The Nebulas: 1971
Mar. 31st, 2013 02:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
james_davis_nicolllong
Novels
1970 Larry Niven* Ringworld Ballantine Books
1970 Joanna Russ And Chaos Died Ace Books
1970 R. A. Lafferty Fourth Mansions Ace Books
1970 David G. Compton The Steel Crocodile Ace Books
1970 Robert Silverberg Tower of Glass Charles Scribner's Sons
1970 Wilson Tucker The Year of the Quiet Sun Ace Books
Four, count 'em, four more nominees from the Ace Science Fiction Specials series. The Nebula then goes to the most old-fashioned work available (more on that theme later).
The Niven is about a group of adventurers traveling to a Big Dumb Object, the eponymous Ringworld. It also won a Hugo and has been in print since it was first published. It also has a roleplaying game, or did, which most Nebula nominees cannot claim.
The Russ is reviewed here. It has been out of print for about 30 years.
I don't know anything about the Lafferty. It has been reprinted sporadically over the years, most recently in 1999, but long periods pass when it is out of print.
I don't remember enough about the Compton to comment. Like the Russ, it has been out of print for about 30 years.
The Silverberg is named after a great artifact being built in Canada to facilitate CETI but what it's really about are the labour relations between an arrogant billionaire and his android workforce and the consequences of his refusal to see the androids as people. Most of the reprints were in the 1970s and 1980s but there were some in the 1990s and aughts. None in the last decade, though.
The Wilson is a The Coming Race War novel, like The Jagged Orbit in 1970 (I think the Silverberg can be treated as touching on related subjects). The last time it was reprinted in English was in 1997. The Coming Race War was a fairly popular subject in US SF until, oh, let's say Night of Power. I don't really miss it. My expectation is that this has not aged well.
The Year of the Quiet Sun was involved in what was imo one of the more bizarre committee choices of the 1970s; in 1976, the jury for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award decided [from their website]
"The committee felt that no truly outstanding original novel was published in 1975. 1st place, therefore, was a "special retrospective award" made to a truly outstanding original novel that was not adequately recognized in the year of its publication (1970)."
The claim that "no truly outstanding original novel was published in 1975" didn't stop them from handing out a second place award to Silverberg's The Stochastic Man or a third place to Shaw's Orbitsville.
The problem with the Niven is that it's kind of boring and while I will inexplicably excuse Rendezvous with Rama's nigh-plotless travelogue, for some reason I was not inclined to do so with Niven (it's also the book where his focus begins to shift from the working classes to the rich as protagonists). It was always the pre-1977 Niven novel I read least often. On the other hand, it has had the most staying power.
Not really seeing a winner here. This was kind of a weak year for novel nominees, at least of the ones I've read.
Novellas
1970 Fritz Leiber* "Ill Met in Lankhmar" The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
1970 Poul Anderson "The Fatal Fulfillment" The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
1970 James Blish "A Style in Treason" Anywhen
1970 Harlan Ellison "The Region Between" Galaxy Science Fiction
1970 Clifford D. Simak "The Thing in the Stone" If
1970 Kate Wilhelm "April Fool's Day Forever" Orbit 7
I am always surprised to see how late the Leiber is. It is the story of how Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, characters Leiber had been using for what, 30 years? met. It has stayed in print pretty consistently.
I know I've read the Anderson because I own it in at least two books but damned if I remember the particulars. It was included in Five Fates, which is as I recall a shared universe book of sorts: all the stories begin with the same event. Anderson was involved in a surprisingly large fraction of the shared universes. Not sure why he found them so engaging. This fell out of print by 1980, although it was included in Door to Anywhere, a NESFA collection in 2013.
I own Anywhen so I must have read the Blish. Don't remember it. It was out of print by the early 1980s and would not see print again until 2008.
The Ellison also appeared in Five Fates and is apparently as memorable as the Anderson. It has been collected in a number of books but as Ellison stories go does not seem to be all that popular.
Is the Simak the pastoral about deep time? Aside from a 1990s reprint, it was forgotten after the 1970s.
I don't know the Wilhelm. It was effectively out of print by the end of the 1970s.
I cannot help but be biased to the one I actually remember 40 years after reading. This may be unfair to the Simak and is almost certainly unfair to the Wilhelm but I think SFWA made the right call here.
