Nebula Awards 2001 V 35 »

Robert Silverberg is both a stellar science fiction author (The Man in the Maze) and science fiction anthologist (Legends). He lives in Oakland, California.

Edited by the widely acclaimed SF author Robert Silverberg, the Nebula Awards series is "the pulse of modern science fiction" (The New York Times Book Review)

The Nebula Awards are the Academy Awards of science fiction, the finest works each year in the genre as voted by the members of SFWA, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

The Nebula Awards anthology series has now reached its thirty-fifth year. This edition contains the complete award-winning texts by Ted Chiang, Mary A. Turzillo, Leslie What, and Octavia E. Butler (an excerpt from her novel The Parable of the Talents); a report on the field ("still inarguably dynamic") by Gary K. Wolfe; runner-up stories by David Marusek and Michael Swanwick; an early story by 2000 Grand Master Brian W. Aldiss; and 2000 Author Emeritus Daniel Keyes's account of how he wrote Flowers for Algernon.

In his introduction, editor Robert Silverberg looks back wryly at Damon Knight, the beginnings of SFWA, and the first Nebula banquets.

KLIATT

This compilation includes various 1999 Nebula Award winners: a novella, "Story of Your Life," by Ted Chiang; a novelette, "Mars is No Place for Children," by Mary A. Turzillo; a short story, "The Cost of Doing Business," by Leslie What; and epilogue from a novel, "Parable of the Talents," by Octavia E. Butler. It also includes essays discussing SF's literary role, some of the other novelettes and short stories from the final ballot, the Rhysling Award-winning poems, an essay by Daniel Keyes as author emeritus, and one of Brian W. Aldiss's stories. (He was the winner of the Grand Master award.) The stories the writers themselves feel are the best and brightest for the past year are compiled here. There is less literary discussion in this volume than in previous years, and a breezier tone in Silverberg's introduction, which will endear this volume to its teen readers. As always, some of the runner-ups strike me as better than the winners. The appended listing of past Nebula Award winners is convenient as a reading list for budding SF fans. KLIATT Codes: JSA—Recommended for junior and senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2001, Harcourt, 252p., $14.00. Ages 13 to adult. Reviewer: Sherry S. Hoy; Libn., Tuscarora Jr. H.S., Mifflintown, PA , September 2001 (Vol. 35 No. 5)