Nebula Awards Showcase 2006 (2 page)

(Nor, with 642 SF and fantasy novels published in 2004, according to
Locus,
is the situation necessarily any better with novels. How many of those novels even get reviewed? Let
alone
make it on to the Final Nebula Ballot? A considerably lesser number than 642, believe me.)

On the other hand, for a story or a novel to make it on to the Final Nebula Ballot, it has to have impressed a number of the author’s peers enough for them to expend the time and effort required to nominate it in the first place, then seem worthy enough to an even larger number of the author’s peers that they’re willing to actually vote for it when the preliminary ballot comes out, over all the other choices available to them there. Unlike the vast majority of stories that came out that year, the hundreds of stories that were consigned to blank oblivion, it has been
noticed
. It’s been approved of, and judged worthy to be in competition to win an award by the harshest jury of all, a fellowship of other working writers who know all the tricks and who are not easy to fool.

So it really
is
“an honor just to be nominated.” It really is. If you’re a finalist and you’re tempted to put on the mask of sophisticated blasé cynicism and sneer at that, embracing the idea that it’s only
winning
that counts, just ask all the authors who
didn’t
get nominated if they would change places with you if they could. Boy,
would
they! In a hot second.

All the stories we’re bringing you in
Nebula Award Showcase 2006
have been through this rugged peer-vetting system; the winners are here, of course (including an excerpt from the winning novel), and as many finalists as we could fit into the book. In an ideal world, we would be able to bring you
all
the finalists; back here in the real world, though, constraints on the length of the anthology make that, sadly, impossible, and I’ve been forced to choose among them—a tough choice, since they all deserve to be included.

The stories that
are
here are a varied group, though, ranging from the hardest of hard science fiction to political/economic/sociological thrillers to speculations on the nature of the Posthuman Condition to gentle fantasy to creepy and exotic horror, with a few hard-to-classify stories thrown in along the way. Add insightful commentary on where the field’s come from and where it’s going by SFFWA Grand Masters Jack Williamson, Robert Silverberg, Ursula K. Le Guin, Frederik Pohl, and Brian W. Aldiss, the year’s Rhysling Award-winning poetry, a classic story by new SFFWA Grand Master Anne McCaffrey and an appreciation of her by Jody Lynn Nye, lists of past winners and of this year’s finalists, and a review of the films on this year’s final ballot by the film reviewer for
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction,
Kathi Maio, and you have as good a snapshot of what the year in science fiction was like, in all its variety and richness of expression, in all its different forms, as you are likely to get anywhere. I hope you enjoy it!

NOVEL

Paladin of Souls,
by Lois McMaster Bujold
(Eos, October 2003)

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom,
by Cory Doctorow (Tor, February 2003)

Omega,
by Jack McDevitt (Ace, November 2003)

Cloud Atlas: A Novel,
by David Mitchell (Sceptre, January 2004)

Perfect Circle,
by Sean Stewart (Small Beer Press, June 2004)

The Knight,
by Gene Wolfe (Tor, January 2004)

 

NOVELLA

“Walk in Silence,” by Catherine Asaro (
Analog Science Fiction and Fact,
April 2003)

“The Tangled Strings of the Marionettes,” by Adam-Troy Castro (
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction,
July 2003)

“The Cookie Monster,” by Vernor Vinge (
Analog Science Fiction and
Fact,
October 2003)

“The Green Leopard Plague,” by Walter Jon Williams
(
Asimov’s
Science Fiction,
October/November 2003)

“Just Like the Ones We Used to Know,” by Connie Willis (
Asimov’s
Science Fiction,
December 2003)

 

NOVELETTE

“Zora and the Zombie,” by Andy Duncan (
SCI FICTION,
Feb. 4, 2004)

“Basement Magic,” by Ellen Klages
(
The Magazine of Fantasy &
Science Fiction,
May 2003)

“The Voluntary State,” by Christopher Rowe (
SCI FICTION,
May 2004)

“Dry Bones,” by William Sanders (
Asimov’s Science Fiction,
May 2003)

“The Gladiator’s War: A Dialogue,” by Lois Tilton (
Asimov’s Science
Fiction,
June 2004)

 

SHORT STORY

“Coming to Terms,” by Eileen Gunn
(
Stable Strategies and Others,
September 2004)

“The Strange Redemption of Sister Mary Anne,” by Mike Moscoe (
Analog Science Fiction and Fact,
November 2004)

