Nebula Awards Showcase 2008

Nebula Awards Showcases #42

by Ben Bova (Editor)

This annual tradition from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America collects the best of the year's stories, as well as essays and commentary on the current state of the genre and predictions for future science fiction and fantasy films, art, and more.

This year's award-winning authors include Jack McDevitt, James Patrick Kelly, Peter S. Beagle, Elizabeth Hand, and more. The anthology also features essays from celebrated science fiction authors Orson Scott Card and Mike Resnick.

Contents

1 • Introduction (Nebula Awards Showcase 2008) • essay by Ben Bova
7 • Echo • (2005) • shortstory by Elizabeth Hand
21 • Burn • (2005) • novella by James Patrick Kelly
147 • The Books That Saved SFWA • [Anthopology 101 • 16] • (2007) • essay by Bud Webster
161 • Two Hearts • [Last Unicorn] • (2005) • novelette by Peter S. Beagle
207 • Science Fiction Poetry (Nebula Awards Showcase 2008) • essay by Joe Haldeman
213 • The Strip Search • (2005) • poem by Mike Allen
215 • The Tin Men • (2005) • poem by Kendall Evans and David C. Kopaska-Merkel
225 • Knowledge Of • (2005) • poem by Ruth Berman
227 • The State of Amazing, Astounding, Fantastic Fiction in the Twenty-First Century (Nebula Awards Showcase 2008) • essay by Orson Scott Card
245 • The Woman in Schrödinger's Wave Equations • (2005) • shortstory by Eugene Mirabelli
269 • James Gunn, Grand Master (Nebula Awards Showcase 2008) • essay by John Kessel
277 • The Listeners • [The Listeners] • (1972) • novelette by James E. Gunn [as by James Gunn ]
313 • Howl's Moving Castle: Book to Film (Nebula Awards Showcase 2008) • essay by Diana Wynne Jones
319 • Seeker (exceprt) • (2005) • shortfiction by Jack McDevitt
349 • I Have Seen the Future and It Ain't Got a Lot of Dead Trees In It • essay by Mike Resnick
357 • The Andre Norton Award: Magic or Madness • essay by Justine Larbalestier

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction, Anthologies, Speculative Fiction, Fantasy

384 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2008

About the author

Ben Bova was born on November 8, 1932 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1953, while attending Temple University, he married Rosa Cucinotta, they had a son and a daughter. He would later divorce Rosa in 1974. In that same year he married Barbara Berson Rose.

Bova was an avid fencer and organized Avco Everett's fencing club. He was an environmentalist, but rejected Luddism.

Bova was a technical writer for Project Vanguard and later for Avco Everett in the 1960s when they did research in lasers and fluid dynamics. It was there that he met Arthur R. Kantrowitz later of the Foresight Institute.

In 1971 he became editor of Analog Science Fiction after John W. Campbell's death. After leaving Analog, he went on to edit Omni during 1978-1982.

In 1974 he wrote the screenplay for an episode of the children's science fiction television series Land of the Lost entitled "The Search".

Bova was the science advisor for the failed television series The Starlost, leaving in disgust after the airing of the first episode. His novel The Starcrossed was loosely based on his experiences and featured a thinly veiled characterization of his friend and colleague Harlan Ellison. He dedicated the novel to "Cordwainer Bird", the pen name Harlan Ellison uses when he does not want to be associated with a television or film project.

Bova was the President Emeritus of the National Space Society and a past President of Science-fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).

Bova went back to school in the 1980s, earning an M.A. in communications in 1987 and a Ph.D. in 1996.

Bova has drawn on these meetings and experiences to create fact and fiction writings rich with references to spaceflight, lasers, artificial hearts, nanotechnology, environmentalism, fencing and martial arts, photography and artists.

Bova was the author of over a hundred and fifteen books, non-fiction as well as science fiction. In 2000, he was the Author Guest of Honor at the 58th World Science Fiction Convention (Chicon 2000).

Hollywood has started to take an interest in Bova's works once again, in addition to his wealth of knowledge about science and what the future may look like. In 2007, he was hired as a consultant by both Stuber/Parent Productions to provide insight into what the world is to look like in the near future for their upcoming film "Repossession Mambo" (released as "Repo Men") starring Jude Law and Forest Whitaker and by Silver Pictures in which he provided consulting services on the feature adaptation of Richard Morgan's "Altered Carbon".

http://us.macmillan.com/author/benbova

Reviews

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

My science fiction book group has been reading the Nebula Award selection since 2003. I'm not entirely certain what made us pick up that first one, or even the second, but it's a given come May, we will be reading the newest one. We don't even have to vote when it's on the table.

