[Minor Spoilers] I am somewhat amazed that Michael A.
Burstein's "Paying It Forward" was published by Analog
and then nominated for Hugo. In my humble opinion, it
is extremely boring amateurish story, quite below the
level of Hugo nominees. Technology is anachronistic
even for current times - "Microsoft’s Internet
Explorer on an iMac, connected via a 56K internal
modem", America Online - so passe even now, not even
thinking about the times when computers can handle the
ultimate "program" described in the story. The concept
of program itself and its transfer is laughable. The
explanation at the end - didactic (sorry, I was
skipping whole paragraphs to get to the end). Was it
an exercise in how many rules of good writing you can
break and still get published+nominated for Hugo?
Joe Haldeman's "Four Short Novels" are at least funny.
Neil Gaiman's story - fine for anthology but not very
strong out of context.
David D. Levine and Mike Resnick are getting our
votes. :) Although I would like a full-length novel
rendition of David's story (maybe sequel? prequel?).
Space opera, can I have it, pleeeeaaase! :)
Raimondas
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