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Still Just A Geek is a Hugo award finalist

Well, this is certainly unexpected. I thought making the New York Times list was the most surprising thing that would happen with Still Just A Geek, but … Still Just A Geek is a finalist for the 2023 Hugo, in the Best Related Work category!

I have been nominated for a few things in my life. I’ve even won a few. But I have not won way more often than I have. Based on my experience, the “I won!” thing is awesome for a short time, but where that euphoria fades quickly, the genuine honor of “I was nominated!” lasts forever. With that in mind, I looked at the other nominees this morning, and … I think it’s very unlikely I’ll be making space for a Hugo statue in my house. But that’s okay! I got to reach out to my TNG family today and tell them about it, and everyone who replied made me feel the love and pride that I imagine kids feel from parents who love them unconditionally.

If Still Just A Geek wins in its category, it’s going to be awesome. I’m not going to lie: I think it would be pretty great if I got to have a Hugo in my house, next to my Tabletop trophies. But if it doesn’t, the excitement, joy, and gratitude I feel that my story even made the finalists this year will never go away, and I get to have that whether I get the statue or not.

Voting on the final ballot begins on July 10, and we’ll find out who gets the award at World Con in October.

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shoutout to my fellow cycle breakers

I don’t celebrate Father’s Day (or any other Hallmark holiday) for reasons that will not surprise you if you know anything about my life.

But I do celebrate all the other children of fuckers and pieces of shit who survived like I did, who broke the cycle of generational trauma like I and my sister did, whose mothers forced them to praise and worship their abuser “because it’s father’s day” like mine did, who fucking hate the endless reminders to celebrate the dad we never had (in my case, because he chose not to be a dad to me like he chose to be a dad for my brother. I guess being a bully was more satisfying to him).

I see you, friends. I see you, and I know you see me, and I am both grateful and sad. We know this secret handshake we wish we didn’t know. We know a very specific kind of loss that only we know, a type of lingering pain that never really goes away entirely, that can only be reduced to part of the background noise, but can crank itself up to 11 without warning.

I just want you all to know that I see you, and I love you. I know how tough it is, how much it hurts.

I want to specifically make meaningful eye contact with all of my fellow survivors who are also dads, who show up for our kids in spite of the pain and loss. It’s such a challenge, and it means so much. We broke the cycle and that is massive. I’m so proud of us.

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the wait

We aren’t supposed to speak ill of the dead, even when they were monsters in life who hurt countless people.

Okay. But nobody said we couldn’t write fan fiction.

The Wait

Pat Robertson walks past thousands of souls, smugly and full of pride, and cuts to the front of the line at the velvet rope in outside the entrance to his version of Heaven.

The bouncer looks up from their clipboard, observing Robertson with thousands of eyes in a swirling cascade of light.

“Pat Robertson,” they say. “We’ve been expecting you.”

Pat Robertson silently congratulates himself. He swells with joy. All those people who died from AIDS, natural disasters, even 9/11 … they all deserved it. They were sinners!

The bouncer speaks into their headset. “He’s here.” They listen. “Yep. At the front of the line.”

The bouncer turns most of its gaze back to Pat Robertson. “Just wait here for one moment, please.”

Pat Robertson steps to one side and waits.

After one thousand years, he begins to wonder if there was a miscommunication.

“Excuse me,” he says to the bouncer, “I am Pat –“

“Robertson. Yes. We know. We’re just getting everything in order for you. It will just be one more moment.”

Tens of thousands of victims of gun violence walk past him and enter Heaven. The population of an entire village, lost in a typhoon that was intensified by climate change, is welcomed. And still he waits.

They file past him, all the people he looked down on. All the people he hurt, directly and indirectly, don’t even notice him as they pass. It’s like he isn’t even there.

Another thousand years pass. Pat Robertson realizes he hasn’t had a thing to eat since he died and he is so very hungry.

“Hey!” He shouts at the bouncer. “What’s the problem? Don’t you know who I am?”

The bouncer rolls half a million eyes at once. “We know exactly who you are.”

“Well, alright, then!” Pat Robertson spits out, exasperated, “if you aren’t going to help me, get someone here who will!”

The bouncer speaks into its headset again. “We’re ready.”

A gibbering mass of what is mostly human flesh — or was, once — slithers / rolls / flops into Pat Robertson’s view. It is covered with mouths that bleed and weep and click their teeth together. Enormous open sores swirl and burst and close and reopen and drip pus and viscera across blistering skin. The faint memory of a smell surrounds it, something like very old cigar smoke and very expensive liquor.

Pat Robertson tries to scream. Arm-like stalks extend from the quivering shape. One resembles a hand at the end of an arm, dripping viscera.

In a flash, it grabs Pat Robertson’s hand and shakes it. Something hot and acidic splashes up on his arm, blinds him in one eye. He feels weak. Afraid. Alone. Confused.

Hundreds of mouths try to speak. Dozens of them vomit acrid bile that splashes across his chest. Dozens more silently spit out the lies they’ve been cursed to repeat for eternity to an audience who will never hear them again.

One mouth speaks clearly. So clearly, it’s inside Pat Robertson’s head and everywhere else all at once. “I’m Rush Limbaugh,” it says. “I’m your new roommate. Come with me.”

