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The Hugo Awards packet came out yesterday (yippee! I’ve been waiting for this) and I think what I’m going to do is to post probably short reviews of the stories as I read them, mostly as records for my own voting purposes so that I’ll remember what I read and what I thought of it when I read it. I plan to give them marks out of ten, but reserve the right to alter these as I read more.
I’m also going to start cross posting to my WordPress thingy at mpmrommel.co.uk as I don’t currently make use of that and I really should. I shall just have to hope that if I overstep the allowances the hosts get in touch and let me know.
I have to say, also, that anything that isn’t in the packet and isn’t available on the web probably won’t get read. It’s not that I don’t want to read those stories, but that I’ve spent this month’s allowance on books, and can’t afford to spend more.
Note: rampaging spoilers herein. Please do not click on the links if you can’t cope with spoilers.
“On A Spiritual Plain”, Lou Antonelli (Sci Phi Journal #2, 11-2014)
The basis of this story is that a Methodist Minister (I assume young, I don’t know if it’s stated) is sent to a distant planet where the spirits of the dead hang around until they are ready to move on. Once they are ready, their tribe escort them to an area of the planet where the electrical thingys are thin enough to allow them to dissipate.
A young (human) man is the first person to die there among the human visitors, and the Minister has to sort out his dissipation. So to speak.
I thought it was an interesting idea, but it left me with a lot of questions. Obviously not all questions can be answered in a short story, which is a limitation of the form – this idea, I thought, required a novelette if not a novel. I didn’t understand, for example, why the dead man was in such a hurry to disappear. What was pushing him to go? Especially since with the original inhabitants of the planet, the dead remain with their descendants for six generations before taking the final journey. Which also begs the question if every dead person does that, or if some hang around for longer and shorter times. If so, why?
I couldn’t help thinking of Nearly Headless Nick in Harry Potter, who is afraid of moving on and therefore stays…and stays…
There were also some clunky sentences, which rather threw me out.
Interesting idea, not especially well handled. 6/10. Appears on both the Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies slates.
“A Single Samurai”, Steven Diamond (The Baen Big Book of Monsters, Baen Books)
I didn’t like this. I find samurai hard going at the best of times, I don’t know what it is about them that irritates me, but it’s hard to dig up much enthusiasm.
This particular samurai finds himself on the back of a huge (beyond huge, giant, mountainous) creature. It’s so big that it takes the samurai several days to hack his way to the top of the thing, fighting four-eyed cat monsters as he does. We discover that his sword is an über-sword, linked to him in a way similar to the way that the Ring is linked to Sauron.
Eventually, the samurai finds his way to the top of the creature-mountain. He falls over and breaks his leg (as they do) finds his way into the creature’s nostrils (I think) and then (to his surprise but not that of the reader) kills the mountain-creature by sticking his horcrux-sword into its brain.
Again, there are some infelicities of language which should have been picked up by the editor.
Not a very interesting idea, adequately dealt with. 4/10. Again, this is appears on both the Sad and Rabid Puppies slate.
“Totaled”, Kary English (Galaxy’s Edge Magazine, 07-2014)
A sea change, this one. Hooray!
A scientist, Maggie, has had a car accident and wakes to find herself a brain in a jar. It would give anyone a bit of a turn and despite the fact that Maggie was herself working on the project, she is not immune.
I liked Maggie very much. She adapts to the situation far better than most would do (in any Lovecraftian story where this happens, the sufferer goes immediately insane), and though she misses her children, she sets to deal with the issue with the logic one would hope for from a scientist.
The end of the story (which I will leave unspoiled) hits with the genial cheerfulness of the 9:15 from Bristol hitting the buffers.
A much better story, much better written. 8/10. Sadly, this also appears on both the Sad and Rabid Puppies slate – sadly because I’m in two minds about placing anything which appears on a slate higher than ‘no award’.
So that’s the first three.
I’m also going to start cross posting to my WordPress thingy at mpmrommel.co.uk as I don’t currently make use of that and I really should. I shall just have to hope that if I overstep the allowances the hosts get in touch and let me know.
I have to say, also, that anything that isn’t in the packet and isn’t available on the web probably won’t get read. It’s not that I don’t want to read those stories, but that I’ve spent this month’s allowance on books, and can’t afford to spend more.
Note: rampaging spoilers herein. Please do not click on the links if you can’t cope with spoilers.
“On A Spiritual Plain”, Lou Antonelli (Sci Phi Journal #2, 11-2014)
The basis of this story is that a Methodist Minister (I assume young, I don’t know if it’s stated) is sent to a distant planet where the spirits of the dead hang around until they are ready to move on. Once they are ready, their tribe escort them to an area of the planet where the electrical thingys are thin enough to allow them to dissipate.
A young (human) man is the first person to die there among the human visitors, and the Minister has to sort out his dissipation. So to speak.
I thought it was an interesting idea, but it left me with a lot of questions. Obviously not all questions can be answered in a short story, which is a limitation of the form – this idea, I thought, required a novelette if not a novel. I didn’t understand, for example, why the dead man was in such a hurry to disappear. What was pushing him to go? Especially since with the original inhabitants of the planet, the dead remain with their descendants for six generations before taking the final journey. Which also begs the question if every dead person does that, or if some hang around for longer and shorter times. If so, why?
I couldn’t help thinking of Nearly Headless Nick in Harry Potter, who is afraid of moving on and therefore stays…and stays…
There were also some clunky sentences, which rather threw me out.
Interesting idea, not especially well handled. 6/10. Appears on both the Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies slates.
“A Single Samurai”, Steven Diamond (The Baen Big Book of Monsters, Baen Books)
I didn’t like this. I find samurai hard going at the best of times, I don’t know what it is about them that irritates me, but it’s hard to dig up much enthusiasm.
This particular samurai finds himself on the back of a huge (beyond huge, giant, mountainous) creature. It’s so big that it takes the samurai several days to hack his way to the top of the thing, fighting four-eyed cat monsters as he does. We discover that his sword is an über-sword, linked to him in a way similar to the way that the Ring is linked to Sauron.
Eventually, the samurai finds his way to the top of the creature-mountain. He falls over and breaks his leg (as they do) finds his way into the creature’s nostrils (I think) and then (to his surprise but not that of the reader) kills the mountain-creature by sticking his horcrux-sword into its brain.
Again, there are some infelicities of language which should have been picked up by the editor.
Not a very interesting idea, adequately dealt with. 4/10. Again, this is appears on both the Sad and Rabid Puppies slate.
“Totaled”, Kary English (Galaxy’s Edge Magazine, 07-2014)
A sea change, this one. Hooray!
A scientist, Maggie, has had a car accident and wakes to find herself a brain in a jar. It would give anyone a bit of a turn and despite the fact that Maggie was herself working on the project, she is not immune.
I liked Maggie very much. She adapts to the situation far better than most would do (in any Lovecraftian story where this happens, the sufferer goes immediately insane), and though she misses her children, she sets to deal with the issue with the logic one would hope for from a scientist.
The end of the story (which I will leave unspoiled) hits with the genial cheerfulness of the 9:15 from Bristol hitting the buffers.
A much better story, much better written. 8/10. Sadly, this also appears on both the Sad and Rabid Puppies slate – sadly because I’m in two minds about placing anything which appears on a slate higher than ‘no award’.
So that’s the first three.
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