Nebula Awards 33: The Year's Best Sf and Fantasy Chosen by the Science-Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (Nebula Awards Showcase) [ペーパーバック]

Nebula Awards 33 concludes with a story by Grand Master Poul Anderson written about 40 years ago. It's easily the best thing in the book. If I were to guess what this means about contemporary short science fiction, I would say the genre is not only short on new ideas, but it has lost the joy of the narrative. Indeed, little happens in many of these stories. And, as the earlier reviewer noted, many really aren't sf. Jane Yolen's award-winning story about Emily Dickinson and a spaceship is silly and unnecessary. Gregory Feeley's story is interesting, but there's no narrative. John Howard Gardner's story has perhaps the best science fictional idea. It deals with certain snake-like analogues in human blood which have a religious significance that affected society. But, it's just some conversational set-pieces with no narrative. Nancy Kress's piece starts good, gets better, and then just ends. (Is there a novel in the works?) The one story with spaceships is actually a ghost story.

Science fiction and fantasy writers are perhaps entitled to pat themselves on the back from time to time - after all few others do. But editor Connie Willis's gushy endorsements do nobody any good. Rather than let the reader judge the stories, she keeps telling us how good they are. (No analysis is provided.) She makes the absurd claim that this volume is as good as the first volume, which contained much-anthologized classic works by Aldiss, Ellison and Zelazny.

Willis mourns her inability to include all the nominees while including nine (!) gushy pages on Poul Anderson and about one apiece on each story. The volume concludes with a totally unnecessary (and, except for a piece by Kim Stanley Robinson, facile) collection of pieces about 1997. But who cares about 1997 in the middle of 1999? It includes about 10 pages ripped out from the award winning novel. (Why do this? The novel will probably have greater circulation than this collection.) Maybe K.D. Wentworth wouldn't have the ignominy of being the only short-story nominee left out had all this unnecessary material been tossed.

Jane Yolen, "Sister Emily's Lightship" -- I've never been a Yolen fan. While I find her prose professional enough, I've never read anything by her that would make me jump up and rush out to force someone to read it. This story is no exception. The premise of Emily Dickinson meeting an alien is too...precious, and Yolen's sole contribution to that premise in this story is to emphasize some of the ethereal and otherworldly quality of Dickinson's poetry, and that doesn't come until the end. Yeah, she did her Dickinson research, but so what? Other than the alien, there is no reason for this story to be science fiction (see "Abbess Phone Home" in the Turkey City Lexicon).

James Patrick Kelly, "Itsy Bitsy Spider" -- Uses technology of the future to portray a true human characteristic.

Vonda McIntyre, excerpt from The Moon and the Sun -- As someone who has not read this Nebula-winning novel, the excerpt presented here does exactly what it is supposed to do--whet your appetite for more. I had no idea what the subject of the book was before I read this, now I do, and have had a taste of how it is told. I'm not going to rush out and get it, but I'm much more interested now than I was before.

Nancy Kress, "The Flowers of Aulit Prison" -- An excellent story with its basis in that most Phil Dickian question, "What is reality?" This is the kind of SF that I look for, where aliens help us understand, through them as a metaphor, a fundamental idea of life. That it has a plot, an unique setting, and fascinating characters makes it an award winner. I'm not giving anything away with this one, but just point you to it and say, "go read."

Gregory Feeley, "The Crab Lice" -- I disliked the beginning of this story so much that I didn't even finish it. There was nothing for me to grab onto to orient myself in the story, and life is just too short.

Nelson Bond, "The Bookshop" -- A nice little classic story, where every writer's fantasy comes true, but at a price, of course. You could do a collection of these ultimate library tales (Borges comes to mind).

James Alan Gardner, "Three Hearings on the Existence of Snakes in the Bloodstream" -- A great story, with some unique twists to alternate history (so much better than the Feeley).

Michael Swanwick, "The Dead" -- An audacious story, and right up my alley. I liked it well enough, but there was something missing--I'm not sure what, maybe more of an explanation for the Donald character and his background. The anger that it stems from is good.

Karen Joy Fowler, "The Elizabeth Complex" -- This could have been as bad as the Yolen, yet it works to some extent because of its experimental nature. I wouldn't want a steady diet of these things, but once was interesting.

Jerry Oltion, "Abandon in Place" -- Wow, I liked this story a lot, even though it is so ridiculous that it is laughable. One must come at this as if reading a fairy tale--there is nothing plausible here. The science is bogus, the characters are straight wish-fulfillment from Heinlein days. But the mythology is strong, and if one has any remorse for the space program whatsoever, there's a good chance that it will tug the correct strings.

Poul Anderson, "The Martyr" -- A classic from the latest grand master, a nice little mystery about why those infuriating aliens continue to treat us differently.

All in all, this is a worthy volume to grab, especially if you don't want to dedicate the time to reading the Dozois' Year's Best or the magazines themselves.