Maltloaf : The Duckling Song

Suggested by Bryan Burford saying: I'm not sure what you think ducklings do, but it's not that.
and Rob Buckley saying: The lesser known Meatloaf song. During a discussion about television in which the word imprinting was used.

THE DUCKLING SONG

They may float in ponds, dress an Easter hat, 

I don't know what you think they do, but they don't do that.  

'Cos ducklings a la orange, isn't as tasty as it appears, 

You can get the taste on your tongue at night

Though you've been vegan now for years, 

And all you can see by the dashboard light 

Is little balls of yellow tears, 

Because ducking run over in the orange of night isn't tasty as it appears.

Oh it was long ago that I had my fill, 

And it seems like just my luck,

That no no matter how tender and plump it may be

I can't now face a duck, 

Because when I think of a duckling now, 

I know the bill is due, 

Cause if you'd done to them what I'm thinking of now

You couldn't face one too

They may look good on cards, they may quack a lot

They may be fuffy as a whole ball of yarn

But when a car rolls over their plot

They can't come back from grievous bodily harm.

I was younger then, I didn't have no fear

I'd seen too much street-pizza goin' to waste.

But the orange light of the headlights here

They just bring back the texture and taste. 

Oh it was long ago that I had my fill, 

And it seems like just my luck,

That no no matter how tender and plump it may be

I can't now face a duck, 

Because when I think of a duckling now, 

I know the bill is due, 

Cause if you'd done to them what I'm thinking of now

You couldn't face one too

Referwonky (after Lewis Carroll)

`Twas brexit, and the tory coves
conspired the leadership to grab
All flimsy were the Boris-Goves
And the May-wrath outCrabb.

"Beware the Referwonks, my son!
Seek not to jaw of laws mismatch!
Beware the Ukip bund, and shun
The farragous Pandersnitch!"
He took his Corbyl sword in hand:
Long time the marxist's foe he sought --
So rested he by the SunScum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in whutnuxt thought he stood,
The Pe-el-Pe with eyes of flame,
Came waffling through the Lobbyley wood,
And backbit as it came!
One, two! One, two! but though twice through
The Corbyl blade went snicker-snack!
It had two faces on its head
And just came blairing back.
"What backbit by the Pe-el-Pe?
When Referwonks are seen to rove?
It might still have been worse, you see
The Boris, fell at it's own Gove!

(Corbyl sword suggested by Dave Stone)

Charlie and the Chocolate Nightmare Factory by Thoas Liggotti

The mausoleum wasn’t nearly large enough for so many bodies, and death was extremely uncomfortable

for them all. There were only two crypts in the place altogether, and there was only one tomb. The tomb was given to the four old grandparents because they had been dead so long, and they were so tired. They were so tired, they never got out of it. Mr Blud-Bucket was the only ghoul in the family with a job. He worked in a nightmare factory, where he crouched all day long at a bench and screwed the little skull-caps back onto the heads of the children after their heads had been filled. But a children's head skull-cap screwer is never paid very much blood, and poor Mr Blud-Bucket, however hard he worked, and however fast he screwed on the skull-caps, was never able to earn the blood that so large a family needed. There wasn’t even blood to feed them all. They had to gnaw on their own fore-arms for breakfast, swallow their own tongues for lunch, and drink blood-broth for supper. Moondays were a bit better. They all looked forward to Moondays because then, although they had exactly the same, everyone was allowed a second helping.

A brief history of the Hugo awards - the file 770 compiliation [as credited]

Many thanks to - the indefatigable Kyra who kicked this off, and whose astonishingly good contributions are included below (SBJ).  Also to in historical not posting order: Cubist, Ginger, GSLamb, Camestros Felapton, Simon Bisson "A Hugo A Hugo!", Greg, CPACA, Mike, Johan P,
Red Wombat, Seth Gordon, Ultragotha, idontknow, mc simon milligan, Brian Z, Jack Lint, Stevie, Chris Hensley, and Soon Lee.


Precosmic era  [Cubist wrote:]
Sadly, no records whatsoever have survived from UrCon (ca. 13.8 gigayears Before Present Era). From what little physical evidence has survived, we can surmise that one of the events was some sort of fireworks display that got exceedingly out of hand.

Prehumanic Awards [Ginger wrote:]
Well, the only remaining documents from Laetolicon (3.7 million years ago) are the footnotes, so whether they dealt with slate dominating over schist or even obsidian, we’ll never know. What is clear, though, is that they actually had aliens invading their territory. If only we could have retrieved their documents! Alas. Let this be a warning to you all: always save your documents in multiple formats, across different platforms.

[GSLamb wrote]

If I recall correctly, H.G.Wells won one of the first Hugos for The Time Machine at CONGAEA (roughly 300 mya).  I lost my ballot for this in the big flood, but I remember putting Audrey Niffenegger’sThe Time Traveller’s Wife above it.

A later, earlier rule change brought in by recourse to H. Beam Piper's time police prohibits works being eligible - before they're written (SBJ)

Pre-history and Early History (including some retro-HUGOs awarded by Bishop Usher whose attempt to prove that the first HUGO ceremony was in 4004 BC has since been widely disregarded.)

[Camestros Felapton wrote:] 

Have we discussed the year 15000 BCE Hugo winner for best fan artist yet? I thought it was a strong entry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascaux
[Bisson comments:]
Fan artist? No, they were Pro all the way. That’s the cover art for Mammoths and Hunters, an early RPG.

[Greg wrote] re: 15000 BCE fan artist: Well, of course Lascaux won! They flooded the voting pool. I thought the group from Altamira was significantly stronger, but clearly the Hugos disagreed.
[There was however some disagreement at the time, as CPACA notes:]
Grog say, Og picture “Deer running from fire” on wall Big Cave Over Water not deserve Hugo, Best Graphic Story. Fire servant of Storm God, come from lightening! Grog tired stupid religious themes passed off as science fiction. Go tell it to shamans!