“Travels with My Cats,” by Mike Resnick (
Asimov’s Science Fiction,
February 2004)

“Embracing-The-New,” by Benjamin Rosenbaum (
Asimov’s Science
Fiction,
January 2004)

“In the Late December,” by Greg van Eekhout (
Strange Horizons,
Dec. 22, 2003)

“Aloha,” by Ken Wharton (
Analog Science Fiction and Fact,
June 2003)

 

SCRIPTS

The Incredibles,
by Brad Bird (Pixar, November 2004)

The Butterfly Effect,
by J. Mackye Gruber and Eric Bress (New Line Cinema, January 2004)

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,
by Charlie Kaufman and Michel Gondry (Anonymous Content/Focus Features, March 2004)

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,
by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Peter Jackson, based on the novel by J.R.R. Tolkien (New Line Cinema, December 2003)

 

The fortieth annual Nebula Awards banquet was held at the Allegro Hotel in Chicago, Illinois, on April 30, 2005, where Nebula Awards were given in the categories of novel, novella, novelette, short story, script, and lifetime achievement (Grand Master). Four of the six winners, including new Grand Master Anne McCaffrey, were present to accept their awards in person. A “Service to SFFWA Award” was also given to Kevin O’Donnell, Jr. Neil Gaiman was the elegant and eloquent Toastmaster.

W
alter Jon Williams was born in Minnesota and now lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His short fiction has appeared frequently in
Asimov’s Science Fiction,
as well as in
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Wheel of Fortune, Global Dispatches, Alternate Outlaws,
and in other markets, and has been gathered in the collections
Facets
and
Frankensteins and Other Foreign Devils.
His novels include
Ambassador of Progress, Knight Moves, Hardwired, The Crown Jewels, Voice of the Whirlwind, House of Shards, Days of Atonement, Aristoi, Metropolitan, City on Fire,
a huge disaster thriller called
The Rift,
and a
Star Trek
novel,
Destiny’s Way.
His most recent books are the first two novels in his acclaimed modern space opera epic, “Dread Empire’s Fall,”
Dread Empire’s Fall: The Praxis
and
Dread Empire’s Fall: The Sundering.
Coming up are two new novels,
Orthodox War
and
Conventions of War.
He won a long-overdue Nebula Award in 2001 for his story “Daddy’s World,” and now has taken the award again with “The Green Leopard Plague.”

About “The Green Leopard Plague,” the Nebula winner in the novella category, he says:

“ ‘The Green Leopard Plague’ was the result of a collision of many ideas. I began with the notion of a postscarcity economy, and the dangers that this might pose to human liberty. To this was added another question relating to economics: How valuable is a human life that can be easily duplicated and reconstituted, and would the crime of murder then be any more serious than vandalism?

“My two protagonists, in addition to whatever lives they may enjoy within the structure of the story, are examples of two conflicting philosophical points of view: Baudrillard’s ‘the self does not exist,’ versus Richard Rorty’s ‘I don’t care.’ To this I added scenery viewed in recent journeys to Palau and to Europe, the political situation in Transnistria, and the background of an earlier story, ‘Lethe,’ which I always thought deserved a sequel.

“I would like to thank Ted Chiang for the ‘back-of-the-envelope’ calculations that showed my initial scientific solution to the problem in the story was bogus, and Dr. Stephen C. Lee, professor of biomedical nanotech, for fixing my problem once Ted had detected it.”

K
icking her legs out over the ocean, the lonely mermaid gazed at the horizon from her perch in the overhanging banyan tree.

The air was absolutely still and filled with the scent of night flowers. Large fruit bats flew purposefully over the sea, heading for their daytime rest. Somewhere a white cockatoo gave a penetrating squawk. A starling made a brief flutter out to sea, then came back again. The rising sun threw up red-gold sparkles from the wavetops and brought a brilliance to the tropical growth that crowned the many islands spread out on the horizon.

The mermaid decided it was time for breakfast. She slipped from her hanging canvas chair and walked out along one of the banyan’s great limbs. The branch swayed lightly under her weight, and her bare feet found sure traction on the rough bark. She looked down to see the deep blue of the channel, distinct from the turquoise of the shallows atop the reefs.

She raised her arms, poised briefly on the limb, the ruddy light of the sun glowing bronze on her bare skin, and then pushed off and dove headfirst into the Philippine Sea. She landed with a cool impact and a rush of bubbles.

Her wings unfolded, and she flew away.