The Nebulas: 1966

[james_davis_nicoll]

When Jo looked at the Hugos in what should have been a Hugo-nominated series of articles on Tor.com, she looked outside the works nominated for other choices the voters could have made. I am more interesting in how the winners stand up against the other nominees now that enough time has passed that we can look back dispassionately. The first thing I noticed when I put this list together is


how superficial my knowledge of science fiction and fantasy is. The second thing is how much more impressed I am with Jo Walton.

I reserve the right to reconsider this project in general and my organization in particular.

The nominees in all categories
Novel
Frank Herbert Dune
Clifford D. Simak All Flesh is Grass
Theodore L. Thomas & Kate Wilhelm The Clone
Philip K. Dick Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb
James White The Escape Orbit
Thomas M. Disch The Genocides
William S. Burroughs Nova Express
Keith Laumer A Plague of Demons
Avram Davidson Rogue Dragon
G. C. Edmondson The Ship That Sailed the Time Stream
Poul Anderson The Star Fox
Philip K. Dick The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

Novellas
Brian W. Aldiss "The Saliva Tree"
Roger Zelazny "He Who Shapes"
Avram Davidson "Rogue Dragon"
Samuel R. Delany "The Ballad of Beta-2"
C. C. MacApp "The Mercurymen"
Frederik Pohl "Under Two Moons"
A. E. van Vogt & James H. Schmitz "Research Alpha"
Cordwainer Smith "On the Storm Planet"

Novelletes
Roger Zelazny* "The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth"
James Blish & Norman L. Knight "The Shipwrecked Hotel"
Jonathan Brand "Vanishing Point"
Thomas M. Disch "102 H-Bombs"
R. C. Fitzpatrick "Half a Loaf"
Joseph Green "The Decision Makers"
Norman Kagan "At the Institute"
Norman Kagan "The Earth Merchants"
Norman Kagan "Laugh Along with Franz"
Michael Karageorge "The Life of Your Time"
Fritz Leiber "Four Ghosts In Hamlet"
E. Clayton McCarty "Small One"
Mack Reynolds "The Adventure of the Extraterrestrial"
Fred Saberhagen "Masque of the Red Shift"
James H. Schmitz "Goblin Night"
James H. Schmitz "Planet of Forgetting"
J. W. Schutz "Maiden Voyage" Fiction [5]
Robert Sheckley "Shall We Have a Little Talk?"
William Tenn "The Masculinist Revolt"

Short stories
Harlan Ellison""Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman"
Isaac Asimov "Eyes Do More Than See"
Isaac Asimov "Founding Father"
J. G. Ballard "Souvenir"
Donald Barthelme "Game"
Jane Beauclerk "Lord Moon"
Lin Carter "Uncollected Works"
John Christopher "A Few Kindred Spirits"
Avram Davidson "The House the Blakeneys Built"
Gordon R. Dickson "Computers Don't Argue"
Thomas M. Disch "Come to Venus Melancholy"
James A. Durham "Of One Mind"
H. L. Gold "Inside Man"
Ron Goulart "Calling Dr. Clockwork"
Alex Kirs "Better Than Ever"
R. A. Lafferty "In Our Block"
R. A. Lafferty "Slow Tuesday Night"
Fritz Leiber "Cyclops"
Fritz Leiber "The Good New Days"
Larry McCombs & Ted White "The Peacock King"
Scott Nichols "Though a Sparrow Fall"
Larry Niven "Becalmed in Hell"
Larry Niven "Wrong-Way Street"
Richard Olin "The Mischief Maker"
Edgar Pangborn "A Better Mousehole"
Mack Reynolds "A Leader for Yesteryear"
Robert Rohrer "Keep Them Happy"
James H. Schmitz "Balanced Ecology"
Clifford D. Simak "Over the River and Through the Woods"
Richard Wilson "The Eight Billion"
Roger Zelazny "Devil Car"

Now, category by category, beginning with novels:

The winner this year was Dune. Of the novels that were nominated, I have read Dune, All Flesh is Grass, The Escape Orbit, The Genocides, A Plague of Demons, Rogue Dragon, The Ship That Sailed the Time Stream and The Star Fox. I did not read The Clone,Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb, Nova Express and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, although aside from The Clone, I've heard of all of them.

