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The Best Science Fiction Novellas of the Year 1
Contents:
The Persistence of Vision by John Varley
Old Folks at Home by Michael Bishop
Shipwright by Donald Kingsbury
Seven American Nights by Gene Wolfe
Fireship by Joan D. Vinge
The Watched by Christopher Priest
The Persistence of Vision by John Varley
Old Folks at Home by Michael Bishop
Shipwright by Donald Kingsbury
Seven American Nights by Gene Wolfe
Fireship by Joan D. Vinge
The Watched by Christopher Priest
328 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published September 1, 1979
33 people want to read
About the author
Michael Bishop
308 books105 followersMichael Lawson Bishop was an award-winning American writer. Over four decades & thirty books, he created a body of work that stands among the most admired in modern sf & fantasy literature.
Bishop received a bachelor's from the Univ. of Georgia in 1967, going on to complete a master's in English. He taught English at the US Air Force Academy Preparatory School in Colorado Springs from 1968-72 & then at the Univ. of Georgia. He also taught a course in science fiction at the US Air Force Academy in 1971. He left teaching in 1974 to become a full-time writer.
Bishop won the Nebula in 1981 for The Quickening (Best Novelette) & in 1982 for No Enemy But Time (Best Novel). He's also received four Locus Awards & his work has been nominated for numerous Hugos. He & British author Ian Watson collaborated on a novel set in the universe of one of Bishop’s earlier works. He's also written two mystery novels with Paul Di Filippo, under the joint pseudonym Philip Lawson. His work has been translated into over a dozen languages.
Bishop has published more than 125 pieces of short fiction which have been gathered in seven collections. His stories have appeared in Playboy, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, the Missouri Review, the Indiana Review, the Chattahoochee Review, the Georgia Review, Omni & Interzone.
In addition to fiction, Bishop has published poetry gathered in two collections & won the 1979 Rhysling Award for his poem For the Lady of a Physicist. He's also had essays & reviews published in the NY Times, the Washington Post, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, Omni Magazine & the NY Review of Science Fiction. A collection of his nonfiction, A Reverie for Mister Ray, was issued in 2005 by PS Publishing. He's written introductions to books by Philip K. Dick, Theodore Sturgeon, James Tiptree, Jr., Pamela Sargent, Gardner Dozois, Lucius Shepard, Mary Shelley, Andy Duncan, Paul Di Filippo, Bruce Holland Rogers & Rhys Hughes. He's edited six anthologies, including the Locus Award-winning Light Years & Dark & A Cross of Centuries: 25 Imaginative Tales about the Christ, published by Thunder’s Mouth Press shortly before the company closed.
In recent years, Bishop has returned to teaching & is writer-in-residence at LaGrange College located near his home in Pine Mountain, GA. He & his wife, Jeri, have a daughter & two grandchildren. His son, Christopher James Bishop, was one of the victims of the Virginia Tech massacre on 4/16/07.
Bishop received a bachelor's from the Univ. of Georgia in 1967, going on to complete a master's in English. He taught English at the US Air Force Academy Preparatory School in Colorado Springs from 1968-72 & then at the Univ. of Georgia. He also taught a course in science fiction at the US Air Force Academy in 1971. He left teaching in 1974 to become a full-time writer.
Bishop won the Nebula in 1981 for The Quickening (Best Novelette) & in 1982 for No Enemy But Time (Best Novel). He's also received four Locus Awards & his work has been nominated for numerous Hugos. He & British author Ian Watson collaborated on a novel set in the universe of one of Bishop’s earlier works. He's also written two mystery novels with Paul Di Filippo, under the joint pseudonym Philip Lawson. His work has been translated into over a dozen languages.
Bishop has published more than 125 pieces of short fiction which have been gathered in seven collections. His stories have appeared in Playboy, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, the Missouri Review, the Indiana Review, the Chattahoochee Review, the Georgia Review, Omni & Interzone.
