctor Who, ever. And that makes me okay with you preferring The Hunger Games.

[dscotton.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking more of the setup than the characters' actions. Like, if I remember correctly, the reason the loopers needed to die was that they were a security risk. So they give them a bunch of money, let them run around free for 30 years, and give them a strong incentive to turn on the crime boss (by letting them know 30 years in advance they're going to be killed)? That doesn't sound like a real effective way of keeping a secret. (Also, note how random townsperson knows about the loopers. Why doesn't the FBI come shut them down... any time in the next 30 years?) Why send the loopers to be killed by their younger selves, with all the obvious risks that entails, instead of just having them killed by a different looper? Then there's the thing where the whole reason for the operation was that it's impossible to hide a body in the future... so bad, apparently, that they need this whole contrived system instead of just killing people in the future and sending their bodies into the past to hide them. And yet, the criminals are so careless they managed to kill Bruce Willis's wife... what??

Admittedly, The Hunger Games doesn't make a ton of sense either, but it didn't bug me as much (especially in movie form, where left out the stuff about District 12 only having 2000 people in it.)

[torrain.livejournal.com]

With you on them killing Bruce Willis's wife. That, I thought, was the weakest damn part of the story

Nor would I expect the FBI to either pay special attention: "Some yahoos who claim to be contract killers sometimes talk about how their boss is a time-traveller when they're drunk, although he never comes back in time, and the guy who claims to speak for him (who actually is a hardass) never travels in time. Okay, no-one's dying, no-one you'd expect to be worthy of a contract hit is even missing, we get them on drunk and disorderly sometimes and that's it, they have money but that's about it... Maybe they're all the local hardass's boytoys, I'm fucked if I care.[1] Drop it in the circular crank file, okay?"

The story was that they were a security risk. I got the impression it happened that way at least in part because the man running the operation hated the loopers. That said: you don't get someone else to do it because then people would have a reason to go after each other, and that bunch would. Buy in yourself--and cement the buying in by killing yourself--when you're a stupid teenager and you don't really believe in living past twenty-five anyway? Kill yourself in a way that you don't even know you've done it until you get the pay-off? That's not a bad recruiting tactic, depressing as it is.

And who's the "crime boss" they're going to turn on--the local boss who's actually scary, but who they probably don't know enough about to spill? Some guy from somewhere living in someplace who as far as they know maybe hasn't even been born yet? Who they've never even met?

(Er, would that be the random "very goodlooking single mother who has made it clear she left the city because that kind of life wasn't good for her and who left her 'former sex worker who hangs out with a bunch of partying contract killers who you can't trust to drive safely, let alone keep their mouths shut' sign out in the back of the barn, but really it's around if you need an explanation" townsperson? Or some other random townsperson? Cause her knowing about the loopers neither bothered nor surprised me at all--okay, not more than anything else which reinforced the whole momgina thing.)
---
ETA [1]: "He shows them how to transcend time, Joe."
"Shut it, Frank."
"He has this sonic screwdriver. It vibrates, that's how they know it's real."
"Shut it, Frank."
"It's bigger on the inside, you know..."
"So help me god, Frank, if you do not fucking quit it I am gonna send you out to do fucking interviews on those drug-happy goombas..."
"It'll be the case of a lifetime!"
"Die in a fire, Frank. Is there any coffee?"

[kafziel.livejournal.com]

I don't think you sufficiently appreciate the overwhelming feels of The Doctor's Waifu. Don't you get it? The Doctor and the TARDIS are soulmates! Just like my headcanon! I have written several hundred thousand words of speculative shipfic on my tumblr if you want to explore the pairing further.

[rimrunner.livejournal.com]

Aliette de Bodard is in my writers' group and I got to read a draft version of On a Red Station, Drifting. I highly recommend it.

[ianvass.livejournal.com]

Dunno if you are a webcomic fan, but Schlock Mercenary finds itself on the Hugo nomination list pretty regularly, and it's fantastic stuff. It's got a boatload of archives that will keep you busy for weeks, though his art is certainly... regrettable... at the very beginning. I consider it worthy of the Hugo nomination, myself. Check it out if you haven't yet.

[hollowpoint.livejournal.com]

I read SM for many years as a teenager but gave it up as I aged. I loved that he did a lot of cool space operatic stuff and wasn't afraid to throw some immense scale into his larger plots, but I could no longer put aside his politics, weak characters, awful humour and shabby art (it's a lot better than it was but I'd still describe it as 'pretty ugly', except when he's drawing large-scale space stuff scenes).

Sadly I don't have any SF webcomics on my list at the moment. I enjoyed Starslip Crisis but that reached its conclusion and now it's done.

Re. the Hugo nominees - nice to see Aliette de Bodard on several lists. I've not read her work in a few years but what I have read is very good.

With TWK on Who - I enjoy it well enough with my brain disengaged but it is hammy, saccharine, overly sentimental schmaltz with little to no internal or narrative consistency and is of highly variable quality even putting that aside. None of those episodes deserve a nomination, especially not the utter wank that was Snowmen (saw it on Christmas day, my entire family snorted in derision at the "tears on Christmas day" line and I started tallying up how many problems have been 'solved' by someone having a bit of a cry).

[kowh.livejournal.com]

Yeah, nothing on the novel list jumps out as "award worthy". Haven't read 2312 or Throne of the Crescent Moon, and none of the others stand tall enough for me to say they deserve an award.

What I've read of Kim Stanley Robinson's other work suggests 2312 will be more "not particularly horrible, but not particularly great either" Robinson extruded story product.

I gave up on the newsflesh trilogy after the first book. Didn't really do anything interesting or novel, mostly just pandered to the growing up online generation via the incredibly tired zombie apocalypse trope.

I liked Captain Vorpatril's Alliance, it was entertaining and well crafted, but obviously a product by an experienced writer in a long running series with no real need to rock the boat.

Redshirts was fun enough, but not up to the standards of his other works. It felt like Scalzi using Scalzi's Patented Story Formula. A formula that's better than the best efforts of most competitors, but still not especially satisfying.

I haven't heard enough of Throne of the Crescent Moon to form an opinion.