If we go by the number of times a teenaged James reread these, probably the front runner would be the Anderson, which in retrospect is a thinly veiled polemic about the necessity of staying in South East Asia, although the White, the Laumer and the Edmondson would have been close contenders. I have absolutely no memory of the White, although I own it.

I kind of hate to say this but given that particular selection of books at that particular time, probably Dune wasn't an unreasonable choice. Pity about the sequels.

Novellas:

I remember reading "The Ballad of Beta-2" and "On the Storm Planet" . I did not read (at least not in this form) "The Saliva Tree", "He Who Shapes", "Rogue Dragon", "The Mercurymen", "Under Two Moons", and "Research Alpha". I don't remember the Delany, and didn't like the Smith. Given how few of these I read and remember, I have no basis on which I can make a reasonable judgment.


Novelletes:

I have read "The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth", "The Shipwrecked Hotel" (in the version used in the fascist utopia A Torrent of Faces, "The Decision Makers", "The Life of Your Time", "Goblin Night", "Planet of Forgetting", "Shall We Have a Little Talk?" and "The Masculinist Revolt". I have not read of if I did I have forgotten reading "Vanishing Point","102 H-Bombs", "Half a Loaf", "At the Institute", "The Earth Merchants", "Laugh Along with Franz", "Four Ghosts In Hamlet", "Small One" "The Adventure of the Extraterrestrial", "Masque of the Red Shift" and "Maiden Voyage".

Michael Karageorge is a pen name for Poul Anderson. Who was Norman Kagan?

I don't know why but most Zelanzy fiction leaves absolutely no impression on my memory. I remember Doorways in the Sand, My Name is Legion "A Rose for Ecclesiastes" and that's it. What's worse is I am pretty sure I've either listened to a radio play or read "The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth" in the recent past. This really bugs me because I cannot see what it is about Zelazny that makes it impossible for me to remember his stuff.

I have no idea how the Blish/Knight got onto this list. The novel is only interesting because there are so few attempts to see what a trillion person Earth might be like (well, and because it actually admits to being a fascist utopia) but the execution of the novel and its parts are dull.

Tenn intended his male characters as parodic losers and was somewhat taken about when women assured him they were within the normal range for men. His gender politics stories tend to have aged badly.

Once again we run into the problem that I have not reread most of these in thirty or forty years and I don't remember enough to say if any of the nominees I didn't read and/or don't remember were better than the Zelazny, which I also don't remember.

I do a bit better with short stories. I have read ""Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman" (because Andrew Wheeler made me read it), "Founding Father", "Computers Don't Argue", "Becalmed in Hell", "Wrong-Way Street", "A Better Mousehole", "Balanced Ecology" and "Over the River and Through the Woods".

I have not read or read and subsequently forgot reading "Eyes Do More Than See", "Souvenir","Game", "Lord Moon", "Uncollected Works", "A Few Kindred Spirits","The House the Blakeneys Built", "Come to Venus Melancholy","Of One Mind", "Inside Man" "Calling Dr. Clockwork", "Better Than Ever", "In Our Block" "Slow Tuesday Night", "Cyclops", "The Good New Days", "The Peacock King", "Though a Sparrow Fall", "The Mischief Maker", "A Leader for Yesteryear", "Keep Them Happy", "The Eight Billion" and "Devil Car"

Wow, remember when Niven wrote award-nominated stories on a routine basis? Although I wouldn't give either of these an award, their presence on this list isn't half as baffling as Dickson's comic "Computers Don't Argue", whose tale of inflexible rules and draconian laws is actually not all that implausible but heavy handed and laboured in that Gordon R. Dickson way.

I think the Schmidt is the one about how messing about in alien ecologies can be rewarded with potentially lethal surprises. I cannot recall if it came before or after the thematically related Retief story but it was decades after the Venus Equilateral variation (which did not involve an alien ecology as such but did have the moral "Don't screw around with things you only think you understand"). Amusing enough but I don't think I'd give it an award.

I don't remember the Asimov particularly and the one thing I remember about the Simak is that while most of his works fell out of print almost instantly after he died in the late 1980s, that one did not. In fact, it was the title story of a 1996 collection from Tachyon Books.

Picking the Ellison doesn't look inherently unreasonable but once again given that I have no functional knowledge of most of these, who am I to judge?

I wonder if having more than one story nominated hurts an author's chance of winning? I am thinking of R. A. Lafferty here but also of Kagan.