Novelettes
1970 Theodore Sturgeon* "Slow Sculpture" Galaxy Science Fiction
1970 Thomas M. Disch "The Asian Shore" Orbit 6
1970 Gordon Eklund "Dear Aunt Annie" Fantastic
1970 Gerald Jonas "The Shaker Revival" Galaxy Science Fiction
1970 R. A. Lafferty "Continued on Next Rock" Orbit 7
1970 Joanna Russ "The Second Inquisition" Orbit 6
Notice how often Orbit turns up. There will be a story about this.
I have not read the Sturgeon, which seems to have been about determining how best to use an unconventional cure for cancer. It was popular enough until about 1990, when it stopped being reprinted with such frequency.
I have also not read the Disch, which seems to have been collected fairly regularly until the end of the 1990s.
The Eklund was his first published story, if I recall correctly. I have not read it - no, I know I have World's Best Science Fiction: 1971 (ed. Donald A. Wollheim & Terry Carr) so I have read it but have since forgotten it. It fell out of print almost immediately.
The Jonas is in World's Best Science Fiction: 1971 so I have read it. Don't remember a lick about it. It got included in a number of anthologies in the early 1970s; inclusions in anthologies since then have been uncommon and Martin Harry Greenbergy.
Continuing the theme of my vast and all encompassing ignorance of SF, I have also never knowingly read the Lafferty. Like a lot of the stories this year, it was most popular in the 1970s and then seems to have been forgotten by most anthologists.
The Russ is an Alyx story and I am not familiar with it (Although I think I own The Adventures of Alyx , it is on my to-read list). Reprinted wit fair regularity in the 1970s and 1980s, less so after that. Has not seen print in nearly a generation.
No way for me to have an opinion here.
Short Story
1970 (no award)+
1970 Gardner Dozois "A Dream at Noonday" Orbit 7
1970 Harry Harrison "By the Falls" If
1970 R. A. Lafferty "Entire and Perfect Chrysolite" Orbit 6
1970 Keith Laumer "In the Queue" Orbit 7
1970 James Sallis "The Creation of Bennie Good" Orbit 6
1970 Kate Wilhelm "A Cold Dark Night with Snow" Orbit 6
1970 Gene Wolfe "The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories" Orbit 7
And now we get the very special story of how it was in 1971 No Award won this category. IN the words of Garner Dozois:
I'm not sure how to describe the Dozois without ruining the twist at the end. I will say when I read Prime's When the Great Days Come, I was struck by the death and doom obsessed elements and wondered if, contrary to some people's assertion that current SF is obsessed with death and belatedness because the Boomers and old and dying is not as right as it being because Dozois is obsessed with death and has been an influential editor for decades. Anway not keen on this Dozois because while the events are different it reminded me too much of another well known story I cannot named because it would be a spoiler.
I've almost certainly read the Harrison but I don't remember it. It survived mainly in various Harrison collections.
The Laumer is a satire set in the bureaucratic world of tomorrow, one where it is possible to spend your entire life waiting in line to talk to some vital functionary. Not heavily anthologized after the 1970s (although Baen included it in their collection of Laumer's comic pieces); probably sabotaged by the effects Laumer's health issues had on his career and the perception of the readability of his fiction.
Speaking of health issues, by screwing the Obiters en mass out of their shots at a Nebula, the Old Guard cost Laumer what was probably his last change at one. The next year he had a stroke that destroyed his ability to write. Good show, there, Old Guard!
I've not read the Sallis. It fell more or less out of print almost immediately.
I have also not read the Wilhelm but since it seems to only have been in Orbit 6 and one later Knight-edited anthology I am not that embarrassed about this.
I have read the Wolfe. Give me a second to remember which Gene Wolfe Death story it is... Let's go with "A young man finds comfort in a story much like The Island of Doctor Moreau. The story ends on an ominous note." It's stayed fairly consistently in print, generally in Gene Wolfe collections.
I don't recall a lot of these clearly but I don't have any problem coming to the conclusion that SFWA made the wrong choice here and if Dozois is correct, a very mean spirited one. I'd go with the Wolfe.
Novels
1970 Larry Niven* Ringworld Ballantine Books
1970 Joanna Russ And Chaos Died Ace Books
1970 R. A. Lafferty Fourth Mansions Ace Books
1970 David G. Compton The Steel Crocodile Ace Books
1970 Robert Silverberg Tower of Glass Charles Scribner's Sons
1970 Wilson Tucker The Year of the Quiet Sun Ace Books
Four, count 'em, four more nominees from the Ace Science Fiction Specials series. The Nebula then goes to the most old-fashioned work available (more on that theme later).
