Wednesday, May 31, 2017

A Hugo Review: Best Fan Writer - Chuck Tingle

Chuck Tingle is a most unlikely finalist for fan writing, but his severe trolling of the puppies via Twitter earned him acclaim. He took a horrible situation where people were trying to use him as a tool to hurt others, and turned it around. The result was one of the best things to come out of the puppy movement, if not the best thing.

For the Hugo packet, Tingle provided a link to a Secret Page that explains the whole thing from his unique perspective and includes the full text of Slammed in the Butt By My Hugo Award Nomination and Pounded in the Butt By My Hugo Award Loss. I read ... um ... parts of both stories. I'm not into gay erotica, so I skipped those bits. Interestingly, the story leading up to the bits I wasn't interested in were... interesting. In the first, Tingle uses an alternate universe version of himself to contextualize being nominated for the Hugo, learning about the puppies, and then dealing with it the way all his books deal with hard problems. Ahem. The second story starts with nightmares about winning the Hugo and having his life changed by the experience. We can safely say that his life was changed even with the loss, but it is an interesting look into the psyche of a person dealing with an unexpected situation.

Now, I'm not sure either of those works are part of this year's nomination, since I believe he sold them as ebooks. I'm not really sure what the rules are on that. I do know that I followed his tweets during the events in question, and they were pretty funny in their own right. That they ripped the puppies up one side and down the other was a nice touch. Were they enough to earn him a legitimate spot as a Hugo finalist? Yes, I think so. Are they enough to earn him the Hugo award? Honestly, I don't know. I will reread his tweets as I read works from the other fan writers and make my decision. They are pretty fun to reread.

I also seriously love how he continually talks about drinking too much chocolate milk.

Conclusion: Chuck, you may not make it to the top of my ballot, but Love Is Real anyway.

1 comments:

Elayne said...

The whole idea of Chuck Tingle makes me smile. I know about him from watching @Midnight, where he's kind of a cult hero. Glad he's giving the trolls what fer.