Grog also tired “Best Graphic Story” – someone invent writing! Grog has spoken.

[I have to refer the reader to the evidence in the Doctor Who story "An Unearthly Child"
- "Orb will not give HUGO to you!" (SBJ).

[as Ginger notes]
With respect to controversy, need I mention that people are still arguing over the Original Controversy? The novella that is still published as “Genesis”, in which the main characters are created from “earth” — clearly science fiction, come on — and so on; the schisms created by the warring camps has only grown greater with the centuries since its publication. In contrast, Gilgamesh was completely overlooked, probably because it was mis-labeled a saga and not best novel; there may also have been some anti-Ur sentiment floating around. And what has ever been nominated out of the Aztec, or Pueblo/Hopi/Zuni, or indeed, any of the native North American traditions? They’ve clearly been completely blocked off by a shadowy cabal.

[Mike] Re native North American traditions?” I have it on the highest authority that the answer is Vox Day. The Voice will tell you himself! I thought the Voice was — historically speaking — a miniature equid, or a little horse?

(This appears to be a mistake - the voice of God is of course Metaton - and in a staggeringly organicist statistical fluke no transforming truck with delusions of godhood has ever won a Hugo.  SBJ)

[Johan P comments:] Oh, they completely swept the ballot in the years when WorldCon was held in America. It’s just a shame the reports from those cons never reached European fen, and nothing survives today. The closest we come to remember pre-columbian Worldcons in America is Leif Ericssons saga, about a group of Norse fens and their failed attempt to reach the IroqCon. 

[Red Wombat writes:]
Alas, they never got further than Newfoundland and I don’t buy for a minute those claims by Joseph Smith that he located the original ballots from Tezcatlipocon held in Seventeenth Jaguar Year. All those ballots and not a single vote for Doctor Who? Puh-leaze.

[Seth Gordon wrote:]
I still bear a grudge against Raamsescon for giving the Hugo to “Genesis”. It’s an entertaining yarn, I’ll admit, but to earn a major award you ought to do more than hack together a scroll full of clichés. (“Adam” and “Eve”? Really?) And the “Cain and Abel” subplot is a complete ripoff from DC Comics.
[Ultragotha comments]

Oh, I don’t know, Seth. It may have gotten off to a slow start but I liked the later story arcs. The flood thing with the animals was pretty good. Sure, it’d already been done in Gilgamesh, but I thought the details on building the ark were pretty well written. The framing of having the specs come from God broke up all the ShipPorn pretty well.

[Camestros Felapton wrote:]
 thought it was adapted from that Egyptian Manga – Set & Osiris.
[Simon Bisson]. Actually the Egyptians were pioneers of the ligne clair style that was later adopted to document the adventures of Belgian journalists in the near East (and later globally).
[Camestros Felapton recognises the reference:]
Ah yes – the great pantheon: Horus! Isis! Ra! Captain Haddock! *Choke*

date unclear

Of course very few remember the scandal of the West Saxony Aulde Worlde Con when the epic poem Beowulf was left off ye liste of nominees in total due to no one knowing the name of ye aulde author. [posted by idontknow]   [SBJ notes: it is odd that a contemporary con describes itself as Aulde Worlde, it is likely this refers to a Con considerably later than Beowulf retconning it an award,
perhaps dating to the division of West and East Saxony.]


mc simon milligan said:

I still think Zhuang Zhou was robbed at Panhelicon XII in 392 BCE when his short story “The Butterfly’s Dream” wasn’t even nominated due mostly to the Greek’s notorious xenophobia.

[Other's criticised the Greek's influence on the Hellenistic HUGOs with multiple wins for HOMER - which he obviously only got due to an SJW sympathy vote for his blindness - I mean "wine-dark sea" is that a believably evocative description? (SBJ)

[CPACA wrote]

Oh, I thought the dreadful decline in the quality of the Hugo nominees was traced back to Aristotle. Damn him.

Frankly I think Socrates was pushing it. I don’t think there has been a truly deserving winner since Pythagoras.

1066 - precursors of the Hugos - "The Haralds" [posted by Johan P]
When we complain about this year’s (2015 SBJ) puppy ruckus, it behooves us to remember that it’s blissfully peaceful compared to some historic debates – like the fights over proposals for “Best Saga” and “Best Graphic Novel” categories in the early 11th century. 

The traditional methods of slates and ballot-stuffing have always worked well for the award voting, but they’re less effective at the thing (business meeting) where only attending members can vote. So the main proponent of Best Saga, King Harald Hardråde of Norway, assembled an army and marched at the 1066 Con in order to force the thing to accept his proposal. However, Harald lost the battle of Stamford Bridge, and to this day there’s still no Hugo award for Best Saga.

With both Harald and his Best Saga proposal dead and buried, Duke William of Normandy had free hands to ram through his proposal for Best Graphic Novel, with the Bayeux Tapestry as the first winner.

[Note this had popular support at time, Ultragotha bardic cycle declaims:]

I think The Heliand belongs in Best Related Work.

(For those who are unaware, it is a re-telling of the Gospel aimed at pre-Christian Saxons, for use in converting them to Christianity by a less bloody means than Charlemagne used, and probably a basis of the “Holy Warrior for Christ” medieval movement, which fed into the Arthurian Matter of Britain.)

[Bisson writes:]

Also, the I think we’re all forgetting the first ever best novel Hugo, awarded to mononymical Wace for his Roman De Brut in 1155, where he created possibly the longest running shared world fantasy series, and certainly the first one to become a multimedia hit: The Camelotiad. His best known character, the boy-become-King, Arthur has been reinterpreted by many authors in novels, film, and comics.