The Niven is about a group of adventurers traveling to a Big Dumb Object, the eponymous Ringworld. It also won a Hugo and has been in print since it was first published. It also has a roleplaying game, or did, which most Nebula nominees cannot claim.
The Russ is reviewed here. It has been out of print for about 30 years.
I don't know anything about the Lafferty. It has been reprinted sporadically over the years, most recently in 1999, but long periods pass when it is out of print.
I don't remember enough about the Compton to comment. Like the Russ, it has been out of print for about 30 years.
The Silverberg is named after a great artifact being built in Canada to facilitate CETI but what it's really about are the labour relations between an arrogant billionaire and his android workforce and the consequences of his refusal to see the androids as people. Most of the reprints were in the 1970s and 1980s but there were some in the 1990s and aughts. None in the last decade, though.
The Wilson is a The Coming Race War novel, like The Jagged Orbit in 1970 (I think the Silverberg can be treated as touching on related subjects). The last time it was reprinted in English was in 1997. The Coming Race War was a fairly popular subject in US SF until, oh, let's say Night of Power. I don't really miss it. My expectation is that this has not aged well.
The Year of the Quiet Sun was involved in what was imo one of the more bizarre committee choices of the 1970s; in 1976, the jury for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award decided [from their website]
"The committee felt that no truly outstanding original novel was published in 1975. 1st place, therefore, was a "special retrospective award" made to a truly outstanding original novel that was not adequately recognized in the year of its publication (1970)."
The claim that "no truly outstanding original novel was published in 1975" didn't stop them from handing out a second place award to Silverberg's The Stochastic Man or a third place to Shaw's Orbitsville.
The problem with the Niven is that it's kind of boring and while I will inexplicably excuse Rendezvous with Rama's nigh-plotless travelogue, for some reason I was not inclined to do so with Niven (it's also the book where his focus begins to shift from the working classes to the rich as protagonists). It was always the pre-1977 Niven novel I read least often. On the other hand, it has had the most staying power.
Not really seeing a winner here. This was kind of a weak year for novel nominees, at least of the ones I've read.
Novellas
1970 Fritz Leiber* "Ill Met in Lankhmar" The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
1970 Poul Anderson "The Fatal Fulfillment" The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
1970 James Blish "A Style in Treason" Anywhen
1970 Harlan Ellison "The Region Between" Galaxy Science Fiction
1970 Clifford D. Simak "The Thing in the Stone" If
1970 Kate Wilhelm "April Fool's Day Forever" Orbit 7
I am always surprised to see how late the Leiber is. It is the story of how Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, characters Leiber had been using for what, 30 years? met. It has stayed in print pretty consistently.
I know I've read the Anderson because I own it in at least two books but damned if I remember the particulars. It was included in Five Fates, which is as I recall a shared universe book of sorts: all the stories begin with the same event. Anderson was involved in a surprisingly large fraction of the shared universes. Not sure why he found them so engaging. This fell out of print by 1980, although it was included in Door to Anywhere, a NESFA collection in 2013.
I own Anywhen so I must have read the Blish. Don't remember it. It was out of print by the early 1980s and would not see print again until 2008.
The Ellison also appeared in Five Fates and is apparently as memorable as the Anderson. It has been collected in a number of books but as Ellison stories go does not seem to be all that popular.
Is the Simak the pastoral about deep time? Aside from a 1990s reprint, it was forgotten after the 1970s.
I don't know the Wilhelm. It was effectively out of print by the end of the 1970s.
I cannot help but be biased to the one I actually remember 40 years after reading. This may be unfair to the Simak and is almost certainly unfair to the Wilhelm but I think SFWA made the right call here.
Novelettes
1970 Theodore Sturgeon* "Slow Sculpture" Galaxy Science Fiction
1970 Thomas M. Disch "The Asian Shore" Orbit 6
1970 Gordon Eklund "Dear Aunt Annie" Fantastic
1970 Gerald Jonas "The Shaker Revival" Galaxy Science Fiction
1970 R. A. Lafferty "Continued on Next Rock" Orbit 7
1970 Joanna Russ "The Second Inquisition" Orbit 6
Notice how often Orbit turns up. There will be a story about this.
