On Rereading The Best of the Nebulas Edited by Ben Bova; Part Three
The novelette “Slow Sculpture” by Theodore Sturgeon has two characters: a woman with breast cancer and a disillusioned genius. They meet in a field where the man is conducting an experiment, and when she informs him of her plight he offers to cure her. It turns out that he is wealthy because he invented a device that could help save the environment from the ravages of fossil fuels, but big business bought the device and buried it. Since then he invented not only a cure for cancer but also other marvelous devices, but humankind’s greed and cruelty prevent him from sharing them. He cures the woman’s cancer, and in turn she helps to cure his cynicism and despair. This is a very powerful, heartfelt, and deeply emotional story.
The novella “Houston, Houston, Do You Read?” by James Tiptree, Jr. is undeniably impressive. It is also cynical, devastating, bleak, and deeply depressing. A three-man team in a scientific probe gets hit with a solar flare while attempting to circumnavigate the sun. Historically, they are never heard from again, but in fact somehow the accident propels them hundreds of years into the future where a spacecraft from Earth with an all-female crew picks them up. The men learn that long ago a plague decimated the entire male population. Since reproduction in the usual way is impossible, the remaining women learned to create clones of themselves so that humankind could survive. Although there are only a few million humans left, all women, they have gradually developed interplanetary travel. There are no hierarchies, which Tiptree affirms is a male preoccupation; there are also no wars, and everyone gets along just fine. The denouement is that men are redundant and even downright dangerous; the women who rescued them kill the men rather than risk bringing them back to tarnish the surviving population. This is a simplistic summary of a complex story. Tiptree brilliantly characterizes the three men as condescending, domineering, and misogynistic in varying degrees, in contrast to the simple friendliness, helpfulness, and emotional intelligence displayed by the women. The conclusion, as presented within the parameters of the tale, seems all but inevitable, which makes it all the more tragic.
Fritz Leiber’s short story “Catch that Zeppelin!” is lighter fare. It posits an alternate reality in which World War I ended with the Allies marching on and crushing Berlin, and the League of Nations becoming a dominant international force to ensure world peace. As a result, Germany became a global superpower, and zeppelins and electric vehicles were developed, which mitigated the pollution of gas-burning vehicles. The narrator, while walking in New York, stumbles into this altered reality, and by the end of the story it disappears, leaving the narrator disconcerted and confused. The alternate vision he is caught up in, though, offers an interesting juxtaposition by which to perceive our present world.
“Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand” by Vonda N. McIntyre is an exceptional story in a book full of exceptional stories. For one thing, it is incredibly original in a field that deals with originalities. In the introduction to the story, Ben Bova says that he met McIntyre when she had just graduated from the University of Washington, and she was wildly excited about writing hard science fiction based on biology instead of the physical sciences. In “Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand,” she succeeded beyond anything that was thought possible at the time. The story concerns a woman named Snake, a healer who has come to a remote desert village to treat a boy with a deadly tumor. Her assistants are three snakes: a tiny snake that gives soothing dreams named Grass, a rattlesnake named Sand, and a cobra named Mist. To heal the boy, Snake administers a drug to a small desert creature, which the cobra then eats and then afterwards bites the sick boy, injecting venom that has turned into a healing potion by the drug. This is a startlingly original idea even in science fiction, a literature of ideas. What makes this story truly exceptional, though, is its depth of emotion and heartfelt characterization. As I read it this time after so long, tears filled my eyes as I remembered what a special person Vonda was. Her death from cancer in 2019 was a great loss to literature. I first met her in 1973 when I attended the Clarion West science fiction workshop, which she founded in Seattle with the assistance of Robin Scott Wilson. After the workshop, I met up with her and other Clarion West graduates on a houseboat on Lake Union, where we would get together to critique each other’s work. I took off for the far reaches of the world and lived overseas for thirty-five years before returning to the United States. I became reacquainted with Vonda at a science fiction convention called Potlatch in 2014. This turned out to be one of the last Potlatches, but I met her frequently at Clarion West parties and other events. She was always exceptionally kind, thoughtful, and generous with encouragement about my writing career. I bring up all of this background because it all indirectly relates to the story in question. Vonda was open, honest, kind, and generous in life, and these emotions bleed into her fiction as well. “Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand” is a beautiful and unforgettable story.
(To be continued.)
