Nebula Awards 33: the Year's Best SF and Fantasy Chosen by the Science-fiction and Fantasy Writers of America

Nebula Awards The year's best SF and fantasy chosen by the Science-fiction and Fantasy Writers of America EDITED BY

Connie Willis

A Harvest Original Harcourt Brace & Company

San Diego

New York

London

Compilation copyright © '999 by Science-fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Introduction and headnotes copyright © '999 by Connie Willis "A Tribute to Poul Anderson" copyright © '999 by Jack Williamson Wi! McCarthy essay copyright © '999 by Wil McCarthy Beth Meacham essay copyright © '999 by Beth Meacham Ellen Datlow essay copyright © '999 by Ellen Datlow Cynthia Felice essay copyright © '999 by Cynthia Felice Christie Golden essay copyright © '999 by Christie Golden Sheila Williams essay copyright © '999 by Sheila Williams lvlichael Cassutt essay copyright © '999 by Michael Cassutt Kim Stanley Robinson essay copyright © '999 by Kim Stanley Robinson Geoffrey A. Landis essay copyright © '999 by Geoffrey A. Landis All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be mailed to: Permissions Department, Harcourt Brace & Company, 6277 Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando, Florida 32887-6777. The SFWA Nebula Awards is a trademark of the Science-fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc. The Library of Congress has cataloged this serial as follows: The Nebula awards.-No. 18-New York [N.Y.]: Arbor House, c1983-v.; 22cm. Annual. Published: San Diego, Calif.: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1984Published for: Science-fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, 1983Continues: Nebula award stories (New York, N.Y.: 1982) 074'-5567 = The Nebula awards Science fiction. American - Periodicals. Science-fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

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Te,'! set in Electra Designed by Kaelin Chappell Printed in the United States of America First edition EDCBA

Permissions acknowledgments appear on pages 27'-72, which constitute a continuation of the copyright page.

IN MEMORIAM

Jerome Bixby Robert Hoskins Carl Jacobi Judith Merril Samuel A. Peeples William Rotsler G. Harry Stine (Lee Correy) George Turner

Contents

Introduction ix Connie Willis

Sister Emily's Lightship 1 Jane Yolen

Itsy Bitsy Spider 17 James Patrick Kelly

The Nebula Award for Best Novel 31 Connie Willis

An excerpt from The Moon and the Sun 33 Yonda N. McIntyre

The Flowers of Aulit Prison 44 Nancy Kress

The Crab Lice 81 Gregory Feeley

The 1997 Author Emeritus: Nelson Bond 94 Connie Willis

The Bookshop 96 Nelson Bond

viii Contents

Three Hearings on the Existence of Snakes in the Human Bloodstream 105 James Alan Gardner

The Dead

129

Michael Swanwick

Rhysling Award Winners

142

W. Gregory Stewart Terry A. Garey

The Elizabeth Complex

149

Karen Joy Fowler

Abandon in Place

158

Jerry Oltion

The Grand Master Award: Poul Anderson

219

Connie Willis

A Tribute to Poul Anderson

222

Jack vVilliamson

The Martyr

226

Poul Anderson

Alive and Well: Messages from the Edge (Almost) of the Millennium

246

Wil McCarthylBeth MeachamlEllen Datlow Cynthia Felice/Christie Golden/Sheila Williams Michael CassuttlKim Stanley Robinson/Geoffrey A. Landis

A Few Last Words to Put It All in Perspective

259

Connie Willis

Appendixes

261

About the Nebula Awards Past Nebula Award Winners About the Science-fiction and Fantasy Writers

