Nebular Musings (1981)

[alexxkay]

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

We are all cripples. First admit that
And it follows we incur no uncommon shame
By lying in our beds telling such tales
As will serve to cheer those who share our condition.

It is a painful business. Time does not fly
For paraplegics. Even those who find employment
Manipulating numbers and answering phones
Are afflicted with the rictus of sustained
Disappointment. We would all rather be whole.

There is another world we all imagine where
Our handicaps become the means of grace,
Where acne vanishes from every face,
And the slug-white bodies rise from wrinkled sheets
With cries of joy. Within each twisted this-world smile
Bubbles the subconscious slobber of a cover by Frazetta.

Of course we are proud of our ability to move
At high velocity among our many self-delusions.
We invalids, because we share the terrible
Monotony of childhood, preserve the childlike knack
Of crossing the border into the Luna of our dreams.

Many cannot. Look deep into the glazed eyes of the normative
And you will discern that genteel poverty of the imagination
Which is our scorn, our torment, our sordid delight.
Why, we ask ourselves, can't they _learn_ to be crippled?

Some do--but only as a father may enter
The house inhabited by his daughter's dolls.
And then only for the interval of a smile, only to visit.
He cannot know what it is to live
Completely in the imagination, never to leave it.

To live, that is, imprisoned in a wheelchair,
In limbs that can no longer suffer pains
Of growth. There is a story that we love to hear told
About a man who comes to our utopia
And is initiated to our ways. We teach him
A special form of basketball. He sees our rodeo.

His normal fingers touch our withered legs.
His mouth makes love. He's soundly whipped
For the careless enjoyment of his health, and then--
This is the part we relish most--he sees us
As we really are, transfigured, transcendent, gods.

We form our wheelchairs in a perfect circle. We
close our eyes, we wish with all our might, and
Suddenly, zap, thanks to the secret psychic powers
We handicapped, so called, possess, we disappear!

Where to? Never ask. Believe, as the hero of that tale
Believed, that we were switched by the flick of a wish
Into that lovely Otherwhere beloved by every visitor
To Lourdes. Suppose, for the sake of story
We were lifted up into the fresco's glory. Believe.

Do we deceive ourselves? Assuredly.
How else sustain the years of pain, the sneers
And hasty aversions of those who recognize
In our deformities the mirror image of their own
Intolerable irregularities? The antidote
To shame is arrogance; to prison, an escape.

To be a cripple, however, is to know
That all attempts must fail. We open our eyes
And at once Barsoom dissolves. We're back within
Our irremediable skin in that familiar cruel
World where every doorknob's out of reach.

You are welcome, therefore, Stranger, to join
Our confraternity. But please observe the rules.
Always display a cheerful disposition. Do not refer
To our infirmities. Help us to conquer the galaxy.