I’m expecting he’ll be a shoo-in for the first Best Saga Hugo, with new books being added to the series more than 900 years after first publication.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wace Tapestry for Best Graphic S/t/o/r/y/ Embroidery.

1.:  the first "HUGO" award?.  1197 AD (Winner in bold)

The award itself dates back to 1197 and Bishop Hugo de Rainault (brother of the then Sherrif of Nottingham) who it will be remembered offered ‘a mighty prize for the most puissant account of how yon addlepate knave Robin Earle yclept Loksley might best be set about his heels.’

(It's now clear de Rainault used poor communications which meant the name could appear novel in the Nottingham area to 'steal' the name of an existing award - thank heavens unscrupulous men could never do that now.  The 'Haralds' were probably also 'Hugos' and the original name dates back at least as far as the "Hydrogen Universe Great Origin" Point or 377,000 years post Big Bang  (SBJ))

The original silver arrow has now become over time the stylised ‘rocket robin hood’ shape of the current award. 

Contenders at this period and later under Richard 1st - include:
“Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, and William Langland, who were all know to be bald and to have problems with short jerkins on rising are sometimes (following the suggestion of academic John Burrow) collectively called the Picardian Poets.”  [sbj post].

2: 1378  (Winner in bold)

The award nominations for best Modern English Poem(1) we we would now refer to this as Middle English, but when we were in the Middle we didn’t know we weren’t near the end –

Piers Plowman’s Puppeteers – in which two headed alien cowards show a plowman the wonders of the heavens. Its unrhymed alliterative verse was called ‘sub-judicial work’ and the SJW, slur was first used in anger.

Michael Moorcock’s The Pearl (he added the Fortress and Elric in later re-writes),

and the poem Cleanliness – which was no awarded as being basically the same when placed next to the previous years Godliness.

[Seigneur Simon Bisson - notes how the medieval rules worked]

And of course there is the long forgotten recourse to the Clameur De Hugo when one feels the rules have been violated. To do so one must kneel in front of a member of the WSFS Mark Protection committee and recite “Hugo! Hugo! Hugo! A l’aide mon prince! On me fait tort!” followed by the Lord’s Prayer in Jersey-French. The convention must then enter the Committee of the Whole and debate your petition without delay.

[Greg writes:]

1. Seriously? We’re not going to talk about Best Dramatic, Long Form? I still haven’t forgiven the KnownWorldCon committee of 1595 for ruling that A Midsummer Night’s Dream was ineligible because, and I QUOTE:

   “Fairies are obviovsly real, and are yerefore no more fcience fiction than travelrs from ye future-landf, as ovr gentle-visitor Glyer of the Americas can attest. William Shakespeare’s comedy is yerefore DISQUALIFYED.” Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus only won the 1595 Hugo because the best fantasy play ever written was removed from the ballot.

   Sure, they gave Shakespeare the 1611 Hugo for The Tempest to make up for it, but Ben Jonson’s Oberon The Fairy Prince was the superior Dramatic Presentation that year, as none other than Samuel Pepys pointed out:
   “Up betimes and to the Hugos, where the Lord has seen fit to reward an inferior writer of an inferior work over Jonson. My mind is most agitated by this, and I believe I shall swear off both wine and plays.”

   I’d ask how it’s possible that Ben Jonson never won a Hugo with nine nominations, but given his disgraceful treatment of certain time-travelers, I think we all know the answer to that. Mike and others who were there can speak to that more directly, but I won’t bring up the shameful incidents here.

   Side note: does anyone know how Samuel Pepys got from 1660 to 1611?

3. circa 1590 [posted by Brian Z] 

His books and novellas banned until he was finally vindicated by the Campbellian Revolution, Giordano Bruno also composed filk cycles envisioning an infinite number of worlds with an infinite number of nominations and awards.

During the years of his trial in Rome, Bruno was confined in the Tower of Smofa, but refused to repent for his blasphemy, immoral self-promotion, and heresy in matters of dogmatic slateology. The charges included:

– holding opinions contrary to the Fannish faith and speaking against it and its SMOFs;
– holding opinions contrary to the Fannish faith about Single-Transubstantiation-Vote;
– claiming the existence of a plurality of slates and their eternity;

At the August 1600 WSFS business meeting, Antipope Charles VIII declared Bruno a heretic, and the Inquisition issued a constitutional amendment. Bruno is said to have replied: Maiori forsan cum timore sententiam in me fertis quam ego accipiam. (Perhaps you pronounce this sentence against me with greater fear than I receive it.)

1657 [posted by Brian Z]

 It is today well known that officers of the Roman Inquisition repeatedly visited Cyrano de Bergerac, threatened his friends and and family, and read his Letters of Comment in several fanzines, in an effort to determine how he could possibly have discovered and written pulp fiction stories about the top secret Vatican project to develop the first ramjet. Tragically, L’Autre monde ou les états et empires de la Lune would only win a Hugo in 1657, after the author’s death.

4. 1831 [posted by Bisson]

And then there was Victor Hugo, who was so upset by never winning his namesake’s award for his mutant apocalypse story Notre-Dame de Paris that he wrote a long story of revenge and depression, Les Puppies. Now, of course, best known as a musical.

[Cubist wrote]
Side note: We’re all in agreement that the best novel win in 1868 for Three Men and a Boat, by Definitely-Not Connie Willis, who Certainly didn’t steal a time machine” is a little suspicious, right?

