Flow

Arlan Andrews, Sr.'s Flow is nominated for a 2015 Hugo award. It is short, but I tried to read it three times and couldn't get further than 1/3 of the way through it. It just does nothing for me; it doesn't pull me in, it doesn't push me away. It frontloads maybe 10 characters, all with similar names, some of which are twins of others; others are in father-son relationships. This is boring, and difficult to follow in a completely unrewarding way. The world is not interesting, and is drawn with a heavy authorial hand, as if perhaps a (metaphorical) Sharpie were the only tool available --- no shading, no light touches, no variance of style or level of description.

So: I surrender. I abandon, I bail, I won't finish this one.

I've been reading Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, and next to that sparkling gem, this is eminently ignorable dust.


This post's theme word mantissa, "an addition of little importance," or "the decimal part of a logarithm or the positive fractional part of a number." This is a mere mantissa to the Hugo nominee list.