NEBULA Awards Showcase 2005

kw: book reviews, story reviews, science fiction, fantasy, proverbs

The NEBULA Awards books present the best of the best, as judged by a panel of SF&F writers. Been doing so since 1965. This volume is the 41st. The first I read was the 3d, in 1967.

I've observed vast changes in "science fiction" over forty years. The most significant was the gradual merger of Science Fiction with Fantasy, mostly accomplished during the 1990s. To my observation, it began when SF began calling itself Speculative Fiction, late in the 1970s. Prior to that, SF and F were often at enmity. There is still a valid criterion: the former genre is based on known or reasonably extrapolated science, with one or two "impossibles" thrown in, such as faster-than-light travel or time travel. Once the rules of engagement are agreed on, the story proceeds accordingly. By contrast, fantastic fiction is usually, well, fantastic. Fresh problems that the protagonists face are often solved by something quite out of the blue. One doesn't know the rules of engagement from the beginning. I might here observe that life seems to work this way more often than not...

One thing I really don't like reading is "sword and sorcery". Someone once observed that in S&S, the hero must be "very, very strong; very, very brave; and very, very stupid." As a person who lives in my imagination, who lives by his wits, and who was the classic 4-eyed nerd, I find S&S heroes more akin to playground bullies than to anyone with whom I'd like to share an evening by the fireside. My kind of hero is Dick Feynman or Stephen Jay Gould.

Nor do I like stories that don't resolve to some kind of conclusion. I like stories that go somewhere. In a satisfying story, transformation occurs. I have a proverb: All literature reveals its author; good literature lets us see our world; the best literature helps us know ourselves, and become better.

So, how does the present volume stand up? At the moment I've read 1/3 of it, five stories. I've skipped the essays, but will get back to them. I'm pretty pleased. Of course, the writing is stellar, compelling. One of the five is very close to an ultra-classic theme (I'll come back to that in a later post). I'd say, regardless of one's taste, the power of the story-telling in this volume makes it worth the read.

I'll review individual stories in later posts.