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Antologia Nebula 2013 (2013)

by Catherine Asaro(Favorite Author)

4.02 of 5 Votes: 5

languge

English

genre

Fantasy

publisher

Editura Trei

series

Nebula Awards

review 1: This book is supposed to contain some of the best science fiction short stories from 2012, so it ought to be pretty good. Unfortunately, by that standard I think it fails to measure up. Here's why:First, many of the stories aren't science fiction, or are the "spaceship in the background" variety where the science fiction part is minimal and totally irrelevant to the actual story. "What We Found" is an example of this, where the finding that the more a phenomenon is observed, the less it occurs is a great idea that has no impact on the story and is not at all what the story's about. A lot of these stories are really contemporary fiction about normal human relationships that are dressed up in science fiction or fantasy suits.I think the reason so many of these "contempor... moreary fiction about normal relationships" pieces got picked as the best is because they are good writing. And while some people really enjoy good writing, I would think the Nebula Award showcase would focus much more on good writing that is also strongly science fiction. That's what the reader is expecting, right? Some of the stories in here, like Sauerkraut Station, Ray of Light, and somewhat The Ice Owl, do strongly incorporate science fiction and are well chosen. However, it's a disappointment that most don't.I have to add that including excerpts from novels is also a bad idea. Either readers will be tortured until they can go read the whole thing if the excerpt is that gripping, or they'll be irritated that you foisted part of a book on them they were never going to read. Also, the Introduction by the editor is really boring and pedantic. The editor tries to justify why each story was included, but too often she has to really play up the science fiction aspect of a story to justify it, which also helps disappoint when the real story turns out not to care about your predilection for science fiction.
review 2: The good news about the latest Nebula Awards Showcase is that the fiction selections are superb and that a high percentage of the 2011 Nebula nominees are new writers. Because they have published only a handful of short stories, honorees/nominees Kathleen Sparrow, Ken Liu, Nancy Fulda, Brad R. Torgersen, E. Lily Yu, Ferrett Steinmetz, and David W. Goldman may be unknown to readers of speculative fiction. The bad news, however, is that Catherine Asaro does not live up to the very high standard set by previous Showcase editors. Until the current edition, Nebula editors have included not only fiction, but also introductions, and often essays, discussing trends in speculative fiction. The editors of the Nebula Awards Showcase 2012 quote Andy Duncan: “The primary purpose of an award is not to celebrate individuals, but to celebrate the field the individuals work in.”In contrast, Asaro’s self-serving introduction to Showcase 2012 focuses on her own career as dancer and physicist and provides only superficial, impressionistic remarks on the volume’s selections. Asaro’s failure to consider science fiction and fantasy during the second decade of the 21st century, or to provide any context for individual fictions, is especially disappointing because many of the featured writers have left only a brief paper/online trail. While earlier Showcases provided headnotes and afterwords , establishing a context for nominees and their stories, Asaro includes neither biographies nor comparative discussions. Without Googling , for example, the reader would have no way of knowing that Ken Liu’s “Paper Menagerie” won not only the 2011 Nebula, but the Hugo (2012) and World Fantasy Award (2012)—the only work of fiction ever to sweep all three awards. Asaro does not explain that Connie Willis’s story, “Ado,” is not a current nominsation, but a 1988 work from the recipient of the 2011 Damon Knight Grand Master Award. Furthermore, Asaro fails to note that the extraordinarily versatile Kij Johnson (whose “The Man Who Bridged the Mist,” was the 2011 Novella winner) has been a Nebula winner for three years running. The Showcase ends with a shocking misprint. The list of 2012 NEBULA AWARDS WINNERS, NOMINEES, AND HONOREES—from which the showcased selections are drawn-- is really the 2011 list. Asaro apparently fails to realize that Showcase volumes have a two year time lag!Though speculative fiction is often characterized as having exciting ideas but cardboard characters, Showcase 2013 features heartbreakingly sympathetic characters in richly imagined worlds. In Kathleen Sparrow’s “The Migratory Patterns of Dancers,” for example, an aging man, genetically enhanced with the DNA of extinct birds, struggles to support his family in an ecologically collapsed world by enacting bird migrations and dances. Carolyn Ives Gilman’s “Ice Owl” is also set in a world impoverished by extinctions, not only of birds and butterflies, but of peoples that the Nazi-like Gmintas had systematically targeted for “Holocide.” David W. Goldman’s “Axiom of Choice,” a moving metafiction, consists of numbered blocks of plot: the reader is offered the false choice of going to numbered sections that either do not exist or that send the reader back to the starting point. The protagonist, a musician who descends into drugs and vagrancy, repeatedly rejects opportunities for redemption. Set in a Nigerian village, Geoff Ryman’s “What We Found” is told from the point of view of a man who helplessly observes first his father and then his beloved brother fall prey to mental illness. Patrick’s fear that his own children will inherit the same degenerative illness spurs him to become a biochemical researcher. Two of the finest selections are coming of age stories: Jo Walton’s Among Others and Ken Liu’s “Paper Menagerie.” Showcase 2012 includes the opening chapters of Among Others, winner of the Nebula for Best Novel (2011), as well as Hugo Best Novel (2012). A provocative, riveting combination of fantasy and autobiography, Among Others consists of diary entries by Morwenna, a Welsh child. Mor’s inner life is shaped by reading science fiction and by a home in which magic is an everyday reality. Fleeing a witch mother, who caused the death of her twin, Mor can talk with fairies. Among Others has a powerful ecological subtext: fairies seek to protect places blighted by human technology. “Paper Menagerie” is told from the point of view of Jack, son of an American man and his Chinese mail order wife. When Jack was a small child, his mother comforted him by folding magically living origami animals as playmates. Seeking acceptance from schoolmates,” Jack relegates the animals to the attic. He becomes so embarrassed by his mother’s poor English that he stops speaking with her. Years later, after his mother’s death, Jack rediscovers the animals. The little tiger Laohu, comes back to life, unfolds, and reveals a letter from his dead mother. Jack’s belated understanding of his mother’s priceless, magical gift reduced me to tears.Despite the fact that bookstores no longer stock such print magazines as Asimov’s and Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Showcase 2013 demonstrates that short fiction is vibrantly alive. For readers like myself, who favor separately published books, Showcase 2013 celebrates fine writers that may otherwise be overlooked. The fiction in this collection is uniformly moving, elegantly written, and insightfully prophetic. The reader, however, should skip the introduction and consult the Internet for the writers’ biographies and other publications. less

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