The Second Increasingly Annual Tropism Everything Awards

January 6

Here we are again! My opinions! Whoo, my opinions!

(One note about the nature of these awards: I do not limit myself to films, books, music, etc. released last year, though I do do limit myself to works I encountered for the first time last year. Mostly. Other times I ignore that rule.)

These are in no particular order, except occasionally for humorous/dramatic effect.

Best Novel: Always difficult, but this year it's pretty clearly The Scar by China Miéville. From a Buick 8 by Stephen King is a fairly close second, and I also liked Evening's Empire by David Herter.

Best Short Story: Hmm. Very tough. I really loved "One Box of Books" by Mat Coward, but then there's Karen Joy Fowler's "Further Adventures of the Invisible Man", so call it a tie.

Best Novella/Short Book: The Tain by China Miéville. So amazingly cool! Though di Filippo's A Year in the Linear City was lovely, too.

Best Longish Story: Either "Lull" by Kelly Link or "Catskin", also by Kelly Link! With a nod to di Filippo's "Karuna, Inc.".

Best Short Story by Someone I've Partied With: One of Chris Barzak's -- either "The Blue Egg" from Rabid Transit, or the one about maybe-aliens from LCRW. (And keep in mind that competition in this category is rather stiff, as I've partied with some damned talented people.)

Best Short Story by Someone I've Made Out With: "Famishing" by Heather Shaw! Soon to be in Strange Horizons. (This award is more competitive than you might think...)

Best Music to Write By: Aimee Mann, lately.

Best Bookstore: Dark Carnival. Mmm. Dark Carnival.

Best Non-Fiction: "Old Boilers and Old Men", Nick Mamatas. A funny, poignant essay.

Best Book-Length Non-Fiction: The Spike, Damien Broderick. Occasionally irritating, but full of exciting ideas.

Best Hosts: Scott & Lynne, who've given us a lot of lovely weekends this past year.

Best Debut Novel: Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. Good, good stuff. Made me love science fiction (as opposed to fantasy) again. My review of it should be up at Strange Horizons later this month.

Best Neighbor: Without a doubt, the lovely Susan Marie, who brings us wine, and watches Buffy with us, and gets us sweet cat-sitting gigs.

Best Comic Store: Comic Relief in Berkeley -- I like it even better than Dr. Comics & Mr. Games.

Best Comic: Optic Nerve really does it for me, I must say -- and this despite having first read Transmetropolitan this year! Though, really, it's comparing apples and oranges...

Best Burger: No disrespect to Barney's (which still wins best fries and best shake), but I truly dig the Au Coquelet Burger at the eponymous coffee shop.

Best Sandwich: Still the California Club at Caffé la Piedmonte, only now they stay open later, so it's an even better sandwich, because I have more flexibility about when I eat it!

Best Meal: The one Scott prepared for Heather and I, with the portabellas, and the salmon, and the yum-yum-yum. And all due props to the huevos rancheros he made us for breakfast the next morning!

Best Movie: The Royal Tenenbaums, far and away. Also loved Happy Accidents.

Best Shiny Magazine: The Third Alternative. I love this magazine. Great fiction, inventive layouts, decent reviews and columns, it's my every-other-monthly yum.

Best Small Press Magazine: LCRW. Did you guys read issue #11? Was there a single story in there that didn't rule? I can't even pick a favorite! They were all fabulous!

Best Online Magazine: Strange Horizons, without a hint of equivocation or uncertainty this time. They rock more and harder with each passing month.

Best Online Journal: Very difficult, but I think a tie between Greg's and Jen's -- they're so different, it's hard to decide.

Best Online Journal That Used to Exist, Then Went Away, Then Came Back Again: Multi-way tie -- Squishy, and Patrick's new journal, and Diane Patterson's journal.

Best Poet: Daphne Gottlieb, tied with Alan de Niro. Both brilliant, ever-so-different from one another

Best Stuffed Animal: My gothic Cthulhu!

Best Bean-filled Animal: The three-eyed Frabbit!.

Worst Movie Theater: The Bay Street Uberplex.

Best Story I Wrote This Year: "Romanticore", I think.

Best Beer: Bison Brewery's chocolate stout.