5.  [Kyra who else! wrote:] 1870 - 1874

As there has been some murmuring of late regarding the Hugo Prizes awarded during the reign of the late Queen Victoria, but as of yet little ordering or sense in their presentation, it would perhaps be worthwhile at this time to present a selection of excerpts from “A History of the Hugo Awards for Excellence in the Art of the Scientific Romances, Fairy Stories, or Thrilling Tales of Supernatural Gothic Horror, in the Form of a Novel or Epic Poem, as Voted Upon by the Members of the World Society for the Fiction of Speculation, Volume VII, 1863-1889″:

“… In 1870 the highest prize was given to Sheridan Le Fanu’s The Wyvern Mystery, and while I cannot in honesty say it was an error on the part of the Society Members, it is indisputable that Le Fanu benefited from a weakness of vigor among the nominees in this year. The Wyvern Mystery is, alas, far from the best tale to issue forth from Le Fanu’s pen …”

[SBJ adds - those at the Jade Pagoda Club will recall the concomitant controversy as to whether a dragon with two legs must be called a Wvyern which lead to the departure in considerable anger of at least on honourable member of that literary salon.]

“… 1871 was the year in which The Earthly Paradise by William Morris claimed top honors. A fine work indeed, and those who claim that Morris was elevated unfairly by his friendship with the pre-Raphaelite set are gravely misguided, and no doubt see conspirators lurking within every shadow …”

“… It came as a surprise to none that Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass successfully assailed the Hugo pinnacle in 1872, for this sequel long-awaited was met with clamorous applause by one and all. And yet, one cannot but shed a tear for Jules Verne’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth, which suffered unduly from an abominable translation into the beleaguered English language. And one must also consider that in a different year, Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s peculiar but nonetheless popular Vril might have snatched the prize. Such are the vicissitudes of the Hugos, for none may predict when one’s mightiest work will perforce do battle with another yet mightier …”

“… The honors of 1873 justly went to Samuel Butler’s Erewhon, a treasure from its quasipalindromic title to its final word. And I shall note in passing that here Le Fanu achieves a more greatly lasting fame, with the success of Carmilla among the multitudinous contenders for Best Novella …”

“… 1874 makes us tear the very hairs from our head in frustrated rage, for we see Verne at last receiving his just reward as a writer of scientific romances … but for the lesser of his two nominated works! I shall never understand how Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea failed to best Around the Moon. Hang your heads in unworthy shame, Hugo voters of 1874. Hang your heads in unworthy shame …”

6. 1890 [posted by Kyra ] Why Mark Twain Didn't Get A Hugo

I can’t let this pass without comment. Looking back now, it seems obvious that “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” should have won the Hugo in 1890, and “Ardath” taking Best Novel instead seems nuts. But I think most people don’t realize exactly how popular Marie Corelli was just then — her stuff was outselling Arthur Conan Doyle, H. G. Wells, and Rudyard Kipling COMBINED.

Also bear in mind that Bardcon was in Stratford-on-Avon, basically Corelli’s home turf, and that Twain had pissed off her fans by basically stating that he despised her (he famously changed his mind when he met her personally, but that, of course, wouldn’t happen until 1907.) I think a fair number of local fans may have downranked Twain a bit as a result, although he finished in second place so clearly they weren’t putting him below “Not Altogether Worthy Of An Award” in the rankings.

Of the other nominees that year, “The Blue Fairy Book” probably holds up the best, but while Lang already had a reputation as a scholar, he wasn’t a big name in SFF fandom yet. Lewis Carroll’s “Sylvie and Bruno” had its fans then and still has them now, but most agree that it’s simply not at the level of his “Alice” books. And, of course, “Anno Domini 2000, or, Woman’s Destiny”, the dark horse candidate out of New Zealand, had way too much working against it to have a chance (although Sir Julius Vogel’s reputation as a writer has increased since then, which is why NZ’s big SF prizes are the Sir Julius Vogel Awards. Personally, I thought the book was exposition-heavy, but looking at it now you can’t deny its almost eerie predictive prescience.)

[Partisan passenger pigeon post argument at the time: SBJ]

That account of the 1890 Awards is a scandal! Edward Bulwer-Litton’s The Parisiens should have won, and it would have if it hadn’t been thrown off the ballot on the footling grounds that it had been written in 1871, and that the completion of the manuscript by Jules Verne’s son Michel (aka Monsieur La Voix de Dieu) was considered “pas attribue!” for adding in the Ice Sphinx from his father’s completion of Poe’s Gordon Pym on the grounds that no one had read it.

[Historian Kyra comments authoratively:]

Your account of my account of the 1890 awards is a scandal! The idea that a work that was serialized in Blackwood’s MORE THAN A DECADE EARLIER should have been eligible because of some hasty south-of-the-Channel refurbishment was nothing more than a blatant misdirection cobbled together by French fen who were angry about “Sans dessus dessous” not making the ballot. Well, I’m sorry, but the Hugo rules haven’t allowed works written in langues d’oïl since the 15th century and even then it was intended to mean works in Anglo Norman. The book got published in English the very next year as “Topsy-Turvy” (although it’s now better known as “The Purchase of the North Pole”) so I do not to this day know WHAT the big deal was or what all those angry telegraph messages were about.

(Although, frankly, there were more exciting 19th century Hugo awards …1872 Hugos: “Through the Looking Glass” goes toe-to-toe with the first English translation of “Journey to the Centre of the Earth”, with “Vril” as the outside contender. And what do we find in Best Related Work? “The Descent of Man” … 1896 Hugos: A bunch of very good nominees like “Lilith”, “Journey to Venus”, “The Sorrows of Satan”, and “A House-Boat on the Styx” are all blown away by a little book called “The Time Machine”! While in short fiction we’ve got “How Fear Came” from “The Second Jungle Book” up against “The Yellow Sign” from “The King in Yellow” …)

[idontknow writes:]
And who can forget Thomas Hardy’s blatant attempt to achieve Hugo glory by shamelessly adding the mysterious Stonehenge to the otherwise naturalistic, (and very long), Tess of the D’Urbervilles only a year later? He knew which way the wind was blowing for genre fiction. He even later attempt to recategorize his earlier novel The Trumpet Major among his ‘Romances and Fantasies,’ despite it being a rather dry , (and very long), recounting of some of the battles of the Napoleonic wars.

