I'm pretty sure I've just read the second-worst story David Weber has ever written.

It's called "Out of the Dark," it's a novella-length contribution to George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois's Warriors anthology from a few years ago, and consists entirely of 4.5 tropes I don't like.

There are spoilers behind the cut, but since I'm actively telling you not to read it, I imagine nobody cares...

( Let's Round 'Em Up! )

The last time something like this happened, I ended up on national TV. Wouldn't it be cool if this time I ended up in the American Gods audiobook?

(This is thanks to two law school friends, who pestered me to enter. Standard "not going to happen, you know" disclaimer.)

Vote for me--you can vote once per day--and spread the word!

Don't ask me why I wrote this. I don't quite know. It was the result of several ideas about the Vorkosigan universe banging around in the back of my head for a while. It's the first bit of fanfic I've written--or at least completed--in a while, especially if you discount the Mina de Malfois stuff (which you could, as they became more like meta-canon by the end).

Some blame does get pinned on caprine, whswhs, and the rest of that gaming group. Also, probably to bujold_fic, who just ran a ficathon.

( The Old Walls is a production of Barrayar Public Radio and Vorbarr Sultana Broadcasting, sponsored by the Naismith Educational Foundation and the Vorgustafson Fund for the Arts... )

Dedicated to the Bavarian Fire Drill Instructor, the Indy Ploy Player, the Galactic Champion of Making Shit Up.

(Seriously. A bunch of Vorkosigan songs, and an unrelated song called "I Meant To Do That"; how am I the first person to put this together?)

"I Meant To Do That, Vor Style"
by Will "scifantasy" Frank
ttto: "I Meant To Do That" by Echo's Children

( My cousin is a genius and a fast-talking man... )

Really, it was the thought (from the Firefly Wild Mass Guessing page of TV Tropes) of Miles as the "deadly and unpredictable midget" that did it.

Or more accurately, the commentary line: "But I had to set it on fire for a very good reason that I will explain at length as soon as I have made it up, no, honestly, Simon/Gregor/Mother!"

I lost all respect for Ray Bradbury when he decided to complain about the title of Fahrenheit 9/11, but this is just insulting.

"Oh, no," cries Bradbury. "Fahrenheit 451 isn't about censorship! It's about television!"

Right. Uh-huh. Sure. So, Mr. Bradbury, about this coda, written by you, in 1979...

"'Shut the door, they're coming through the window, shut the window, they're coming through the door,' are the words to an old song. They fit my lifestyle with newly arriving butcher/censors every month. Only six months ago, I discovered that, over the years, some cubby-hole editors at Ballantine Books, fearful of contaminating the young, had, bit by bit, censored some 75 separate sections from the novel. Students, reading the novel which, after all, deals with the censorship and book-burning in the future, wrote to tell me of this exquisite irony. Judy-Lynn Del Rey, one of the new Ballantine editors, is having the entire book reset and republished this summer with all the damns and hells back in place."

(Emphasis mine.)

Nice try.

See, the only thing I can think of is, when you wrote that coda, censorship was really a game of political correctness. You write at length that you will not bow to a group which doesn't like your portrayal of them: "If Mormons do not like my plays, let them write their own. If the Irish hate my Dublin stories, let them rent typewriters."

I can't help thinking that now that censorship is the provenance of the side you tend to support--besides your idolatry of our current President[1], you didn't have a leg to stand on by complaining about title theft[2] so I have to assume you didn't like the politics of Fahrenheit 9/11[3] and decided to do what you could to muddy the waters--you have a choice between retracting the novel and declaring that maybe those people you support aren't always right.

Nice to see your principles are so consistent: my guys can do no wrong, truth be damned.

[1]Of President Bush: "wonderful. We needed him. Clinton is a s***head and we're glad to be rid of him." --Salon, 2001. Ironically, the linchpin of his support was "now we can get some education reform." I doubt No Child Left Behind is what Ray had in mind.
[2] Or would you like to justify Something Wicked This Way Comes and I Sing The Body Electric?
[3] I thought it was a bad movie, plain and simple, but that's a different matter...

With the flood of people discussing possible spoilers for Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince, I started thinking about spoilers in general.

First, some ground comments. The Darkfriends of my acquaintance have a rule about spoilers: Once you get past maybe a year or two tops, it's no longer feasible to protect against them. Certainly not for old material like Citizen Kane. The rule is summed up best by prince_corwin: "Caesar dies. Frodo lives. Christ does both."

Spoilers are often not the whole story anyway...as in the case of Citizen Kane, the spoiler doesn't destroy the movie, because it's often just as much about the process. Babylon 5 mastered this.

That said, there are some movies (or books, or possibly even video games) that have spoilers, now long since past expiration of course, that qualify as Big Deals, or would have when they came out, or are just ones that people pretty much know or know about. Revelations that really change the equation, or are historically significant. I'm curious what some of you think they are. I'll seed the pot with a few of my own; feel free to leave a comment with more.

Ground rule: If it's still spoiler-protected (read "less than a year or two old," unless you'd have to be living under a rock not to know it), don't post it. This is about more "classic" spoilers. If you complain about spoilers, don't do it here, because you're given plenty of warning. Don't piss me off about that either...you will get no sympathy.

The Current List Of Big Spoilers (last updated Saturday July 16 0215 PDT):
Citizen Kane
The Maltese Falcon
Star Wars
The Usual Suspects
Soylent Green
The Sixth Sense
War Of The Worlds
The Crying Game
Final Fantasy VII
Fight Club
Psycho
Harry Potter
Memento
Vertigo
Babylon 5
Spartacus
Escaflowne
The Third Man
Watchmen
Old Yeller
Planet Of The Apes
Primal Fear
Chinatown

(Those are the ones I really consider spoilers, or recognize. There are some that really don't count in my mind [such as, I kid you not, Kefka being crazy in Final Fantasy VI] or whose source material I am completely unfamiliar with that I've not listed here.)

( Abandon all spoiler-protection, ye who enter here! )

Any more from the peanut gallery? What spoilers are (or were) big?