Best Dip: Scott's artichoke dip.

Second-Best Dip: The artichoke/garlic dip from the Piedmont Grocery.

Best News Source: bOING bOING!

Best Fiancée: Sweet Heather. And understand, I mean she's the best one out of every fiancée in the world, not just ones betrothed to me.

Best Anthology: Probably Conjunctions 39: The New Wave Fabulists, despite the stupid subtitle that means nothing.

Best Reviewer: Ah, another tricky one, so I'll solve it by sub-categorizing: Best Novel Reviewer is Gary K. Wolfe, best Short Fiction Reviewer is Rich Horton.

Magazine Rising Most Rapidly in My Esteem: That would be Realms of Fantasy. They're publishing more and more exciting, ambitious stories by some of my favorite writers (and peers). I sold them another story recently, and you know who else did? Chris Barzak! David Barr Kirtley! Gabriel Edson! Jay Lake! It's a veritable Who's Whom of super-talented up-and-comers!

Best Anthology That's Not Actually An Issue Of A Literary Magazine: Dark Terrors was quite good this year.

Best Author Appearance: Clive Barker was so suave I nearly swooned, but, truly, nothing can compare to Neil Gaiman's complete reading of Coraline -- especially since I got to bypass the line and go inside early (with my "press pass", hee!) and talk to Neil ever so briefly. Mmm. That's one of the best memories of my life, that whole night.

Best Editor: The Jed & Susan show!

Worst Movie: There are so many awful movies to choose from... probably Deeply, the horrid Kirsten Dunst movie about vengeful sea gods or something.

Best New Baby: Aleister Dante.

Best Porn Director: Rocco Siffredi, the modern Michelangelo of pornography, able to affect even my jaded sensibilities. (Perhaps the juxtaposition of "Best New Baby" and "Best Porn Director" seems incongruous to you, but -- we all know where babies come from. They come from porn.)

Best Poetry Magazine: Star*Line!

Best Poetry Chapbook: So difficult. I can only narrow it down, to Alan De Niro's atari ecologues or Erin Donahoe's Through the Woods.

Best Cartoon: Monkey vs. Robot.

Best Cartoon About Monkeys: Monkey vs. Robot.

Best Cartoon About Robots: Monkey vs. Robot.

Worst Cartoon To Watch After Ingesting Hallucinogens: Fantasia 2000, because of the constant, harrowing interruptions by people like Bette Midler. And because of the spacefaring whales with the big humanlike eyes.

Best Cartoon To Watch After Ingesting Hallucinogens: Monkey vs. Robot.

Best Western Movie: Tombstone is probably my favorite, though Unforgiven has more gravitas.

Best Television Show: I think Oz is excellent, actually -- we should be getting the second season here soon.

Best Major Publisher: This one's tricky. I sort've default to saying Tor, and they certainly published a lot of great stuff this past year, but Del Rey's been doing good stuff lately... nah. Still Tor.

Best Small Press Publisher: I gotta say PS Publishing. Primarily a novella publisher, they've recently branched out into novels, collections, etc. Fabulous stuff, too. I just wish their stuff wasn't so expensive in the US...

Best Convention: Argh! So difficult! WisCon had some Ratbastards, and the hug from Terri Windling, and really kickin' parties, and me drinking vanilla cossacks and flirting hopelessly with a beautiful young 'zine editor, and a nice hotel, but WorldCon had chicken wings and Greg & Mike & Dave Moles & Derek James & Ben Rosenbaum and a Clarion party and... and... I can't decide. It's a tie.

Best New Lingo: To "punk rock" = "to steal" or "to take advantage of" -- as in, "We went to that lame frat party, but just to punk rock the keg."

Most Failed Beverage Experiment: Coffee lightened with coconut milk that had, unbeknownst to me, gone rancid.

Greatest Accomplishment: Finishing the first draft of my novel, and a subsequent deep-tissue revision!

Most Mortal Enemy: The Ants of Winter.

Best New Crack: Caterpillar rolls. Yum. Especially from Drunken Fish or Korio. Anyone care to visit and take me out for sushi?

That's all for now.

Words written since February 1, 2002: 204,600

Words written since last entry:
None. I worked on Star*Line stuff instead.

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