Slowly getting better and Hugo Voting.
May. 4th, 2015 07:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catsittingstillI spent most of last week pretty sick. Coughing like crazy, and a snot monster took up residence in my nose and for several days I was also nauseated so I wasn't eating much, though I did manage to stay hydrated this time, go me.
Now I am only garden-variety sick, but the chores have piled up while I wasn't able to get to them.
On the other hand, the Hugo Voting opened, so I have put in my preliminary votes. The way the Hugo voting works I can change my votes right up to the last minute, as I read and ponder more of the things. But I wanted to make sure my anti-slate protest would register even if I got hit by a car tomorrow (not that it's very likely, but still) so I put No Award first in all the Puppy-locked categories, and the non-Puppy contenders (if necessary in a random order, since in some cases I haven't read everything yet) and No Award in Puppy infested categories.
Thinking about the Graphic Novel category was fun: there was only one Puppy in that category, and I bought all the nonPuppy nominees to kind of make it up to myself about the Puppies, so I'm going to discuss that one in more detail here.
They were all fun. I don't read graphic novels much, mostly because they are so expensive they are just out of my price range as a regular thing. This is kind of a pity, as I wouldn't mind reading more of this kind of thing.
4) Sex Criminals. This one starts with a strange premise. For one young woman, time stops when she has an orgasm. She can walk around and do things and everyone else is just frozen in time. It turns out she's not alone in this capacity, and one day she meets a compatible partner--with a penchant for transgressing against societal norms during this period of frozen time. He talks her into committing a crime and things go from there.
3) Rat Queens. An all-woman D&D party. Fighter and cleric, magic user and rogue. But the town they live in is having a hard time living with their increasing destructiveness and contempt for the local community norms, and someone is sending them into situations that are getting harder and harder to survive. I haven't quite finished this one yet.
2) Saga Volume 3 I have read the background on this one, because Volume 2 was nominated last year. This is an interesting saga that follows the fortunes of two star-crossed lovers--soldiers on opposite sides of an inter-planetary war who loved, and accidentally started a family. Higher ups (on both sides, I think) want this inconvenient Romeo and Juliette pair--and especially their abomination of a baby--dead, and the killer for hire on their trail turns out to be easier for the reader to sympathize with than one might think.
1) Ms. Marvel. The new Ms. Marvel is a Muslim girl from New Jersey, trying to balance her family's expectations of a good girl's place with her own belief, inculcated by her father, that to save one life is to save the world entire. On her side, weird shape-shifting powers granted by a passing night mist, and a good friend with a knack for inventing. Ranged against her, a supervillian who is apparently running a drug ring, if I understand this right.
So that has been cool.
I have also read (most of) the short stories. These are all Puppy noms, and are going after No Award in any case, but I am reading them to find out what the Puppies think is so great they are willing to resort to a slate to shove it on the rest of us. However one of the short stories is not available on the internet, so I will have to wait for the voter's packet.
Note that any Puppy nom that doesn't get into the voter's packet or isn't otherwise available free just doesn't get read as far as I am concerned. I will be God damned if I will give a penny to someone who used a slate. I will read them, and that out of the goodness of my heart, but if you used a slate to wreck the Hugo nominations to make money you can just go to Hell.
Now I am only garden-variety sick, but the chores have piled up while I wasn't able to get to them.
On the other hand, the Hugo Voting opened, so I have put in my preliminary votes. The way the Hugo voting works I can change my votes right up to the last minute, as I read and ponder more of the things. But I wanted to make sure my anti-slate protest would register even if I got hit by a car tomorrow (not that it's very likely, but still) so I put No Award first in all the Puppy-locked categories, and the non-Puppy contenders (if necessary in a random order, since in some cases I haven't read everything yet) and No Award in Puppy infested categories.
Thinking about the Graphic Novel category was fun: there was only one Puppy in that category, and I bought all the nonPuppy nominees to kind of make it up to myself about the Puppies, so I'm going to discuss that one in more detail here.
They were all fun. I don't read graphic novels much, mostly because they are so expensive they are just out of my price range as a regular thing. This is kind of a pity, as I wouldn't mind reading more of this kind of thing.
4) Sex Criminals. This one starts with a strange premise. For one young woman, time stops when she has an orgasm. She can walk around and do things and everyone else is just frozen in time. It turns out she's not alone in this capacity, and one day she meets a compatible partner--with a penchant for transgressing against societal norms during this period of frozen time. He talks her into committing a crime and things go from there.
3) Rat Queens. An all-woman D&D party. Fighter and cleric, magic user and rogue. But the town they live in is having a hard time living with their increasing destructiveness and contempt for the local community norms, and someone is sending them into situations that are getting harder and harder to survive. I haven't quite finished this one yet.
2) Saga Volume 3 I have read the background on this one, because Volume 2 was nominated last year. This is an interesting saga that follows the fortunes of two star-crossed lovers--soldiers on opposite sides of an inter-planetary war who loved, and accidentally started a family. Higher ups (on both sides, I think) want this inconvenient Romeo and Juliette pair--and especially their abomination of a baby--dead, and the killer for hire on their trail turns out to be easier for the reader to sympathize with than one might think.
1) Ms. Marvel. The new Ms. Marvel is a Muslim girl from New Jersey, trying to balance her family's expectations of a good girl's place with her own belief, inculcated by her father, that to save one life is to save the world entire. On her side, weird shape-shifting powers granted by a passing night mist, and a good friend with a knack for inventing. Ranged against her, a supervillian who is apparently running a drug ring, if I understand this right.
So that has been cool.
I have also read (most of) the short stories. These are all Puppy noms, and are going after No Award in any case, but I am reading them to find out what the Puppies think is so great they are willing to resort to a slate to shove it on the rest of us. However one of the short stories is not available on the internet, so I will have to wait for the voter's packet.
Note that any Puppy nom that doesn't get into the voter's packet or isn't otherwise available free just doesn't get read as far as I am concerned. I will be God damned if I will give a penny to someone who used a slate. I will read them, and that out of the goodness of my heart, but if you used a slate to wreck the Hugo nominations to make money you can just go to Hell.