[Kyra:]  Well, at least the voters saw right through him and gave it to Erewhon instead!

I also thought Carmilla deserved its novella win that year, too.

[idontknow]  I have no idea what it was about, but apparently there was an experimental novel published in 1892 called The Fate of Fenella that was written by 21 separate authors, who each wrote one chapter apiece, including Bram Stoker, Arthur Conan Doyle, and other popular writers of the decade. That actually sounds pretty neat.

7. 1892 [Jack Lint]

The 1892 Hugo Awards were marked by the controversy of Howard Pyle’s Men of Iron which was nominated by those who apparently had not read it. While it seemed to be part of the hugely popular mechanical men subgenre, it turned out to be nothing more than a story concerning knights and such. At the awards banquet, the voting body were admonished strongly that they had to read any book they wished to nominate. I believe it finished below No Award, but it was made into a major motion picture year’s later with Tony Curtis.  Speaking of the 1892 Hugos, does anyone have a link to the text of the nominated Guardians of Albion stage play? I’m curious how it matches up with the newer Guardians of the Galaxy? Obviously you have the Roderick Red Squirrel and Groat, but I don’t recall the other characters.

8. 1896 [Mark]
All that is known of the 1896 shortlist is that one Robert W. Chambers was nominated, although the title of his work is unrecorded. Those ballots cast, few in number as they were, were found to be spoilt. An extraordinary session of the WSFS Business Meeting was constituted, and the emergency resolution passed was the forerunner of the modern “No Award” rule.

[Advertisement:  Why not consider buying Simon Bucher-Jones retranslation of Le Roi en Jaune - together with the original french text of Thomas de Castigne's verse play - which is referenced by Chambers as 'The King In Yellow'.  Simply click on the BUY MY BOOKS page to see how]

Ugh pop ups....

9. Early 20th Century - various.

1903 More Mark Twain
[Brian Z wrote:]
Most prescient was Twain’s seminal early filk, A Dog’s Tale.

My father was a St. Bernard, my mother was a collie, but I am a Presbyterian. This is what my mother told me, I do not know these nice distinctions myself. To me they are only fine large words meaning nothing.

It would have made the 1903 shortlist if the committee had only thrown out those 12 sequentially numbered ballots for Ambrose Bierce.

[Cubist wrote:]

Let us observe a moment of silence for Antarcticon 1912. Bob F. “Fitzgerald” Scott led the 1911 exploratory deliberations of the ill-fated con’s crack Site Selection committee, which cannot be faulted for their enthusiasm, but many fannish historians (Moskowitz in particular) regard Larry Oates as the most emblematic exponent of Trufandom.

[SBJ added:]
- the lesson was not learned, by MISKATONCON '31.  Antartica has since been neglected by Worldcon - though the Russell Committee did attempt to set up a pre-Con there in 1982.

[Jack Lint wrote:

Still disappointed that “Wisdom from my ENIAC” won best related work back in 1947. (And most of the good bits were redacted!) I blame the conservative bias of Hugo voters.

10. The history of the 1953 - 2014 Hugo's has been too diligently studied by Social Scientists, Psychiatrists and Professional wargamer to bear repeating here. (SBJ) Some esoteric facts have however been added to this history:-

1969 [Bisson]

Then there was the time the Hugos were the trigger for a war between Honduras and El Salvador, over the nominations for Best Dramatic Presentation. The 1969 Hugo War is often thought to have been the result of a football match, but we of course know better.

11. The modern "2015" controversy - it's roots [Stevie writes:]

I’m still trying to work out why people think Mark Twain is manipulating the Hugo results from beyond the grave in collaboration with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle via the descendants of his favourite medium, when it’s pretty obvious to anyone who gives a hoot about such matters that it was, in fact, John Dee who set up the entire operation.

Admittedly, Newton put a spanner in the works – who do you think would be providing apples in an effort to get the information out?- but the judicious application of suitable quantities of mercury seems to have quieted things down, even if it’s only temporary. After all, life is temporary…

12. Post Human

[Jack Lint] claims Time Machine wins again, in 802,701 AD.  Morlock Controversy
[Cubist]  Wait. Which 802,701 AD Hugo Awards are you talking about here? I’m a little fuzzy on the details, but I thought that after negotiations broke down between the Eloi and Morlock concom members (around 801K AD, wasn’t it?), the WSFS split into two de facto independent, unrelated WSFSocieties, which ran two independent, unrelated Hugo Awards ceremonies. Or am I remembering that wrong?
[Jack Lint] – You’re right. I had almost forgotten that Wells won the last ever Hugo for his Dramatic Presentation, Short Form “Sweet Jesus, I’m Being Eaten Alive By Morlocks (And You Bloody Eloi Are Just Standing There)”.
[Chris Hensley]
You are remembering it correctly. A truce was signed between the two WSFSocieties when they had to ban together after the thirty-second incarnation of the John C. Wright ghola was nominated a record fifty-seven times, thanks to a slate effort by an army of Tleilaxian Face Dancers.
[Soon Lee writes:]

1.    Not quite right Mister Hensley. There are no Tleilaxu Facedancers, just as there are no gholas. It’s irresponsible misinformation & propaganda promoted by the Tyrell Corporation via third party cut-outs as part of their strategy of obfuscation.

