Michael Clarke Duncan, 1957-2012

A sizable presence in most of the stuff he appeared in, both literally and figuratively.

So much for grandstanding in front of cameras

It doesn't surprise me that the Chicago area's most recent celebrity-grade murderer would probably not win too many prizes for humility or social graces; Drew Peterson has always come off as a terminally smug, preening creep (either before his arrest or after) and if you could convict people of murder on that basis, he'd be in real trouble. But that's not how the justice system works. What apparently did do him in was a combination of the their belief in Stacy Peterson's hearsay testimony and a certain decision to cover up the crime that Peterson probably shouldn't have made:

Jurors said they thought it was odd that Drew Peterson cleaned the bathtub the day after Kathleen Savio’s body was discovered.

"That is unusual; they did say murderers sometimes clean up afterward," Teresa Mathews said. "It did seem unusual that he did it."

Yeah, playing the role of Mr. Clean around the scene where your wife "accidentally" died comes off as being just a bit suspicious, doesn't it?

The bruises on Savio’s body were also telling, Mathews said.

"There was too many bruises on too many parts of the body" for it to be an accidental fall, she said.

"Her position in the tub, that's what dictated to us that it wasn't a fall," juror Jeremy Masters said.

Considering that these jurors were also dealing with a non-stop media circus from the word go and several embarassing incidents of the prosecution just plain screwing up (translation: potential mistrials), Peterson didn't escape with his smirk intact. Far from it.

The only question remaining is this: where is Stacy Peterson?

Chicon 7!

Well, let's get the ultra-subjective crap out of the way first.

I enjoyed myself immensely at times, although the usual time subjectivity BS ("man, was that really five days?") did a lot to mitigate some of my enjoyment of it. Drank and partied too much, probably ate too little and paid the price for all of it (who doesn't?), but actually getting to see a Hugo Awards ceremony live after missing it in 1991 and 2000 was a gas. Later on, I helped with teardown/strike/move out/whatever through Tuesday despite the fact I was recovering from Ye Olde Festivities in the usual brittle fashion. At least I didn't suffer from the Body Hangover Without End that I had in '91; the less said about that, the better. 

On to the only category I voted in: novels.

I tried to find a library or used copy of the winner - Jo Walton's Among Others - I really did. But I'm too fiscally "meh" to afford a Kindle in order to download it or buy a print copy, and it wasn't available at the Chicago Public Library branch I thought it was (translation: %@#%@!!!). The same goes for George R.R. Martin's A Dance With Dragons , although the sheer length of the book ("you can stop writing now, George. No. Really. Stop!") seemed really daunting considering that the nominees were announced in April. As far as the ones I did vote for (under a ranked system), this is how I voted and why: 

1) Embassytown by China Mieville: sure, the prose style is complicated and occasionally hard to blast through at a speed-reader tempo: so what? The initial concepts are highly intriguing, the story turns more and more grim while presenting a hopeful ending that doesn't reek of a mysterious army from The Free People's State of Utoputania coming over the hills to rescue our fair protagonist or her friends (?), and it just seemed the best of the three to me. Which is not to knock the following: 

2) Deadline by Mira Grant: No, I know it's not Feed. No, I didn't read Feed previous to it and make the mistake of taking my enthusiasm for the first book and transferring it to the second. I read this as a stand alone, and especially enjoyed the aspect of making character interaction much more important than the Continuing Zombie Apocalypse those characters are facing. What got me was a deus ex machina that I won't go into for fear of spoilers. It's recommended, though, and unlike Embassytown you can read this thing really fast.

3) Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey (AKA Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck). Like Deadline, it's a fast-paced read that keeps the action hopping while giving you a fairly serious view of the fictional world "Corey" created. Unfortunately, just like Deadline, it possesses a deus ex machina that got on my nerves far worse than the one presented in Deadline. Still, this is the beginning of a series, and there's room for improvement, not that this debut is anything to sneeze at. Recommended.

I'm sure there's more (such as how good some of the parties, such as London in 2014 [congratulations, BTW] and Barfleet were), but I've written enough on this subject for now. Feel free to send your letters of complaint to the email on this LJ page or my Facebook page. Matter of fact, I'm looking forward to it. Mwwwwwuhahahahahahahahaha!