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MORE DoomyDoomDOoom with DOOooOOoom Sauce for HUGO!
Y'know, the Gloomy SF Is Better movement is now *FORTY YEARS OLD*. The original New Wavers are dead or reaching the end of their careers. Don't you think it's time to GIVE IT AN F'ING REST? I mean, really, picking WATERS OF MARS ,of ALL the Doctor Who you could have chosen?
Yes, I know. I'm USED to awards being given to the stuff that's worst, but it does get a bit WEARING after a while. Hell, it's not like the Grand Finale this year was all sweetness and light; it was pretty grim. But it didn't involve grade-A choice stupidity AS WELL as doomy doom dooOoooOooom.
(I can't judge most of the others, not having read 'em. But I know what Charles Stross writes, and I find it likely that there's a lot of doominess in it.)
Yes, I know. I'm USED to awards being given to the stuff that's worst, but it does get a bit WEARING after a while. Hell, it's not like the Grand Finale this year was all sweetness and light; it was pretty grim. But it didn't involve grade-A choice stupidity AS WELL as doomy doom dooOoooOooom.
(I can't judge most of the others, not having read 'em. But I know what Charles Stross writes, and I find it likely that there's a lot of doominess in it.)
Freebie
This is wrist slitting stuff. It lacks a pompous, arrogant, humorous comic relief. Someone like George after Watergate. Pity.
Re: Freebie
... I dislike Charlie Stross personally, but I loved the concept of "A Colder War." It's solidly grounded in the Mythos all the way back to the 1940's, particularly August Derleth's Robert Bloch's "The Shadow from the Steeple" (1950), in which he reveals that Nyarlathotep deliberately gave humanity atomic energy before we were morally ready to use it; and August Derleth's "The Black Island" (1952), in which America atom-bombs R'lyeh, but merely annoys Cthulhu by doing so. Note also Lumley's Necroscope series, also in the Mythos, partly set in the Cold War, which during those parts features Britain's "E-Branch" pitting psychic secret agents against Soviet psychic secret agents.
It actually makes perfect sense that, at least in some timelines, the Great Powers would weaponize Mythos knowledge, and that in at least one, the result would be a final war which resulted in loosing the Great Old Ones. Triggering such a war would have been Nyarlathotep's logical objective in "The Shadow from the Steeple," and linking it directly to the release of the Great Old Ones just makes matters even better (and funnier, Nyarlathotep is The Deadpan Snarker of the Outer Gods) from the viewpoint of the Crawling Chaos.
The depressingness of "A Colder War" springs not from the scenario but from Stross missing the silver lining of the outcome. OTOH, Stross' protagonist has lost his wife and family, and was never very much an Ad Astra type, so it's understandable that this character wouldn't see the possibilities of the situation.
Re: Freebie
Dude, it's mutual. Don't sweat it.
Re: Freebie