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

Poul Anderson; Jerry Oltion; Vonda N. McIntyre; Nancy Kress; Jane Yolen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0156006014 ISBN 13: 9780156006019

Publisher: Harvest Books, 1999

Synopsis

A Nebula Award-winning collection of fiction features work by Jane Yolen, Nancy Kress, and Jerry Oltion; classic stories by Poul Anderson and Nelson Bond; and original essays by Kim Stanley Robinson, Ellen Datlow, Jack Williamson, and other notable authors. Simultaneous.

About this title

About the Author

Connie Willis has won six Nebula Awards, more than any other writer, and was the first author to win the Nebula in all four categories. Her acclaimed works include Lincoln's Dreams, Doomsday Book, Remake, Impossible Things, and Bellwether, a finalist for this year's Nebula Award for Best Novel.

Reviews

YA-This solid anthology of stories and essays represents the breadth and diversity of the genre. Most of the selections fall more toward the science fiction end of the spectrum. No unicorns or wizards here. Instead, Emily Dickinson meets an alien in "Sister Emily's Lightship." "Abandon in Place" is a thrilling ghost story about what happens to the space program in the wake of tragedy and budget cuts. A few stories, like "The Elizabeth Complex," require careful reading. Interspersed with the well-written and thought-provoking stories are essays that are less compelling. Few YAs will like every offering in this volume, but there's sure to be something here to please just about everyone.
Susan Salpini, Purcellville Library, VA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The latest collection of trophy-winners and runners-up for the Nebulas, which are awarded by the SFWA, is a rainbow of styles and content. Editor Willis (Bellwether), herself a six-time Nebula winner, introduces each selection with an enthusiastic appreciation. Each story is followed by the author's notes on its creation. There are also insightful short essays on the year's science as well as its fiction by expert authors and editors, plus older stories by 1997's Author Emeritus Nelson Bond and Grand Master Poul Anderson, the latter contributing a fine space yarn with a Platonic drama of ideas and a knockout surprise ending. The prose ranges from the futuristic lighting of Michael Swanwick ("The chauffeur wore combat-grade photomultipliers") to the gracefully mythopoeic style of Vonda McIntyre ("The wild eerie melody quickened Marie-Jos?phe's heart"). All the fiction entries are richly imagined; some are polished literary constructions as well. Karen Joy Fowler is represented by a deft experimental conflation of historical Elizabeths, including Borden, Cady-Stanton and one of the queens, and there is a little of the expected "hard" SF, too. Gregory Feeley's "The Crab Lice" is one of several pieces that wonderfully illuminate present events by imagined ones in the past instead of the more typical SF sallies into the future. Feeley shows us Aristophanes at loggerheads with the god Dionyos; Jane Yolen gives us Emily Dickinson chatting with an extraterrestrial. Overall, this is an excellent skimming of the current SF crop, conveying a good sense of the field's variety, sophistication and breadth.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This eclectic sampling of 1997's best short stories, novellas, and novels was chosen by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Editor Willis, a multiple Nebula winner, provides amusing and insightful commentary on the selections, which include works by Jane Yolen, Vonda N. McIntyre, James Alan Gardner, and Nancy Kress. Subject matter runs the gamut from Aristophanes to Emily Dickinson, medieval inquisitions to moon shots. The slim volume also contains a list of previous winners, tributes to Grand Master Poul Anderson and Author Emeritus Nelson Bond, and reflections on 1997 by several well-known sf authors. While a bit of a hodgepodge, this anthology includes excellent stories and should appeal to sf fans. Recommended for large public and academic libraries.ALaurel Bliss, New Haven, CT
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harvest Books
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0156006014
• ISBN 13: 9780156006019
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272
• Editor: Connie Willis