The John C. Wright was part of the Nebula 6 series of replicants designed for the Rhetoric Infowars. But we can all agree that the gene splices incorporating Gandhi, King & Gyatso into the baseline template, intended to expand the oratorial capacity of the design, have been less than successful.

[SBJ comments - the timing of this makes the Tyrell Corporation an unlikely culpret - I suggest time travelling TERMINATORS pretending to be REPLICANTS is a far more likely senario, though whether
VOXDAYNET ever reached this far forward is arguable.]


30 Million AD? The Nightland - descendants of 'pure puppies' exist in a massive metal citadel, the last Redoubt beseiged by what they perceive as giant creatures that move slowly by inexorably nearer to destroy them.  Of these 'Judgement Watchers' the vast South Judgement Watcher is the most feared.  (SBJ)  Some Historians agree with the Citadelia Press re this assessment, others believe the abhumanity of the Outer things is in fact simply the new order, and it will eventually embrace the citadel and usher in a new age of reason and social enlightenment and better story telling.  Awards are sparce in this time, but we know that the Citadellian puppies generally regard literature as too dangerous for women, like going outside, or heavy lifting. [SBJ]

12. Great Race of Yith in insect form voting across time using mind projection begin to retro, the retro awards, preactively proactively. (SBJ)

13. [Simon Bisson]
The whorls of the galaxies were dead and empty, coal black tombs of dead stars and matter slowly fading away as protons decayed in the cold. Written in the very branes of the quantum foam of the De Sitter superspace vast conglomerate intelligences looked back at the universe they’d left behind. Words were no longer enough, but if we could translate their memestructures and their long and complex communications, this is what we might hear:
“The winner of the Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation: Extremely Long Form goes to The Universe! A most entertaining construct, full of sound and fury, with a barrel load of laughs – and of course those amazing space battle scenes as the Rigellian Conservancy fought for control of it all.”
[Mark]

@Simon Bisson
And of course the delightful arguments about the appropriate unit of time to be applied to “Extremely Long Form”, and the controversy surrounding E Aeon Hugo.

13. Post-Mortem

A request has been sent to author Philip Purser-Hallard to clarify the state of the Hugos in The City of The Saved.  They may also be awarded ar RIVERWORLDCON, or in The Library of Heaven (see my blog post for details of the latter.)

Light Attractive Reading

It can now be revealed that as well as (literary) fiction under the name of Iain Banks, and (science) fiction under the name of Iain M. Banks, the late multitalented author also wrote (romance) fiction under the name of Rosie M. Banks*. 

Not since the revelation of H.P. Lovecraft's  Romance and Western Fiction Pulp ghost-writing  ("I wore The Fearful Brassiere Of Doom", "Shoot Out At The Okay Abyss") [Crypt of Cthulhu] has such a tremor run through the SF reading world:  the following volumes are likely to become very valuable rareties:

1984 – The Wasp Factory Girl And The Wasp Factory Owner
1985 – Walking In Glass Slippers
1986 – The Hunky Dentist 1 : "The Bridge"
1987 – Espadrilles Sweet
1989 – Root Canal Dreams (The Hunky Dentist 2)

From 1988 the Romance writing moved into the newly opening Dark Romance field, and developed a 'sexy' edge.

1988 –  The Player of Sex Games
1990 – Use of Weapons In Bed
1996 – Excessive
1998 – Inversions and Other Novelty Acts
2000 – Look Behind You, Oooh Go On!
2008 – Material Girl
2010 – Sub Surface Detail ("The Hunky U-Boat Captain 1)
2012 – The Hypergender Sonar ("The Hunky U-Boat Captain 2)


*Rosie M. Banks appears in the Jeeves novels of P.G. Wodehouse, she is the authoress of such works as  All for Love; A Red, Red Summer Rose; Madcap Myrtle; Only a Factory Girl; The Courtship of Lord Strathmorlick; Mervyn Keene, Clubman; 'Twas Once in May; By Honour Bound; and A Kiss at Twilight  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosie_M._Banks 

I HAD TROUBLE GETTING TO UNKNOWN KADATH - part 2

He tried to dissuade me, he offered me cake,

He offered me chips and choice fillets of hake,

He offered me scones and pronounced them just so,

But I sat in his temple and just wouldn't go.

So he told me the fable of Banzi the Wise,

Who offended the gods and fell into the skies,

And only for wanting the merest of glances,

At that lesser, known peak where the gods held tea dances.

For the weak gods of earth, they are petty and spoilt,

And so far up themselves that their icons get soiled,

But dreamer beware of the Dark Other Gods,

That they call when they want to be absolute sods.

"So what then," he asked, "would the punishment be,

if an infinite fall came for peeping at tea,

For those who intruded on Unknown Kadath,

which amounted to crying 'go on show your wrath!' "

His council was cogent. his council was good,

He lived up to the name that he had in the wood,

but still I sat there in his temple, in slippers,

sipping his tea, and devouring his kippers.

At last he grew angry and puffed himself up,

He took back his kippers and took back his cup,

And he said, "On your head be the end that you've got,

I did not advise it, oh no I did not."

And he went on to speak while I stood there and gaped,

of the selfie the gods left which the censor escaped,

Carved on the rear face of the peak of Ngranek,

And he wished me good day and that I'd break my neck.

But I must have looked stupid, or vague, or surprised,

For he slowly explained what I should have surmised,

That the face in the rock had unearthly oddities,

I could use to look out for demigods and goddities.

For in lands round Kadath, if genetics ran true,

I would find the offsping of maidens the gods knew,

And spotting the features they shared with the face,

I would know I was getting quite close to the place.

So I rode on a yak down to old Dyath-Leen,

Where the traders all come and the sailors are keen,

Where the wharfs are filled up with the bravest seafarers,

And you can get a free tea from its free tea, tea sharers.

