On that poll

[yendi]

Obviously, I chose Hammett over Chandler (which isn't to denigrate Chandler, who was a powerful writer, but Hammett simply is more powerful, imho).

As for the others:

The Bonnie Tyler one is the one where I'm least opinionated. But I lean towards "Hero."

The comma question is the one area where I'm religiously opinionated. If you chose No! It's a waste of precious ink. The "and" is all I need, dammit!, you're going to burn in grammatical hell. I'm sorry. I'll wish, hope, and pray for you.

As for the FPS question, I suspect that platform choice made a difference here, as only M2 ever made it to Wintel during its time (although there's a nice open-source project allowing folks with Intel chips to play all the games now). And Doom made it to the Mac years late. But when I had easy access to both platforms in college, Marathon blew the living shit out of Doom. Single-player, it had an amazingly complex plot that still ranks as one of the best ever in a computer game. And the trilogy, as a whole, has some unbelievable twists. The gameplay is also solid, actually applying physics to every action (rare back in the mid-90s). And on multiplayer, it was still a better killfest than anything in the '90s, and gave the world many of the variants (Capture the Flag, etc) that are standard nowadays. Doom involved shooting things, never rewarded stealth or avoiding a fight, and was as plot-free as could be. No contest.

Folks who are aware of how much of a Peter David fan I am might be surprised that I chose John M. Ford. PAD has written almost every good ST novel. But Ford has written the two best ST novels. How Much For Just the Planet is Trek filtered through Gilbert and Sullivan, with a touch of Marx Brothers. I'd pay good money to find a way to get this filmed (it would involve resurrecting DeForrest Kelly, so it would take some serious cash). And The Final Reflection, written before TNG, was how Klingon culture should have been done. I love Worf and everything they did with him, but TNG got it all wrong. This was how it should have been done. And yeah, it features almost no familiar characters (minor shots of one or two TOS characters as kids, and a few framing sequences, but that's it).

Comments

[amokk]

I knew it was the comma and I so agree.

I hate AP style because they don't want that extra comma because it's a waste of ink. Sinners.

[mycroftca.livejournal.com]

I feel similarly about The Final Reflection.

[blergeatkitty.livejournal.com]

I had to pick Chandler on this one because I have a postcard with a quote from him tacked up to my cube wall.

From Farewell, My Lovely the quote is: "It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window."

It cracks me up every time I look at it, for no apparent reason.

Re: polling

[wolfieboy.livejournal.com]

I commented on the one thing I cared about. I chose 'Total Eclipse' only because I liked the video better. (Well, I remember the video...)

If the other three had a 'no opinion', that would've been my strongest choice. But then, it wouldn't have the fun of being binary...

[rollick.livejournal.com]

I will not wish, hope, and pray for the no-final-comma types. I condemn them to grammatical hell, where they will writhe, burn, and cry.

Re: Oh well, I was already rotting in hell...

[yendi]

Nah -- you get damned for lacking a comma. :-)

[phantom_wolfboy]

I actually reference Ford's star trek stuff in a discussion on TH the other day. Those are the only two star trek novels worth keeping.

[magenta-girl.livejournal.com]

The comma issue is the only one I feel strongly about, which is why I didn't participate in the poll. But I agree with you absolutely, positively, and 100% about the comma being necessary.