Graphics by Sheila Perez and Te

Award the Seventh

Kat Allison. God, what can you say about a brilliant, beautiful, *deep* woman who consistently breaks me right down to my component atoms? Run. Just. Run. Run away if you can't take the scourge of her fiction. Run to her if you need it the way I do. Every once a while, you just have to cut the bullshit, and this story is an excellent way to do it. Methos on the road, and a beautifully ruthless glimpse into what makes the oldest man tick.  What does it mean to be the oldest man? What does it mean to love him?

  

Award the Eighth

There's something about the short-short that I'll always love. Maybe it's the deft touch it takes to build a world in under three thousand words, or the  raw emotional punch you can only achieve from the quickest strikes. Maybe it's the way it separates the men from the boys, as it were, and shows the world who the real writers are. This story made me *feel*. Like an orgasm from a knife.

Award the Ninth

Everyone has a First Slash Story. Does everyone have a First Slash Story That Blew My Head Off And Put The Pieces Back Funny? I suspect a lot of us do. Well, a  lot of us who stayed around for a few years and wound up becoming fixtures, barnacle-like... Well, anyway. Anna. Anna. Anna. I never knew fiction could *be* like that. I never knew what I'd been missing. I was, of course, never the same. Starting with spending the next few years earnestly striving to *be* Anna... but that's another story.