Nebula Award Stories Sixteen

Nebula Awards Showcases #16

by Jerry Pournelle (Editor)

Contents

* xi • Introduction (Nebula Award Stories 16) • (1982) • essay by Jerry Pournelle
* 1 • Grotto of the Dancing Deer • (1980) • shortstory by Clifford D. Simak
* 22 • Why Is There So Little Science in Literature? • (1982) • essay by Gregory Benford
* 31 • Ginungagap • (1980) • novelette by Michael Swanwick
* 65 • Unicorn Tapestry • (1980) • novella by Suzy McKee Charnas
* 124 • 1980: Whatever Weirdness Lingers • (1982) • essay by Michael Glyer
* 137 • Rautavaara's Case • (1980) • shortstory by Philip K. Dick
* 149 • 1980: The Year in Fantastic Films • (1982) • essay by Bill Warren
* 168 • The Ugly Chickens • (1980) • novelette by Howard Waldrop
* 192 • What Did 1980 Mean? • (1982) • essay by Algis Budrys
* 210 • Secrets of the Heart • (1980) • shortstory by Charles L. Grant
* 220 • Nebula Awards • essay by uncredited
* 225 • Hugo Awards • essay by uncredited

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Anthologies, Fiction

231 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1982

About the author

Dr Jerry Eugene Pournelle was an American science fiction writer, engineer, essayist, and journalist, who contributed for many years to the computer magazine Byte, and from 1998 until his death maintained his own website and blog.

From the beginning, Pournelle's work centered around strong military themes. Several books describe the fictional mercenary infantry force known as Falkenberg's Legion. There are strong parallels between these stories and the Childe Cycle mercenary stories by Gordon R. Dickson, as well as Heinlein's Starship Troopers, although Pournelle's work takes far fewer technological leaps than either of these.

Pournelle spent years working in the aerospace industry, including at Boeing, on projects including studying heat tolerance for astronauts and their spacesuits. This side of his career also found him working on projections related to military tactics and probabilities. One report in which he had a hand became a basis for the Strategic Defense Initiative, the missile defense system proposed by President Ronald Reagan. A study he edited in 1964 involved projecting Air Force missile technology needs for 1975.

Dr. Pournelle would always tell would-be writers seeking advice that the key to becoming an author was to write — a lot.

“And finish what you write,” he added in a 2003 interview. “Don’t join a writers’ club and sit around having coffee reading pieces of your manuscript to people. Write it. Finish it.”

Pournelle served as President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 1973.

Reviews

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very enjoyable collection of short stories and essays. An interesting, though surely unintentional, theme of quests for immortality runs through the stories. The essays are a fascinating time capsule (the confidence with which the essay on film disparages The Empire Strikes Back in favor of A New Hope was somewhat jarring). It's more than just a curio for the modern reader, though.

[Raj · Rating 3 out of 5]

This anthology brings together the Nebula short fiction winners from 1980 along with some other fiction and essays about the state of the genre and fandom in that year. Of the fiction, I'd read a number of the stories elsewhere but I still very much enjoyed Grotto of the Dancing Deer in which an archaeologist learns about the past through an unexpected source; and The Ugly Chickens, a humorous story in which a young academic starts on the trail of the possible discovery of a lifetime. I was less taken with the novella, The Unicorn Tapestry, about a therapist who takes on a new client - a vampire. I found the protagonist irritating and I've never really been a fan of this sort of slower, psychological SF. Of the non-fiction, I must confess to skipping most of Algis Budrys's essay What did 1980 Mean which tried to being a critical analysis to the start of the art in that year, but did nothing for me. The most interesting non-fiction piece for me was 1980: The Year in Fantastic Films, by Bill Warren which looked at 1980 in film and TV. Although most of what he talks about have sunk without trace over the years, there were two that stood out, and it's interesting to see how time has changed the way we look at both: The Empire Strikes Back and Flash Gordon. Warren regarded Empire as inferior to A New Hope and gave interesting reasons for this. This was written at the time, before the trilogy was complete and the darkness that is now most commonly praised was held up as its major flaw. Flash Gordon on the other hand was considered to have been made by people contemptuous of the genre and without love, whereas time as turned it into a bona fide classic, albeit a very camp one!

So an interesting snapshot of the state of SF in 1980, both in the fiction and the essays that accompany them. As you'd expect, the stories range in scope and taste but definitely worth dipping into.

[Timothy · Rating 3 out of 5]

6 stories:

*** Grotto of the Dancing Deer • Clifford D. Simak
***** Ginungagap • Michael Swanwick
* The Unicorn Tapestry • Suzy McKee Charnas
**** Rautavaara's Case • Philip K. Dick
** The Ugly Chickens • Howard Waldrop
** Secrets of the Heart • Charles L. Grant