Dumbies: December 2006 Archives
And the winners are...
The most prestigious of the Dumbies, the book award.
- The Confusion - Neal Stephenson
- Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
- Counting Heads - David Marusek
- 9Tail Fox - Jon Courtenay Grimwood
- Anansi Boys - Neil Gaiman
The judges read some wonderful, wonderful books this year, including a selection of classics from the SF Masterworks list. However the nominated books stood out above the rest. They are a wide selection: from a historical adventure romp (The Confusion), a contemporary fantasy (Anansi Boys), an almost police thriller (9Tail Fox), a literary novel with SF elements (Cloud Atlas) and a state of the art SF novel (Counting Heads).
As usual the judges wish they had read more and found it frustrating that most the awards lists use hardback novels, which the judges only obtain at birthdays and Christmas. Consequently the judges reading lags behind the cutting edge due to waiting for paperbacks.
The judges didn't read many short stories this year and assure the public that this will change next year. However the stories that were read were fantastic.
One established writer, and one new one. Let's hope that we see more of both next year.
The local library once again provided the sole source of comic consumption for the judges, which this year included a rebooted classic and the origins of some famous heroes.
Ultimate Fantastic Four revisited the origins of the famous foursome, something which the judges had never really done before. Entertaining. Meanwhile The New Frontier went right back to the origins of superheroes and intelligently unravelled how everything came to be.
Notable exceptions this year are Judge Dredd :Origins, which the judges are immensly excited about, but waiting for the collected graphic novel (which could be some time).
This years film awards include the return of an old hero and a bleak vision of future Britain.
Superman Returns started out well, became a bit boring as it dragged on, but still took loads of money. Meanwhile Children Of Men was a thoroughly bleak, disturbing and not very enjoyable vision of a dystopian Britain. It was the sort of film that had critics rushing to denounce it as SF ("Future fantasy" anyone?), and the sort of film in which you realise its brilliance the more you think about it.
Once again the judges didn't get out to the cinema very often. Notable exclusions are V For Vendetta, X-Men: The Last Stand and The Prestige, which despite being the most anticipated film of the year, still hasn't been seen by the judges.
This year's Dumbies Television nomination list is more or less the same as last year, all established shows, with one repeat.
Doctor Who returned triumphantly for a second series after the reboot. David Tennant made The Doctor his own, Billie Piper was great and the BBC's massive hit continued, with merchandise galore. The kids can't get enough of it. Battlestar Galactica returned with an even more serious third series, and the critics still discounted it as Science Fiction or used cliches such as "redefining the genre". BBC4 showed the classic Day Of The Triffids series again, and everyone realised why they were so scared when they first saw it, very creepy. Finally Lost finished of it's second series with answers, for all ye doubters, and then changed everything with the start of the third series. Despite being snatched by Sky in the UK (boo hisss) it was still a big success.
Big Dumb Object is pleased to announced the second annual Big Dumb Object awards, known as The Dumbies.
The awards follow the same format as last year (thanks to cut and paste)...
Media are eligible for nomination if they have been seen or read by the judges panel in the year of 2006, no matter when they were released. Categories include Best Film, Best Book, Best Television Series, Best Comic and Best Videogame. There are no worst awards in The Dumbies, life is too short to consume bad media and the judges therefore try to avoid such matters.
The nominations will be announced over a few days (for no other reason than to string it out a bit and provide content when the judges are in fact eating and drinking). After the nominations have been announced the judges will be open for bribes for an unspecified period of time. Once they are satisfied that the best offers have arrived and have cogitated on the nominations, the judges will then make their decision and announce the awards in a grand ceremony that involves a single, but important, blog post.
Please feel free to speculate on the nominations until they are announced.
