Putting down the Puppies. (Sad Puppies Bite Back VII)

Welcome to Sad Puppies Bite Back VII (The Anti-Puppies)

Previously, on Sad Puppies Bite Back...

Sad Puppies I
Sad Puppies II
Sad Puppies III
Sad Puppies IV

Sad Puppies V

Sad Puppies VI

It's now a series. Click the Tab above for new content.

A few notes.  The set up is from my friend Marina Fontaine, she of the Whedon fisk from a while ago.

This one is inspired by a column over at the Mad Genius Club, and it pointed out a few things. It noted how much personal destruction has been involved from the Forces of Good and Pure and Innocent anti-Puppies. 

On reflection, I'm not amused. 

The Puppies have been against leading a lynch party against the Anti-Puppies, while the latter are shooting for plausible deniability.

If they would like to play, let's play.

The Puppies are hungry.

Somewhere in Utah

[Theresa "Long Knives" Neilsen Hayden and John "Noah Ward" Scalzi sit side-by-side in an open dog catcher truck, with K. Tempest "Teacup" Bradford in the back seat, reading Redshirts]

[TNH, driving the truck, looks over at Scalzi] So, what's with the nickname "Noah Ward?"

[JS strokes the hairless cat in his lap] Someone has to no award the puppies

[TNH] Heh. Yeah. That'll be interesting. You know that if we do that, we might as well burn the Hugos down ourselves.

[JS] Better dead than anything other than red. I could ask if you're taking the whole "Puppy" premise a little too literally, with the truck.

[TNH] Well, it's not like the current plan is working.  Seriously, "who will rid us of these turbulent puppies?"  That's a plan?

[JS] It killed Thomas Becket. And anything that offs a Catholic can't be all bad. With luck, it will kill their careers.  We probably wouldn't have needed to do that much if you hadn't leaked that the Puppies had taken over the slate of nominees before the official announcement.

[TNH] Are you saying I broke the rules?

[JS] Of course not. Rules are for little people. Like the Puppies.  And their followers. And anyone who says that they followed the rules to the letter.

[TNH] Does that mean that we put out a fatwa on J. Michael Straczynski?

[JS] Don't be stupid, he's a rising Hollywood bigwig with his own studio. I hope he might hire me one day.  Besides, he scares me. If I ever see him in person, I'm going to pretend that he didn't tell us to put up or shut up.

[TNH] Whatever. Thankfully, EW ran the article as we expected. 

[JS's cat rolls its eyes] They retracted the whole thing.

[TNH turns the corner]  Thousands read it before it was pulled.  Don't worry, we'll catch these puppies, and then we'll put them down like the rabid dogs they are! BWUAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[JS sighs] Tut-tut, Theresa, darling, we mustn't slip into full-on mad scientist yet. Tor may yet hire you back.

[TNH] Spoil-sport.

[JS looks into the back]  K., how are you enjoying Redshirts?

[K. Tempest Teacup shrugs]  Eh, it's okay. Feels like bad Star Trek fan fic.

[JS blanches] What? My book isn't that bad!

[Teacup, realizing that she broke her promise to never read anything by straight white men, screams with the wail of the damned. She thrashes as though having a seizure, smacking TNH upside the head.  The truck veers off the road, crashing into a ditch.]

[JS] Sigh. Not again.

[Three hours later, down the road, lying in wait, are the Evil League of Evil. Tom Kratman tirelessly watches the road, awaiting the dog catcher truck.  John "Dr. O. No" Ringo, now that the sun is down, furiously taps away on his laptop, cranking out a rough draft of a 15-book series on an alien invasion. Larry Correia, the International Lord of Hate, is fisking the entire back catalog of The Guardian. The Cuddly Skeletor, Brad Torgersen, clutches the flamethrower on loan from Larry, looking like a kid waiting for Christmas morning.]

[LC looks up]  I'm running out of Guardian articles.  Are they coming or not?

[TK growls, frustrated]  I don't see them sir!  We still have the Claymore mines ready and waiting to blow them straight to Hell at the first sign!  Assuming the land mines in the road don't get them first! Or the three backup snipers!

[LC]  Geez, Tom, are you sure that we'll even need to fire a shot, assuming they ever get here?

[TK] Better to be prepared than not, sir!

[LC sighs, closes the laptop, and stands up, taking care not to hit the flagpole above him]  Okay, everyone, we're packing up. Brad, sorry, no flamethrower for you tonight.

[Brad, frustrated that he never got to use his flame thrower on the self-destructed anti-Puppies, fires it off into space.  The massive fireball makes it way to low orbit.  It impacts and explodes against a low-flying alien spacecraft, a scout for the incoming armada.  The armada, thinking their surprise has been ruined, turn around and retreat. The wounded ship hurtles in an uncontrolled descent, slamming right into Tor's officers, taking out the entire suite of offices, and a few cockroaches -- including an intern named Joe Buckley, but no one noticed one way or another, since interns are all disposable anyway. But Joe died happy. He FINALLY got to see an exploding space ship!]

[LC pats Brad on the shoulder] We'll get them next time.

[Hours later, Sara Hoyt's cat saunter up to the truck, finding TNH's laptop on the side of the road.  Together, the cats type up a short story called "If you were a Catnip Ball, My Love." This will later win a Nebula.]

~Fin~

Okay this one may have had a little bit of inside baseball.

EDIT

I hate to break it to you, but the rest of this post has been moved to a different location. Where, you might ask?

Here: To the Collected SAD PUPPIES BITE BACK, in Paperback and Kindle.