June Books 15) Schlock Mercenary: Longshoreman of the Apocalypse, by Howard Tayler

[nwhyte]

I rated the previous volume in this series last in my Hugo voting last year, as did the voters, despite it being the only nominee that was made available to all as part of the Hugo voters package. This year all five nominees are available, though I'd already bought hard copies of the three that have been published in dead-tree format, and I am still putting Schlock Mercenary last. Longshoreman of the Apocalypse made slightly more sense than The Body Politic, but that's not saying much, and I still found it not very funny; I guess I know too much about military escorts for humanitarian aid for a story based on the humorous ways people can get killed horribly in such an enterprise to appeal to me, and also the eponymous longshoreman turns out to be an anthropomorphic robot which, though not especially cute, like to be called Lota - it's an acronym, see? - and so pushes one of my buttons.

My Hugo votes in the Best Graphic Story category:

1. Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? by Neil Gaiman - will surely win by a country mile
2. Agatha Heterodyne and the Heirs of the Storm, by Kaja and Phil Foglio
3. Captain Britain and MI13: Vampire State, by Paul Cornell
4. Fables vol 12: The Dark Ages, by Bill Willingham
5. Schlock Mercenary: Longshoreman of the Apocalypse, by Howard Tayler