But oh - what I found there - what fear and dismay,

For instead of the tea ships from distant Carthay,

Black galleons whose oarsmen had no kind of uses,

For Dyath-Leen's many bars, its restaurants or massueses.

Had come into the harbour, and traded for gold,

And for slaves - with the rubies so large and so old,

That were offered by men whose turbans sat askew,

On their heads as if hiding what nobody knew.

Oh the troubles I had on the way to Kadath,

At the city of Leen on the River Dyath,

Oh the sinister secrets implied by the feat,

Of the oarsmen who never bought viands to eat.

I HAD TROUBLE GETTING TO UNKNOWN KADATH - part 1

I HAD TROUBLE GETTING TO UNKNOWN KADATH

I dreamed thrice of a city, but when I got close

My lamp-stand would slip and crash down on my nose,

My sheets they would tangle, my quilt slipped a lot

I never got near it, oh no I did not.

In my dreams it was sunset, and the city shone,

In the light of the rosy sun sinking and gone,

But as I approached there was such a palava,

As I dreamed I was wrapped in a wool balaclava.

This headgear it itched, and to get to the brunt,

It cut off my vision – ‘twas turned back to front -.

And waking I found that it was but my cat,

Who in jest had mistake my face for her mat.

So I prayed to the gods who look kindly on dream,

Such as Cheese-rind the Mighty, and also Sour Cream,

Cocktails-for-Nightcaps, and Lobster-on-Toast,

But those mighty powers failed, my dream gave up the ghost.

So then I resolved I would go to Kadath

It’s a fearful long journey – you just do the math,

Kadath where the gods live, to beseech them at home,

To let me enter my City and n’er again roam.

But where was Kadath?  Now I asked it seemed true,

We had all forgotten, though before that we knew,

It wasn’t in Booklyn, it wasn’t in Yonkers,

It wasn’t in the Atlas, it just drove me bonkers.

I descended the steps to the cavern of flame,

Where Nasht and Kaman-Thah so awful in fame,

Proceded to dun me for funds to repair,

The terrible wear on the sixty ninth stair.

They called me ill-fated, they called me unwise,

They shook their forefingers and narrowed their eyes,

“Young man go no further, this is no safe path,

The eyes of a mortal may not see Kadath”.

I pooh-poohed their doubts, though I shook both their hands,

And delivered their mail from the dull waking lands,

For they get Readers Digest to liven the hours,

When sleep-drenched young maidens are not bringing flowers.

And leaving them there I went into the wood,

Where the trees were enchanted for evil or good,

Their bark it was gnarled, being knotted and rugose,

I spoke to a Zoog – standing there in his Zoog clothes.

“Oh tell me friend Zoog, for the help that before

I gave to your kin, at the Gugs’ vast stone door,

Which way should I go in the search for Kadath?

And the Zoog said “Oh man, you’re just havin’ a laff”.

“We Zoogs do not know of the High and Holy,

We can just spell our names if we spell them out slowly,

But if you go to Ulthar – then Atal the Priest,

It is said knows the gods, from the fast to the feast.”

From the fast to the feast? From the bottom to top!

I vowed if he knew them that well, I would stop,

And pester and question, and ask, and implore,

‘til he’d say what he knew,  to get me out the door.

THE CATS IN THE HATS IN THE WALLS

Reading and enjoying these a lot, I thought - sauce for the goose, and so...

http://www.daveexmachina.com/wordpress/?p=1121


THE CATS IN THE HATS IN THE WALLS

The son of the scions of old de la Poer
Was never afraid of a mew nor a purr,
Until he alighted no more for to roam, to settle in his aboriginal home,
Now old Exham Piory, had rooms, it had grooms,
To tidy the stables, and fabulous tombs,
It had in its graveyard all marble and cold,
It had arms o'er the fireplace, all noble and bold.
It had butlers and sutlers, and hatstands for hats,
But oh what the wizz was it troubled by cats!
They mibbled and mubbled, they doubled and dribbled
They pibbled and pubbled, they troubled and tribbled.
But worse than their spitting, their spooking, and splatting,
Was when every jack one of them got into hatting.
They strolled out in bowlers, they popped up in toppers,
They wore tiny hats, and the wore some were whoppers,
Wished good day in bonnets, they doted on Boaters,
They boated in hats when they found some were floaters,
They howled out in hombergs, they affected the Trilby
Tore feathers from Gainsboroughs, which fact didn't thrill me.
And worse than the worst, there was something so new
For every hat came with Thing one and Thing two.
That's two things per cat, all a making a fussing,
And two things per cat is a double purr-cushing.
A clashing of cymbols and kettling of drums,
A horrible rumbling of rumpity tums.
So in the end what could old de la Poer do?
He bought him a hat, saying, he'd go mad too.
They found him at last crouching there, in the dark,
His teeth fixed at last in a Milliner's clerk,
Who'd failed to appease him, with Fez or Pork Pie,
Such minimal style meant the man had to die.
And still in the walls, and the rooms, and the tombs,
Still chasing the butlers, the sutlers, and grooms,
The wild whirling ride of the Cats in the Hats,
With a thing on each shoulder, went silent as Bats,
To mourn for the soul of the lost de la Poer,
Who'd boasted he fear'd not a mew, nor a purr.

Schrodinger the Scientist Cat.

