Jacob Clifton of TWOP for Fan Writer?
I think it was during a post-WorldCon party last year that people were chatting about who should be nominated for the Best Fan Writer Hugo Award, and someone said, hey, how about Jacob Clifton? And those of us familiar with his work said YES ABSOLUTELY THIS IS RELEVANT TO MY INTERESTS.
So here it is Hugo nomination time, and I figured it was worth talking a little about that idea.
For those of you who aren't familiar with him, Jacob Clifton writes incredibly detailed and somewhat snarky recaps of TV shows for the website Television Without Pity. The other TWOP staff also write snarky recaps—that's kind of the core of what the site is about—but from what I've read there, Clifton's are especially good.
Possibly my favorite of his pieces that I've read was his 2007 recap of season 3 of Doctor Who, which is long but worth the time to read it. (Though if you find yourself a couple of pages in and not enjoying it, then don't keep going.) Back in my 2007 blog entry about Martha Jones, I described that recap as “long and detailed and brilliant and occasionally incomprehensible and quite mad (in a good way).” And I'll add that it's full of metaphor and theme and insight and a dense web of connections.
But that was written in 2007. And unfortunately for my plan to encourage y'all to nominate for him for Fan Writer this year, I've only read one sf-related piece of his from 2012: his review of The Hunger Games. (Which contains spoilers for the movie and all three books; it's as much a critical article as a review.)
He's written plenty of other stuff in 2012, but most of what I've found is about non-sf shows. In a quick skim through the TWOP site, it looks like the only sf show that Clifton wrote recaps for in 2012 was True Blood, which I haven't watched beyond the pilot.
So . . . those of you who are True Blood watchers and who want to see what Clifton's been writing, check out his 2012 True Blood recaps.
Anyone know if there's anything else he's written lately that would be relevant?
PS: I have no vested interest in nominating Clifton; I just think he's a really good writer who doesn't seem to get much attention from the sf world.