Market Theocracy

The 2007 nominees for the Best Short story Hugo Award are all high quality work this year. I predict a tough race: I’ve read each several times and *still* have trouble deciding which I think is The Best. Right now I’m going with a pure sentimental favorite: Tim Pratt’s bittersweet movie fan dream-come-true alternate reality tale "Impossible Dreams".

Lucky for us fans, the authors have agreed to put their stories on line for all to see — a way to even the playing field as the Hugos are a fandom vote based award.

You pick *your* fave!

[*How To Talk To Girls At Parties*   Neil Gaiman](http://www.neilgaiman.com/exclusive/shortstories/partiesstory/)

[*Kin*   Bruce McAllister](http://www.asimovs.com/_issue_0704/Kin.shtml)

[*Impossible Dreams*   Tim Pratt](http://www.asimovs.com/_issue_0704/Impossibledreams.shtml)

[*Eight Episodes*   Robert Reed](http://www.asimovs.com/_issue_0704/8episodes.shtml)

[*The House Beyond Your Sky*   Benjamin Rosenbaum](http://www.strangehorizons.com/2006/20060904/house-f.shtml)

The thing that’s going to make the voting especially hard is that not only are all five stories excellent, all five are excellent in wonderfully different *ways*. The old cliche ‘They all deserve to win’ truthfully applies here, and we’ll just have to settle for the comfortable knowledge that whichever story manages to make off with the trophy will have done so deservingly.

[101+ Things To Cook Until The Revolution](http://www.lulu.com/content/1064479), a fantastic cookbook from the TCF community, is now available to order at the low price of $13 FRN’s plus shipping. I have personally tried quite a few of the recipes within and they have all been excellent. This would make a unique gift for your food n’ freedom loving friends and family. This is also the first product to be released from Outlaw Trail Media, a fine new venture that has big plans. A round of applause for TCFers Pagan, Dare2BFree and Thunder, who all worked to bring this project to market. *claps*