Thursday, June 15, 2017

A Hugo Review: Best Fan Writer - Foz Meadows

Foz Meadows is a blogger, author, reviewer and poet, and very easy to read. I didn't check out her blog until after I read through the posts provided in the Hugo packet, and I'm afraid I might get sucked in, so I only visited her page for a short while. Yeah, she's that good.

As a big fan of the Vorkosigan series by Lois McMaster Bujold, Meadows' writings about that series were naturally the most appealing to me of the pieces in the packet, which included: Bad TV Romance: Could You Not?, Dragon Age: Meta, Thoughts & Feelings, Diversity: More Than White Women and Gentleman Jole and the Vorkosigan Saga: Thoughts.

The truth is, I have never played Dragon Age, so I wasn't really sure what that piece was about on the gaming side - but I found I enjoyed the arguments being made. Meadows is a compelling writer who states her opinions clearly. The Bad TV Romance piece had me wanting to write a story that counters all the problems she sees. And the diversity piece I found disturbingly correct in its assessment.

But her thoughts on Vorkosigan are brilliant. The analysis forced me to look at the series from a different angle only to realize I've noticed that angle all along. And to understand that maybe that's the reason the series speaks to me so completely and deeply. It the series I return to read when I'm feeling horrible about the universe and always provides me with the comfort I desire. And Meadows gave me a hint of why that might be the case.

Conclusion: While I'm fond of Chuck Tingle, the only other Fan Writer I've looked at so far, I'm afraid Foz Meadows has claimed the top spot of the ballot now. We'll just have to see if any of the others are even better. If so, I'm really looking forward to reading them, because this is one dynamite writer.

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