I thought this years was the strongest compilation I've read yet. This is not saying I felt that every selection was a knockout, but by and far, most of the stories were engaging, interesting and well written. Of particular note were, Burn by James Patrick Kelly and Two Hearts by Peter S. Beagle. I did find some irony in reading The Listeners by James Gunn, a short about people who work on the SETI project because I just finished Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer which was also on the SETI project.


I recommend reading this years Nebula Awards Showcase.

[Christian · Rating 4 out of 5]

When thinking of books in my mental backlist to add to my "Read" list (pre-2019, when I joined GR), I tend to remember stories I read in the past that I associate with either a specific memory or a certain time in my life. Sometimes this leads to me adding some really obscure gems that few people know about but I happened to find either tucked away in a dusty library corner or sitting prominently on the shelf in the local bookstore at that particular time. So what made me go back and track down an old sci-fi anthology I read 12 years ago? Turns out, it was for the one story in the book that actually DIDN'T win a Nebula award: "The Woman in Schrodinger's Wave Equations" by Eugene Mirabelli.

I read this story before going into my final semester of college, and a major in Chemistry. I remember flipping through the anthology in the bookstore one day, being intrigued by the story's title, and seeing this phrase: "For two whole weeks all he did was make love to this woman and write those equations." And with me being a math/science geek and a hopeless romantic, this was an automatic buy. The story itself is quiet and understated, nothing mindblowing, about a young couple bonding over art and mathematics. The paperback copy I bought of the anthology is long gone, but I remembered enough of this particular story to track down an ePub and read it again. It's still good.

[Ariadne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this up expecting just short stories and was very surprised to also find a novella, poetry, and various essays. The novella “Burn” was wonderful, though I preferred the beginning half rather than the end. I loved “The Woman in Schrodinger’s Wave Equations”, the excerpt from “Seeker”, and the poem “The Tin Men.”

[Roger Bailey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really did like this book, but at the same time it annoyed me. First, I have always been annoyed that fantasy and science fiction are lumped together as if they were one genre. Oh, I am aware of the history that brought that about and, in fact, this book has an essay by Orson Scott Card in which some of that history is discussed, but it still remains that fantasy is to science fiction as astrology is to astronomy. The difference is profound and yet fantasy and science fiction is most often shelved together and treated just like they are the same thing. I find it hard to see that any two genres of fiction could be further apart though. So I was even more annoyed when the Science Fiction Writers of America became the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. That is as if the American Chemical Society started admitting alchemists. So, of course, it is going to annoy me that the members of the SFFWA produce an anthology of both science fiction and fantasy as if there was no difference. I do prefer science fiction over fantasy, but I will admit that I do like fantasy too. It's just that they are entirely different things. You may as well publish an anthology of romance and techno thriller stories. As far as I know that may have been done, but I am not aware of it and I certainly would not expect it. Nevertheless, these are very good stories. As someone who prefers science fiction I am glad that science fiction is predominent, but both the science fiction and the fantasy are very good and they were selected by professional science fiction and fantasy writers, so at least such writers should and do know what is good. I just wish that the fantasy writers would get together and select the very best fantasy stories for a similar anthology and that the science fiction writers would get together to select science fiction stories for a similar anthology.

[TC · Rating 4 out of 5]

The stories were alright. Definitely not the most stellar year for the Nebula Awards, although I did really enjoy the novella entitled Fireburners. Kind of a cool take on how a futuristic colony might operate by returning to it's roots. It made me think of the communities the pilgrims had in the 17th century. Also enjoyed two of the essays. One was about the history of science fiction and the other by Orson Scott Card about the future and how the Fantasy genre is sparking a kind of literary revolution similar to that of sci-fi in the 50s-70s.

[Colin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Former Analog and Omni supremo Bova edits the SFWA's choices for the best stories of 2006 and picks Elizabeth Hand, Peter S. Beagle, James Patrick Kelly and others.

Full review at Suite101

[Kristen Zorbini Bongard · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was good, but I got bored halfway through. I wanted STORIES and they had poetry and commentary. I guess it's just that the book wasn't what I was looking for. That's not the book's fault. The few stories were pretty good, though. Nothing really creepy, though. I like creepy sci-fi.

[Jon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining read, but I think I liked "The Speed of Dark" better. That also won the Nebula for "best novel" in 2003.

[Karla · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked Two Hearts, the short story continuation to The Last Unicorn. The rest of the contributions were okay.

[Jerry-Book · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the novelette Two Hearts by Peter Beagle, the essay, All Our Yesterdays by Bud Webster, and the essay about Grandmaster James Gunn.Of course, not may stories as pointed out by Amazon readers.

[Ed · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had a couple of interesting stories and articles.

[Sherlindreah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've read far better anthologies....boring for most of them