Retraction...Sort Of

We printed some misinformation on this blog a few posts ago. It wasn't our fault. It was a clerical error on the part of the Parsec Awards folks. They printed on their list of award finalists that our story from November, "Beachcombing" by Ray Cluley had been nominated for a Parsec award in the Large Cast category.

This seemed a little strange to me, since I hadn't sent them a sample of "Beachcombing," but it was a really great story, so it didn't surprise me too much. I just assumed that SonnySee, who had produced the story, had sent the sample. However, talking with Sonny, we learned that he hadn't sent the sample either. I was starting to get the idea that there might be a clerical error here, and that they actually meant to nominate the story that I did send them a sample of, Jason Sanford's "The Ever-dreaming Verdict of Plagues."

I checked with them, and it turns out that was in fact what happened. Their spreadsheet had a misprint in it that hadn't been changed, and "The Ever-dreaming Verdict of Plagues" was the story that was nominated, not "Beachcombing."

So, I suppose congratulations are in order to Jason and Bryan Lincoln, who produced the two episodes that included "The Ever-dreaming Verdict of Plagues." We submitted that story because it was a very good story that had been brought to life with fantastic production elements by Bryan. It seemed our strongest entry for the Large Cast category. "Beachcombing" was a hard one to deal with. It is definitely one of our best stories...perhaps of all time. It moved me in a way that no other story we've run has. But its production caused Parsec category issues for us. Do we put it in the Small Cast category? That category is allowed to be two people or less. There's no dialog in "Beachcombing," it's just a single narrator the whole time, but there are those people we hear in the memories that the boy receives when he touches their items. If the Parsecs wanted to be sticklers, they could say that it doesn't qualify as a Small Cast entry. However, it seems to pale in comparison to the other Large Cast entries that include a...well...large cast. Because of all this, we chose "Asshat Magic Spider" as our Small Cast entry and all the handwringing proved to be for naught, because we were shut out of that category completely. Maybe we should have just sent them "Beachcombing" after all. In some other parallel universe... So, Sonny and Ray, it was factors beyond your control that kept your story out of the Parsec Awards. I hope it doesn't hurt too much to find out that you were in fact not nominated. You're winners in my book, for what that's worth.