He often can be found patrolling below ground
where the rats are much plumper and wider,
by birth he's franco-swiss and he's convinced that this,
determined where they put the Large Collider.
When the tetra-volts are humming there's no chance that he is slumming,
for his fur stands up with interest quite its own,
he's beside himself with concern. as he paces around CERN,
so much so that some say he's got a clone.
He was once put in a box, for a set of science taks,
to illustrate a thought experiment,
and it would have been a great success if they'd not got him to mew less,
for the points he made were very pertinent. 
So if you've a state transform that your anxious to perform
and your having trouble with quantum mechanics,
then Schrodinger's your cat who will show you were its at,
and he'll do it without bedlam or such panics.
If you wound as tense as space, in an orthogonal place,
as your ponder whether light is wave or thing,
he will help you by poised waiting, at the fine defraction grating,
and when he sees its a spot of light he'll spring. 
He is not too proud to emit purrs when a mixed state occurs
nor to take advantage of quantum-tunnelling.
You can hear his distant purring, far away from Route de Meyrin,
which suggests that he's perfected phonon funnelling.

Ogden Nash replies to Philip Larkin

The toad work squatting on your life

May be no more than a froggle,

A cute, come-on, or novel hat,

That gets the passing pretty girls to goggle.

Your mum and dad

It has to be believed

Weren’t buttoned solidly

And Victorianly up all the time, or how'd you get conceived?

Depressive Doctor Suess

"Most people are stupid! Most people are bad!
And life's lost the appeal that it might once have had!"

They burden their fellows, they cheat and they sneer,
The purpose of people is not clear, I fear.
So having this notion, I started to stew,
I brewed up this potion called 'What-we-can-do'.
It's basically anthrax, but it has a plus-pinch,
A plus-pinch which makes them turn green as a grinch.
They splutter and smitter and clooter and spurl,
And turn into gloop that may just make you hurl.
And when it is over and most have dissolved,
We may take it, the problem of people is solved.

[First two lines suggested, by Jim Smith.]

Holmes Of The Daleks

The newspaper boy, trundled after me, his single eye glaring on a
stalk that protruded from under a workman's flat cap.  READ ABOUT
THAMES MURDER, GUVENOR, he cried.

I considered, there was something familiar about the voice, and the
stance. Perhaps my long association with the Great Detective, as
the press, though not my own accounts have at times termed him, was
beginning to give me an inkling as to how it might be possible to
apply his methods. Maybe I might be able to give Holmes pause
for thought.

I leaned down to the nearer of the two lights that flashed under the
newsboy's cap as he spoke.  "Dash it all, Holmes," I cried, "It's you
isn't it."

REALLY WATSON, YOU EXCEL YOURSELF, he cried, flinging his rags aside with the deft motion of a telescopic arm....

From "Holmes Of The Daleks"

50 Glades of Fay, part 2

Slalimar is lying on the ruby couch in the pearl chamber, her telepathic drakling Slig, interprets her dreams for me in mime.
      "Ini, I'm sorry. It took me nine years to persuade the Dwarfs to send an envoy to the Plain of S'kones, if we do not meet it will take another six to draft the formal apologies. As the Queen I can not waft this away with a light hand, Please."  The Slig begs me on her behalf with its fetching interpretative dancing.  How does she do it? Even stoned out of her mind by the Lotus Fever she has the discipline to manipulate the tiny lizardling, and she looks ice carved and monumentally beautiful, her green eyes bright although one too many owing to the magickal effects of the fever which left her with a staring open Lotus Chakra mid-forehead.
      "Of course I'll go, Slali, you should get some proper rest. Would you like hensbane or nightshade(2)"
       "Nightshade," Slig mimed, passing me a runestone upon which I knew Slalimar's scribes would have microscopically carved the details of the meeting for the tracing of the feet of the special singing ants. Other carving ants would record my meeting with the dwarf.
       "But I wot not one wit of him," I murmur, trying and failing to suppress my fear of ants.
       "The ants' questions will see you through," Slig pirouetted, unsympathetically, I thought.

(2) Many human poisons are light medicines for elves. Conversely asprin can easily kill one, and viagra is a Class A drug in Elvenholme.

50 Glades Of Fay

I pout with disdainful anger at my image in the magic mirror. Balshahagroth curse my fine fly-away elf ears and whispy golden aura of burnish gold. And bring down the flames of Elmorian upon the High Queen S’lalimor for succumbing to the Grey Lotus Plague and – in her twelve month coma – leaving me to cope with this horror. I should be preparing to ascend the ninety five steps of enlightenment that lead to the first of the Hidden Glades, which ritual task I had to accomplish in the next seven day and nights, yet here I am trying to braid my ears to a proper ‘elven’ point, and work the hearing back into my deaf hair.(1) I must not let it tangle or I will never again hear dog whistles.

                                     

Uttering a prayer to the High Elven triumvirate of Ahobereth, Rimfondelariel, and Gladragriel, I attempt once more to twirl my luscious locks into a trumpet cone array. I flash my eyes in exasperation and gaze at a pale brown haired girl with blue eyes who looks back at me. 

“Get the shoggoth out of the way of my magic mirror,” I snarl, knocking the annoying human to one side – immigrants! – now I could see my fine high cheek bones, my dead white elven skin, my flowing golden hyper-hearing hair and my shining green-grey eyes. My only option is to jam a hearing-aid tiara on and hope no one notices.

Slalimor is my ancestresses, what with immortality and all the exact line of descent is a bit vague, but with her writhing in the tendrilled drug sleep of the Lotus Sickness it fell to me to give the audience to the Dwarf Ambassador, some – no doubt, short - grumpy, dopey, scion of the Seven Princely Families. I should be preparing for the secret scared ceremonies of the First Glade, but instead I have to clench a unicorn firmly between my silky thighs and gallop through High Rilenendell, and past the Hidden House where the Nogles taught the Thief Ulc what games can be played with a red ball, to the very Edge of the Dwarfen lands, where the Things That Glower, Glower across the Road of the Sixteen Titles.

 (1)   So called elven hair is now known to be a multiple web of insectlike sensory antenna. Elves have three additional senses moderated through this media, but apparently no analogue for the human ‘sense of the ridiculous’.