Nebula Awards Showcase 2003

An anthology of Nebula Award-winning fiction selected by the members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America includes works by Catherine Asaro, Jack Williamson, Severna Park, Kelly Link, and others, accompanied by commentary on the current status of science fiction in the twenty-first century and its significance as a form of literature. Original.

Chosen by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2002, this slim anthology includes the four Nebula Award winners in the categories of short story, novelette, novella and novel (represented by an extract), plus a couple of runners-up (James Patrick Kelly's "Undone" and Mike Resnick's "The Elephants on Neptune"), an introduction by editor Kress, a list of nominees, a few brief essays and a list of past winners. While it's good to have the Nebula winners for a given year gathered in one place, some readers might wonder whether there's enough content here to justify such a book. On balance, the answer is yes, if only because of the unlikely juxtapositions. It's fascinating to watch Jack Williamson's expansive, far-future speculation, "The Ultimate Earth," rubbing shoulders with Kelly Link's tight, nervous little maybe-ghost story, "Louise's Ghost." It's also amusing to imagine how Mike Resnick's sardonic elephants from Neptune would wreak havoc in Catherine Asaro's SF retelling of "Beauty and the Beast" (The Quantum Rose). In short, the variety of taste shown by the SFFWA continues to be striking and heartening.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America annually survey the sf and fantasy fields and publish their prizewinners for the year, accompanied by cogent essays by a wide range of writers on a wide range of categories within the broader fields, in a handy paperback. In this year's selection, the short fiction often uses biology for scientific grounding, and the winners include Severna Park ("The Cure for Everything"), finally a winner after 20 years of writing, and Jack Williamson ("The Ultimate Earth"), again an honoree during a career three times as long as Park's. Terry Bisson's essay on making a living with humorous fantasy is itself a humorous fantasy, and the other essayists on fantasy assimilate the boom in fantasy in both print and visual media. Shelly Shapiro pays well-deserved tribute to editor Betty Ballantine, and the two Rhysling Award-winning poems, by veteran sf/fantasy poet Bruce Boston and sf novelist Joe Haldeman, round out the offerings. As always, an honorable entry among the year's anthologies. Roland Green
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