The Winner Hummms Ommminously
Back in February Eric James Stone invited Schlockers to participate in a little contest: find the Schlock Mercenary homage in "Rejiggering the Thingamajig," and be entered in a drawing to win a book from Eric and a book from me.
Several of you had difficulty finding said homage. Prepare to kick yourselves. Here is the relevant snippet:
Like a silvery mist, the nanoswarm swirled around her feet.
The gun emitted an ominous hum.
Granted, there are many elemental similarities between Eric's story and my own body of work: nano-tech, uplift, and teleportation (all of which I've borrowed shamelessly from other authors -- if I pee far it's because I stand on the shoulders of giants) to name just a few. You'll find that level of similarity between almost any two science-fiction tales. But turning "ominous hum" into onomotopoeia is original to me.
We thank all 442 entrants for their participation, and ask that the 338 of you who submitted correct answers not lord it up too much over those who looked past the mark. And of course special congratulations are due to Dave McKee. Here’s Dave’s winning answer:
Guns with ominous hums.
Personally, I’d like to see Schlock’s reaction to his gun taking up
Buddhist teachings :)
Congratulations are also due to Eric, whose novelette "That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made" is on the Nebula ballot. It's also in the book Dave won, so congratulations again to Dave McKee.
In unrelated news, yes, I'm down with pneumonia. The floxy-moxy-something-something antibiotics I'm on brought with them a fascinating set of side-effects, including hallucinations, paranoia, photosensitivity, and (here's the kicker) really shaky hands. I am not inking anything this week, not until I'm off the drugs. But that's what the buffer is for. I can write, I can pencil, I can blog.
I expect to be back on my game by this time next week.