ofAmerica

Introduction CONNIE WILLIS

lr read my first Nebula Awards collection (and the first) when I J..1 was in college. I had been reading the year's best collections, edited by Anthony Boucher and Judith Merril and Robert P. Mills, since I was thirteen, and I loved them. I even kept a list of my favorite stories from each one: Daniel Keyes's "Flowers for Algernon" and Kit Reed's "The Wait" and Jerome Bixby's "It's a Good Life." But Nebula Award Stories 1965 was different. It wasn't just the stories an editor thought were the best-these were the stories the science fiction writers themselves had decided were the best of the year. The best of the best. And what stories! The very first story in the volume was Roger Zelazny's "The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth," a stunning story of a man facing Leviathan. It was followed by Harlan Ellison's pyrotechnic "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman," Zelazny'S "He Who Shapes," and Brian Aldiss's "The Saliva Tree." All in one book! And that wasn't all. Nebula Awards Stories 1965 also included some of the finalists, among them Gordon R. Dickson's chillingly delicious (and completely plausible) "Computers Don't Argue," Larry Niven's "Becalmed in Hell," and J. G. Ballard's haunting "The Drowned Giant." Wow! I immediately added my favorite stories in the book to my list. And that's how I knew for sure this collection was different. Because every single story in it ended up on my list. At the time, I knew nothing at all about the science fiction field

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Introduction

or SFWA, which gave the awards, or about the authors. I had no idea Brian Aldiss was British or that Roger Zelazny had only been writing professionally for three years or that Harlan Ellison was ... Harlan Ellison. I didn't know anything about the SFWA banquet at which the awards were given, or what the award looked like, or what a witty, intelligent, insane bunch of people science fiction writers were. All I knew was that these stories really were the best of the best. And that I wanted more than anything to have a story in one of those Nebula collections someday. Now, thirty-three years later, I've been in six Nebula collections and am the editor of this year's volume. Who says dreams don't come true? I've traveled in Spain with Brian Aldiss, worked with the late Roger Zelazny on an anthology, and sung show tunes with Harlan Ellison. I have met Frank Herbert and Poul Anderson and know all those authors who once were only names to me. I have worked with and been friends with and know great stories about all of them. (Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to tell most of those stories because they also know stories about me.) Since that first Nebula banquet I attended in New York City-a word of advice to aspiring young writers: Do not wear a dress with a Peter Pan collar to your first Nebula banquet. You will never live it down.-I've been to countless (and sometimes endless) Nebula banquets in New Orleans and San Francisco, in Kansas City and Santa Fe, and on the Queen Mary, where there was a leak in the ceiling from-no, I'm not allowed to tell that story. I've attended SFWA business meetings, been toastmaster, participated in dinner discussions of everything from artificial intelligence to the religious symbolism in The Poseidon Adventure, and even had adventures, like the time Bruce Sterling and I ended up in the hotel kitchen during the banqu~t, standing in formal dress at the sink and washing off-no, I'm not allowed to tell that story either. I've listened to keynote speakers (I'm really not allowed to tell that story), presented awards, looked admiringly at other people's Nebulas, and told them to hand-carry the award on the plane going home. This is one ofthe few stories I can tell, since it's part of Nebula

Introduction

xi

mythology. Every winner of a Nebula is immediately told by at least nineteen people not to put it in his suitcase because Robert Silverberg-or Theodore Sturgeon or Kate Wilhelm (the story varies from year to year and person to person) -did, and pressure changes in the baggage compartment made the award explode. I was told this story the first time I won (and every time thereafter-most recently it was Barry Longyear's Nebula) and have told it myself to new winners. I have no idea if it's true. I have not, however, been willing to try it to see whether it is, and neither, I would imagine, has anybody else. In those thirty-three eventful years, I've won Nebula Awards and lost them (or, as this year's toastmaster, Michael Cassutt, put it, I've been "differently victorious"). And I've read another thirty-one Nebula Awards collections and all the stories in them, from Michael Moorcock's "Behold the Man" to Terry Bisson's "Bears Discover Fire" and Mike Resnick's "Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge." And you know what? I'm just as dazzled, just as awed and impressed by the Nebula Award stories as I was that first time. That includes this year's Nebula-nominated and -winning stories, which are an amazing mix of fantasy and science fiction, technology and myth, shoes and ships and sealing wax-though the ships are sometimes sailing the methane winds of Jupiter, and the shoes are patent leather and worn by a five-year-old robot. There are liquid fish and biological copyrights in these stories, Shakespeare and suffragettes and snakes. Merlin's here, and Aristophanes, the Hindenburg and Hollywood directors, convicts and dancers and zombies and Greek gods. The past seems to be on everybody's mind. Is that because, with the millennium rapidly approaching, we're all feeling nostalgic, or is it that everyone's beginning to realize how complex the intertwinings of past and future are, and how much even the teensiest action affects both? Whatever, the past (or pasts) is here in full cry, from Anne Boleyn's murder to JFK's, from Darwin to Davy Crockett to the Cherokees, in such terrific stories as Allen Steele's " ... Where Angels Fear to Tread," John Kessel's "The Miracle of Ivar Avenue," and Paul Levinson's "Loose Ends." This is not to say that there aren't any robots, or space ships, or

xii

Introduction

aliens. They're all here, especially the latter, in fascinating new forms, from Bill Johnson's Traders ("We Will Drink a Fish Together. .. ") to K. D. Wentworth's kreel ("Burning Bright") and Adam-Troy Castro's enigmatic Vlhani (,The Funeral March of the Marionettes"). So is the first contact story, in William Sanders's delightful "The Undiscovered," though in a guise you'd never expect. I wish I could have included every single story that was on the ballot. I couldn't. I had to accept the fact that the 'hook had a limited amount of space, even though it killed me to leave out wonderful stories such as Eleanor Amason's enchanting (and enchanted) "The Dog's Story," and Paul Levinson's "The Copyright Notice Case," about a forensic scientist examining a murder involving DNA in a whole new role. I hope after you read this collection, you'll seek out Robert Reed's tale of space exploration and discovery, "Chrysalis." And Allen Steele's " ... Where Angels Fear to Tread." I hope you'll seek them all out. This year's Nebula Award-nominated stories were every bit as new, varied, and exciting as 1965's. Damon Knight, in his introduction to Nebula Award Stories 1965, said that the stories in the book showed "the quality of modern science fiction, its range, and, I think, its growing depth and maturity." The exact same thing, I think, can be said of this year's Nebula stories. How do I know? Because every single story made it onto my Favorite Stories List. I hope they make it onto yours, too.

The 1997 Nebula Awards Final Ballot FOR NOVEL "The Moon and the Sun, Vonda N. McIntyre (Pocket Books) Memory, Lois McMaster Bujold (Baen Books) King's Dragon, Kate Elliott (DAW Books) A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin (Bantam Spectra) Ancient Shores, Jack McDevitt (HarperPrism) City on Fire, Walter Jon Williams (HarperPrism) Bellwether, Connie Willis (Bantam Spectra) "Indicates winner.

Introduction xiii FOR NOVELLA

*"Abandon in Place," Jerry Oltion (The Magazine of Fantasy 6

Science Fiction) "The Funeral March of the Marionettes," Adam-Troy Castro (The

Magazine of Fantasy 6 Science Fiction) "Loose Ends," Paul Levinson (Analog Science Fiction and Fact) "Chrysalis," Robert Reed (Asirnov's Science Fiction) "Primrose and Thorn," Bud Sparhawk (Analog Science Fiction and Fact) " ... Where Angels Fear to Tread," Allen Steele (Asirnov's Science Fiction) FOR NOVELETTE

*"The Flowers of Aulit Prison," Nancy Kress (Asirnov's Science

Fiction) "The Dog's Story," Eleanor Amason (Asirnov's Science Fiction) "Three Hearings on the Existence of Snakes in the Human Bloodstream," James Alan Gardner (Asirnov's Science Fiction) "We Will Drink a Fish Together ... ," Bill Johnson (Asirnov's Science

Fiction) "The Miracle of Ivar Avenue," John Kessel (Intersections, Tor Books;

Asirnov's Science Fiction) "The Copyright Notice Case," Paul Levinson (Analog Science Fiction

and Fact) "The Undiscovered," William Sanders (Asirnov's Science Fiction) FOR SHORT STORY

*"Sister Emily's Lightship," Jane Yolen (Starlight 1, Tor Books) "The Crab Lice," Gregory Feeley (Alternate Tyrants, Tor Books) "The Elizabeth Complex," Karen Joy Fowler (Crank!) "Itsy Bitsy Spider," James Patrick Kelly (Asirnov's Science Fiction) "The Dead," Michael Swanwick (Starlight 1, Tor Books) "Burning Bright," K. D. Wentworth (Aboriginal SF)

Nebula