In addition to fiction, Bishop has published poetry gathered in two collections & won the 1979 Rhysling Award for his poem For the Lady of a Physicist. He's also had essays & reviews published in the NY Times, the Washington Post, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, Omni Magazine & the NY Review of Science Fiction. A collection of his nonfiction, A Reverie for Mister Ray, was issued in 2005 by PS Publishing. He's written introductions to books by Philip K. Dick, Theodore Sturgeon, James Tiptree, Jr., Pamela Sargent, Gardner Dozois, Lucius Shepard, Mary Shelley, Andy Duncan, Paul Di Filippo, Bruce Holland Rogers & Rhys Hughes. He's edited six anthologies, including the Locus Award-winning Light Years & Dark & A Cross of Centuries: 25 Imaginative Tales about the Christ, published by Thunder’s Mouth Press shortly before the company closed.
In recent years, Bishop has returned to teaching & is writer-in-residence at LaGrange College located near his home in Pine Mountain, GA. He & his wife, Jeri, have a daughter & two grandchildren. His son, Christopher James Bishop, was one of the victims of the Virginia Tech massacre on 4/16/07.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 8, 2022
Six novellas from 1978. All are good, and two (Old Folks at Home by Michael Bishop and Seven American Nights by Gene Wolfe) are great.
November 25, 2022
I'll just think of this as Carr's "The Best Science Fiction of the Year #8.5" - or "#8B" - or "#8 Part II" since it is a companion anthology to his "Best SF ... #8," from the same year, which had 12 short stories and novelettes.
5 sf novellas from 1979:
**** The Persistence of Vision • John Varley
** Old Folks at Home • Michael Bishop
**** Shipwright • Donald Kingsbury
*****(+) Seven American Nights • Gene Wolfe
***** Fireship • Joan D. Vinge
*****(+) The Watched • Christopher Priest
Notes:
For a couple of years, Terry Carr convinced his publishers to spin off the Best Novellas of the Year from his annual Best SF anthologies. If not for the unfortunate inclusion of the Bishop, this collection of 1978 stories might be the highest quality sf anthology ever assembled, so I am just going to rate this as if it only contains the 5 great stories. Well, anyway, that's how much I think of the Wolfe and Priest stories in here.
Varley ... the one which won all of the awards, back when Varley's fresh virtuosity was a sensation ... story seems a bit hippy obvious now, though ...
Bishop ... too cringey, wrong wrong wrong in so many ways (isn't it weird how young writers tend to treat their 50-60 year old characters like 80-90 year olds?) yet ... still earns a bit of genuine sentiment at the end ...
Kingsbury ... this entertaining gender power dynamic reversal story wins my personal theoretical award for best use of Japanese poetry in sf ...
Wolfe ... to my mind, Wolfe's very best shorter work ... one of the greatest sf novellas ever written ... what really happened on these six nights? what happened on the missing seventh night? ...
Vinge ... tackles the merging of human and computer sentience in a highly enjoyable manner that, against the odds, barely seems dated ...
Priest ... must be another all-time great because Priest's mysterious brilliance here comes close to matching Wolfe's ...
5 sf novellas from 1979:
**** The Persistence of Vision • John Varley
** Old Folks at Home • Michael Bishop
**** Shipwright • Donald Kingsbury
*****(+) Seven American Nights • Gene Wolfe
***** Fireship • Joan D. Vinge
*****(+) The Watched • Christopher Priest
Notes:
For a couple of years, Terry Carr convinced his publishers to spin off the Best Novellas of the Year from his annual Best SF anthologies. If not for the unfortunate inclusion of the Bishop, this collection of 1978 stories might be the highest quality sf anthology ever assembled, so I am just going to rate this as if it only contains the 5 great stories. Well, anyway, that's how much I think of the Wolfe and Priest stories in here.
Varley ... the one which won all of the awards, back when Varley's fresh virtuosity was a sensation ... story seems a bit hippy obvious now, though ...
Bishop ... too cringey, wrong wrong wrong in so many ways (isn't it weird how young writers tend to treat their 50-60 year old characters like 80-90 year olds?) yet ... still earns a bit of genuine sentiment at the end ...
Kingsbury ... this entertaining gender power dynamic reversal story wins my personal theoretical award for best use of Japanese poetry in sf ...
Wolfe ... to my mind, Wolfe's very best shorter work ... one of the greatest sf novellas ever written ... what really happened on these six nights? what happened on the missing seventh night? ...
Vinge ... tackles the merging of human and computer sentience in a highly enjoyable manner that, against the odds, barely seems dated ...
Priest ... must be another all-time great because Priest's mysterious brilliance here comes close to matching Wolfe's ...
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews