Nebula Awards Showcase 2010. edited by Bill Fawcett
NEBULA AWARDS SHOWCASE 2010
RATED 75% POSITIVE. STORY SCORE: 3.5 / 5
6 STORIES : 0 GREAT / 3 GOOD / 3 AVERAGE / 0 POOR / 0 DNF
Each editor of the Nebula Awards Showcase has a different way of addressing the same challenge. How do you publish an anthology that highlights the Nebula Awards, given by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA)? Each unique attempt is what makes these volumes exciting or, in this case, what makes it frustrating.
Do you publish all the nominees? or just the winners? How do you treat novels? Excerpt or ignore? How much emphasis do you put on the poetry, screenplays, and other such categories? And how do you treat the authors Emerta or Grand Masters?
Other Volumes of the Nebula Awards Showcase reviewed on this blog
This volume - covering stories primarily published in 2008 - is probably worth reading. Just not for the fiction which I found surprisingly mediocre. What was most interesting was the articles that discussed science fiction by decade from the 1940s through the end of the 1990s.
Another excellent part of this book was the inclusion of articles from the Solstice Award Winners, which are given “for exceptional contributions to SF publishing” not usually in terms of fiction writing, but more often in terms of supporting the community by editing, mentoring, raising the profile of genre fiction, etc.” The award now bares Kate Wilhelm’s name and a story of hers in reprinted in this book. [thx to Rebecca Gomez Farrell.]
This makes the book a combination of pretty interesting nonfiction and quite mediocre fiction. Surprisingly so, considering that the Nebula Awards almost always deliver quality stories. I feel strongly that this anthology should have contained a lot more stories.
It almost never happens, but this anthology added no stories to The Great List.
NEBULA AWARDS SHOWCASE 2010 IS RATED 75% POSITIVE
6 STORIES : 0 GREAT / 3 GOOD / 3 AVERAGE / 0 POOR / 0 DNF
My rating method for short fiction?
The Space Time Pool • (2008) • novella by Catherine Asaro
Average. Okay, so this is technically science fiction (alternate universe with high level mathematics, spaceships that only exist in history books) but every moment of this READS as fantasy. Seers with prophecies. Two handsome and powerful brothers fighting over our heroine’s hand in marriage and the fate of their kingdom. Simple, uncomplicated prose.
Rules of the Game • (1996) • short story by Kate Wilhelm
Good. A woman’s scumbag husband returns as a ghost and she reluctantly starts investigating his death.
Pride and Prometheus • (2008) • novelette by John Kessel
Good. Mary from “Pride and Prejudice” meets Viktor Frankenstein and his monster. Well written, atmospheric, but requires a good working knowledge of both old novels to make this truly work.
Trophy Wives • (2008) • novelette by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
Average. In the future two women share a telepathic bond and try to rescue a woman who has escaped from her husband who is literally a frog.
Talking About Fangs • (1995) • short story by M. J. Engh
Average. A man in talking to his lawyer about vampires, cremation, and why it only APPEARS that he is dying of AIDS.
The Streets of Ashkelon • (1962) • short story by Harry Harrison
Good. A trader on a planet resents the arrival of a missionary because the alien natives have managed to achieve a society that never considered the idea of god.