And that’s when Pat Robertson knows. That’s when it all hits him, all at once. He’s getting everything he deserves.

The line to get into Heaven does not see or hear or notice him, or the Limbeast. They can’t hurt anyone, anymore. They are, finally, invisible.

The cancerous mass of hate wraps its arm around his shoulder and just like that Pat Robertson finds himself in a vast parody of a cathedral. It’s built of bones and flesh and lies. The walls writhe, and he sees that they are not bricks and lathe but bodies wrapped in confederate flags and wearing red hats.

The pews are filled to capacity with the souls of people who followed him in life, hated who he told them to hate. Only their hate is now focused on him, hot and unforgiving. Relentless.

Pat Robertson looks for his companion, but it has vanished. It has left him alone to suffer.

A sermon rises in his chest and pushes against his throat. Pat Robertson is compelled to speak, and as he does each word tears through him like broken glass. He spews his hate and his lies, just as he did in life. Only in this place, he doesn’t feel the glee and the satisfaction he always did. No, he feels the pain and the suffering and the agony of every human being who he deliberately hurt. He. Feels. All. Of. It. He tries to stop speaking. Of course, he can not. He can not ever stop.

And Pat Robertson’s eternity begins.

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my secret garden

This morning, while I walked through my garden, I saw a bee on one of the flowers I planted. We have these trees in the back that have lots of flowers on them, and they’re covered in bees all day long. I’ve been seeing hummingbirds there, too. But I never seem to see bees in the flower garden I planted specifically for them to enjoy. So seeing just one this morning made me really happy.

There are so many metaphors in my garden: the bits I tried so hard to grow that never took root. The plants I have cared for season after season that have reached the end of their natural lives and will be cleared away for new plants. The flowers I pollinate myself. The scars where I pruned dead or dying stems. The new, delicate, hopeful growth.

And, of course, the bee.

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Update on A Study of The Limits To The Acquisition of Polyhedral Gaming Dice By a Single Individual Over Time.

For as long as I can remember, I and my fellow tabletop gamers have argued that it is not possible to have too many dice. It is known. This is The Way. It is only logical. Yabba dabba doo. And so on.

What I think we may have meant is, it is not possible to acquire more dice than any one of us would be happy to own. Obviously, if you can’t open your front door, you have too many dice. But how many dice tips it over from “this is cool” into “dude, you are a hoarder, but for dice” is unknown.

So about 10 years ago, I began a project to find out if it is possible for me to reach a point where I thought, “No, I don’t need that. I have enough dice.” Over the decade, people have given me various amounts of dice at conventions and personal appearances to support my research. (It’s been awesome to receive dice that come with stories of heroic battles, Wheatonesque probability breaking, dice that are almost as old as I am, dice from special events, OG color-them-in dice, and so many others.)

In addition to accepting these contributions, I pick up sets of dice the way I always have. The annual GenCon dice set, for instance, or the occasional “OH WOW THAT IS SHINY I MUST HAVE IT AND THREE OTHERS JUST LIKE IT BECAUSE OF REASONS” purchase from a game shop or random vendor.

Since the project began, I estimate I have collected a few thousand dice. Maybe around five thousand? I haven’t looked too closely because this is one of those very scientific studies that are about vibes, not numbers. These studies are very popular among think tanks.

The study remains ongoing. I did a vibe check this morning, and again just now. After measuring the vibes, I do not yet have too many dice. Looking to the future of the study, I suspect I could have two or three times this many dice, and still feel like there was room for more. If I acquire dice for the rest of my life at the rate I have acquired them the last decade, I will likely approach some value of “okay, maybe this has gotten out of hand” around 2060.

But now that I have all these dice, what do I actually do with them? Mostly, I just look at them and think about all the games they represent, all the hours of collaborative storytelling and strategizing, all the time spent around tables making memories with friends. I feel good about my game room being the place these dice live, now. I mean, from one point of view, it’s all just hunks of resin or metal, right? From another, though … I don’t have to tell you. You get it. For me, it’s humbling, and it’s an honor, to sort of keep watch over these polyhedral symbols of time well spent and remembered.

Okay, that’s nice, Wil, but what do you do with them? Looking at them isn’t doing anything.

Sometimes, I pull out a couple fistfuls and see how badly I roll random dice when there is nothing at stake (quite badly, as it turns out). If someone needs dice for some reason, I pull out what they need and let them keep it. It’s a version of paying (rolling) it forward.

Last week, though, I found something new (and obvious) to actually, physically, deliberately do with them. I was playing Galaxian in my arcade, and I had this idea to sort some dice into shapes and colors, and then use them to lay out a simple 8-bit sprite. (I had this fun idea about stop motion animation that keeps pitching itself to me. It’s getting a lot of support in the room, but I’m not sure it can pass a full vote.)

Because it’s what I’d been playing, and because it’s incredibly simple, I assembled a Galaxian guy, and I gotta tell you that I really, really like how it turned out.

My next attempt will be a slightly more complex sprite. It’s bigger, with four colors, and if it works … well, maybe I’m gonna make a lot of these things. I guess we’ll see.