Nebular Musings (1981)

Some while ago, I decided that I really liked reading good SF short stories. These can be hard to find, however. When I (attempted to) read all the major SF magazines in 2003, since I was going to have a Hugo vote, the average for any given issue was roughly 1 "good" story, 3 "eh" stories, and 2 "bleagh" stories. Life is too short to spend much of it reading "bleagh" stories. So I rely, instead, on various "best of the year" anthologies. These have passed through at least two critical filters, one to get published in the first place, and a different one to be re-chosen as a "best". This generally works out well -- my opinion of the contents of a typical BotY works out to 50% "good", 45% "eh", and a mere 5% "bleagh". I'm also back-filling my collection of these anthologies with used books from the past. I find that, for books which are older than I am, my appreciation of them starts to falter, so I'm no longer seeking *those* out -- but that still leaves a large body of works to acquire and read.

I recently finished Nebula Award Stories 17 (1981), edited by Joe Haldeman. The editor can make a significant difference, since only a small fraction of the book contains the actual award winners, and the rest is filled by a selection from the candidates. This is good, as I tend to dislike the actual winners of the Nebula, and the Nebula anthology often contains a higher proportion of "bleagh" than others. There are a number of reasons for this.

One, Nebulas often go to "writer's writers". Haldeman uses the term in his introduction to an excerpt from gene Wolfe's _Claw of the Conciiator_, which won for novel that year. He goes on to say "...the term usually carries a connotation of inaccessibility, which does not apply at all here." Sorry, but no. I have made three separate attempts at _The Book of the New Sun_ over the decades, the most recent just a few years ago, and bounced off every single time. On the most recent attempt, I actually finished the first volume, but I couldn't tell you now what actually happened in it.

Another problem with the Nebulas is that they seem to have a distaste for science that is puzzling in an award that's allegedly for "science fiction". The winner for novelette that year was Michael Bishop's "The Quickening", which was positively anti-technology. The premise is that some unknown force has randomized humanity's locations -- one morning, everyone wakes up in a random location on earth. Naturally, fatalities are high, and society, per se, ceases to exist. The protagonist hooks up with a few english-speaking people at first, but later abandons them to be with strangers who share no language. No society emerges from the wreckage. By the end of the story, most of the survivors seem to have been taken over by a strange compulsion to disassemble all the remaining buildings, saving the materials for some undefined future purpose. The end. *This* is an award-winner? Ack!

But it's not all bad. I enjoyed Poul Anderson's "The Saturn Game", as I mentioned a while ago. And this volume also contained William Gibson's "Johnny Mnemonic", which was pretty good, and John Varley's "The Pusher", which was excellent, if a bit creepy (it at first appears to be about a pedophile, but turns out to be something quite else -- the story of a creative (if strange) solution to a classic hard SF problem).

The best bit was actually the last. Traditionally, the Nebula Award anthology has also reprinted the winners of the Rhysling Award for SF Poetry. And 1981's winner for "long poem" was extremely cool, and particularly relevant for kestrell's thesis about images of disability in SF. Since I typed it up for her, I'll copy it here for y'all:

( On Science Fiction, by Tom Disch )

Nebular Musings (1981)

Some while ago, I decided that I really liked reading good SF short stories. These can be hard to find, however. When I (attempted to) read all the major SF magazines in 2003, since I was going to have a Hugo vote, the average for any given issue was roughly 1 "good" story, 3 "eh" stories, and 2 "bleagh" stories. Life is too short to spend much of it reading "bleagh" stories. So I rely, instead, on various "best of the year" anthologies. These have passed through at least two critical filters, one to get published in the first place, and a different one to be re-chosen as a "best". This generally works out well -- my opinion of the contents of a typical BotY works out to 50% "good", 45% "eh", and a mere 5% "bleagh". I'm also back-filling my collection of these anthologies with used books from the past. I find that, for books which are older than I am, my appreciation of them starts to falter, so I'm no longer seeking *those* out -- but that still leaves a large body of works to acquire and read.

I recently finished Nebula Award Stories 17 (1981), edited by Joe Haldeman. The editor can make a significant difference, since only a small fraction of the book contains the actual award winners, and the rest is filled by a selection from the candidates. This is good, as I tend to dislike the actual winners of the Nebula, and the Nebula anthology often contains a higher proportion of "bleagh" than others. There are a number of reasons for this.

One, Nebulas often go to "writer's writers". Haldeman uses the term in his introduction to an excerpt from gene Wolfe's _Claw of the Conciiator_, which won for novel that year. He goes on to say "...the term usually carries a connotation of inaccessibility, which does not apply at all here." Sorry, but no. I have made three separate attempts at _The Book of the New Sun_ over the decades, the most recent just a few years ago, and bounced off every single time. On the most recent attempt, I actually finished the first volume, but I couldn't tell you now what actually happened in it.

Another problem with the Nebulas is that they seem to have a distaste for science that is puzzling in an award that's allegedly for "science fiction". The winner for novelette that year was Michael Bishop's "The Quickening", which was positively anti-technology. The premise is that some unknown force has randomized humanity's locations -- one morning, everyone wakes up in a random location on earth. Naturally, fatalities are high, and society, per se, ceases to exist. The protagonist hooks up with a few english-speaking people at first, but later abandons them to be with strangers who share no language. No society emerges from the wreckage. By the end of the story, most of the survivors seem to have been taken over by a strange compulsion to disassemble all the remaining buildings, saving the materials for some undefined future purpose. The end. *This* is an award-winner? Ack!

But it's not all bad. I enjoyed Poul Anderson's "The Saturn Game", as I mentioned a while ago. And this volume also contained William Gibson's "Johnny Mnemonic", which was pretty good, and John Varley's "The Pusher", which was excellent, if a bit creepy (it at first appears to be about a pedophile, but turns out to be something quite else -- the story of a creative (if strange) solution to a classic hard SF problem).

The best bit was actually the last. Traditionally, the Nebula Award anthology has also reprinted the winners of the Rhysling Award for SF Poetry. And 1981's winner for "long poem" was extremely cool, and particularly relevant for kestrell's thesis about images of disability in SF. Since I typed it up for her, I'll copy it here for y'all:

( On Science Fiction, by Tom Disch )

Friends meme/quiz

1. Go here.
2. Pass it on.
( my answers )

Friends meme/quiz

1. Go here.
2. Pass it on.
( my answers )