I have not read the Sturgeon, which seems to have been about determining how best to use an unconventional cure for cancer. It was popular enough until about 1990, when it stopped being reprinted with such frequency.
I have also not read the Disch, which seems to have been collected fairly regularly until the end of the 1990s.
The Eklund was his first published story, if I recall correctly. I have not read it - no, I know I have World's Best Science Fiction: 1971 (ed. Donald A. Wollheim & Terry Carr) so I have read it but have since forgotten it. It fell out of print almost immediately.
The Jonas is in World's Best Science Fiction: 1971 so I have read it. Don't remember a lick about it. It got included in a number of anthologies in the early 1970s; inclusions in anthologies since then have been uncommon and Martin Harry Greenbergy.
Continuing the theme of my vast and all encompassing ignorance of SF, I have also never knowingly read the Lafferty. Like a lot of the stories this year, it was most popular in the 1970s and then seems to have been forgotten by most anthologists.
The Russ is an Alyx story and I am not familiar with it (Although I think I own The Adventures of Alyx , it is on my to-read list). Reprinted wit fair regularity in the 1970s and 1980s, less so after that. Has not seen print in nearly a generation.
No way for me to have an opinion here.
Short Story
1970 (no award)+
1970 Gardner Dozois "A Dream at Noonday" Orbit 7
1970 Harry Harrison "By the Falls" If
1970 R. A. Lafferty "Entire and Perfect Chrysolite" Orbit 6
1970 Keith Laumer "In the Queue" Orbit 7
1970 James Sallis "The Creation of Bennie Good" Orbit 6
1970 Kate Wilhelm "A Cold Dark Night with Snow" Orbit 6
1970 Gene Wolfe "The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories" Orbit 7
And now we get the very special story of how it was in 1971 No Award won this category. IN the words of Garner Dozois:
It's bullshit that this was the result of confusing ballot instructions. This was the height of the War of the New Wave, and passions between the New Wave camp and the conservative Old Guard camp were running high. (The same year, Michael Moorcock said in a review that the only way SFWA could have found a worse thing than RINGWORLD to give the Nebula to was to give it to a comic book). The fact that the short story ballot was almost completely made up of stuff from ORBIT had outraged the Old Guard, particularly James Sallis's surreal "The Creation of Benny Hill", and they block-voted for No Award as a protest against "non-functional word patterns" making the ballot. Judy-Lynn del Rey told me as much immediately after the banquet, when she was exuberantly gloating about how they'd "put ORBIT in its place" with the voting results, and actually said "We won!"
I'm not sure how to describe the Dozois without ruining the twist at the end. I will say when I read Prime's When the Great Days Come, I was struck by the death and doom obsessed elements and wondered if, contrary to some people's assertion that current SF is obsessed with death and belatedness because the Boomers and old and dying is not as right as it being because Dozois is obsessed with death and has been an influential editor for decades. Anway not keen on this Dozois because while the events are different it reminded me too much of another well known story I cannot named because it would be a spoiler.
I've almost certainly read the Harrison but I don't remember it. It survived mainly in various Harrison collections.
The Laumer is a satire set in the bureaucratic world of tomorrow, one where it is possible to spend your entire life waiting in line to talk to some vital functionary. Not heavily anthologized after the 1970s (although Baen included it in their collection of Laumer's comic pieces); probably sabotaged by the effects Laumer's health issues had on his career and the perception of the readability of his fiction.
Speaking of health issues, by screwing the Obiters en mass out of their shots at a Nebula, the Old Guard cost Laumer what was probably his last change at one. The next year he had a stroke that destroyed his ability to write. Good show, there, Old Guard!
I've not read the Sallis. It fell more or less out of print almost immediately.
I have also not read the Wilhelm but since it seems to only have been in Orbit 6 and one later Knight-edited anthology I am not that embarrassed about this.
I have read the Wolfe. Give me a second to remember which Gene Wolfe Death story it is... Let's go with "A young man finds comfort in a story much like The Island of Doctor Moreau. The story ends on an ominous note." It's stayed fairly consistently in print, generally in Gene Wolfe collections.
I don't recall a lot of these clearly but I don't have any problem coming to the conclusion that SFWA made the wrong choice here and if Dozois is correct, a very mean spirited one. I'd go with the Wolfe.
