From: R.J. Smith Subject: ADRICS I've Awarded Lately: Best Reviews in radw Date: Wednesday, 10 May 2000 12:05 In brief: Four fine entries in the award, but it all comes together at the end with a worthy winner. Spoilers follow. The ADRICS are a strange beast. Unlike other radw icons, they're run by a different person every year. Snarky's acheivements on rec.arts.drwho have been minimal thus far and doubtless this is the awards ceremony that can make or break a poster's contributions to the group. This is a new category in the awards and a fine addition to the fifteen billion other categories proudly adorning this year's ceremony [1] and sure to be updated by the minute [2]. Like a monkey at a typewriter, this Hamlet of an award has been plucked out from its siblings and held high for all to see. [1] (Legal Warning: Ceremony not guaranteed to be completed within a year) [2] (This one we can guarantee!) Reviews, of course, are easy to write. Any fool can do them. But to write consistently entertaining and interesting reviews takes far more talent than is generally believed. It's not easy being funny. Just as Exorse. But a good review combines devastating wit with profound insight and, of course, cynical jabs at easy targets. The fourth runner up is Yank Question, a nomination so mysterious, even the ADRICS convener has no idea who's responsible for it. I like that in a review. J. Guthrie should be justifiably proud of appearing at the third runner up slot with the earth-shattering review-title (and everyone needs a snappy title for their reviews), "Ten Stories That Shook DW". It's a nice little reviews section, told well. Paradise Towers, OTOH, is the oddly-named review section from Steve Day, taking this year's second runner up. Dripping with irony, so hard it hurts, it's like walking in on an act of fellatio. The first runner up is an odd beast. Ostensibly written by Karen Inskip, it's actually pieced together from the memories, insights and leftover jelly-babies belonging to her kids. Like a telesnap reconstruction on acid, Ark in Space reviews grab your attention and keep it utterly frozen as a whole lifetime lurches by unawares, mysterious captioned dialogue playing in the background all the while. At the end of the day, despite a worthy selection of reviews contained herein, the award ceremony is defined by the quality of the winner. That's a scary position to be in sometimes, especially if the winner is one of those posters who has a desperate yearning to take on the entire newsgroup. A sense of single-mindedness and sheer force of thought can only benefit such a winner. Varying between the uproariously funny quotefile-including MST3K parodies and single-minded juggernaut-like treatises on the nature of canonicity, this year's thoroughly deserving winner takes no prisoners, laughs in the face of danger and is never anything less than entertaining. So, at the end of the day, I can only recommend Ray C. Tate's "Pick of the Brown Bag" for this years' ADRIC award for the Best Reviews in radw. Congratulations! - Robert Smith?