Summer Snowflake #2: Fannish Wish List

at least three fannish things you'd love to receive, something you've wanted but were afraid to ask for - a fannish wish-list of sorts snowflake_challenge

So, well, there are lots of things I like, check out my exchange letters tag for some examples. Here are three things I currently love and don't have, plus one thing that I got that I never dreamed of getting.

1. Uplift fic! With dolphins! And maybe galactic bureaucracy? Dolphin OCs, Hikahi, Creideiki, Keepiru, Kaa, Tsh't...


2. Someone should write dirtybadwrong Captain Negri/Simon Illyan "loyalty training". I have wanted to jump on this pile ever since I figured out it could exist, but crickets.


3. Friends/acquaintaces who comment on my journal and whose journal entries I could comment on. Everyone, let's do content generation challenges together, no?


4. What I've got: a community. I have that on the IRC channel #thegoblinemperor (link leads to slashnet webclient). Please change your nick from the default mib_enat2j or whatever so that we know that you're willing to communicate. Nominally for The Goblin Emperor, but we also discuss other stuff, like cat photos, LOTR, Temeraire, and Vorkosigan stuff on occasion, depending on who's present and who wants to talk about what.

A bit on the Hugos

So, I'm a Supporting Member, and have spent some time looking over the Hugo Voter Packet. Ignoring the Vox Day Castalia House stuff, here's my thoughts on the Shorts, Novelettes, and Novellas, ranked from 1 to 5 stars.

Shorts
Asymmetrical Warfare: ***** Interesting premise, good aliens, very excellently compact.
Cat Pictures Please: *** Enjoyable to read, but really just a rehash of some familiar ideas plus cat pictures. And the cat pictures weren't that integral in feel.
Space Raptor Butt Invasion: ***** SPACE RAPTOR BUTT INVASION

Novelettes
And You Shall Know Her by the Trail of Dead: * I'll be honest, I skipped a lot. Too generically grimdark in feel, and I hated the protagonist.
Folding Beijing: *** I skipped around with this one, too, though that was mostly due to the choppy-feeling prose, and I'd have wanted for it to be shorter.
Obits: * I quit halfway through, since the main character actively rubbed me the wrong way, and the premise was lifted straight from Death Note.

Novellas
Binti: ***** OMG aliens! Culture! Worldbuilding smoothly inserted!
The Builders: not in my voter packet as far as I can tell
Penric's Demon: **** Deeply hilarious in a Bujoldian way.
Perfect State: **** Interesting. Interesting worldbuilding, and I really liked the ending.
Slow Bullets: ***** Oof, what a punch in the gut. Instarec. Scur, I love you.