Struggling through some of the nominations on the Rabid Puppy slate, I’ve come to the only logical conclusion I can — Rabid Puppies are Vogons. You remember Vogons, right? They are the aliens from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy that demolished the Earth to make way for a new highway. Among their many charming habits is an appreciation of poetry:

Oh freddled gruntbuggly,
Thy micturations are to me
As plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee.
Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes,
And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles”

Not every species can appreciate Vogon poetry. It turns out, I don’t appreciate Vogon poetry.

The Rabid Puppies claim they want stories with better ‘plot’. “So the conservative SF fans can get together and let their hair down and talk about stuff they want to talk about (like books with actual plots and dialogue)” (John Ringo)

I’m currently about 80 pages into a RP nominated novel and I have finished several of the RP short stories. Sure, the stories have plot, but plot alone is not enough. The dialog is wooden. There is a whole lot of telling and very little showing. The prose doesn’t sparkle, it doesn’t even shine. There are more characters than a Russian novel and less characterization than Twilight. In other words, it is not the kind of fiction I enjoy.

I can accept that some people genuinely like The Parliament of Thinly Veiled Christian Commentary. Why can’t the puppies understand that people actually *liked* Ancillary Justice not because of any political message it may or may not contain, but because it is a fascinating story with fascinating characters and decent writing.