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Nebula Awards Showcases #11
Nebula Award Stories 11
Nebula Award Stories. Science Fiction.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 1976
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184 people want to read
About the author
Ursula K. Le Guin
1,045 books30.2k followersUrsula K. Le Guin published twenty-two novels, eleven volumes of short stories, four collections of essays, twelve books for children, six volumes of poetry and four of translation, and has received many awards: Hugo, Nebula, National Book Award, PEN-Malamud, etc. Her recent publications include the novel Lavinia, an essay collection, Cheek by Jowl, and The Wild Girls. She lived in Portland, Oregon.
She was known for her treatment of gender (The Left Hand of Darkness, The Matter of Seggri), political systems (The Telling, The Dispossessed) and difference/otherness in any other form. Her interest in non-Western philosophies was reflected in works such as "Solitude" and The Telling but even more interesting are her imagined societies, often mixing traits extracted from her profound knowledge of anthropology acquired from growing up with her father, the famous anthropologist, Alfred Kroeber. The Hainish Cycle reflects the anthropologist's experience of immersing themselves in new strange cultures since most of their main characters and narrators (Le Guin favoured the first-person narration) are envoys from a humanitarian organization, the Ekumen, sent to investigate or ally themselves with the people of a different world and learn their ways.
She was known for her treatment of gender (The Left Hand of Darkness, The Matter of Seggri), political systems (The Telling, The Dispossessed) and difference/otherness in any other form. Her interest in non-Western philosophies was reflected in works such as "Solitude" and The Telling but even more interesting are her imagined societies, often mixing traits extracted from her profound knowledge of anthropology acquired from growing up with her father, the famous anthropologist, Alfred Kroeber. The Hainish Cycle reflects the anthropologist's experience of immersing themselves in new strange cultures since most of their main characters and narrators (Le Guin favoured the first-person narration) are envoys from a humanitarian organization, the Ekumen, sent to investigate or ally themselves with the people of a different world and learn their ways.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
July 8, 2018
Chuffin' incredible, kiddies. This is how it's done: all pretenders, give up and go home.
SF with heart. I'm not suggesting the brain is dispensable in this genre - where could it be more important? But the dry, dull cerebral onanism of current speculative fiction does nothing for me. The genre's gone astray somehow: here's a tip of the hat back to when it still owned the future.
SF with heart. I'm not suggesting the brain is dispensable in this genre - where could it be more important? But the dry, dull cerebral onanism of current speculative fiction does nothing for me. The genre's gone astray somehow: here's a tip of the hat back to when it still owned the future.
December 30, 2018
You would expect a "best of the year" anthology to have some very good fiction and this book does. The Nebula Award anthologies don't say "best of the year," but they don't need to. Nebula Awards are chosen by the Science Fiction Writers of America. They represent the writers' choices in four categories: novel, novella, novelette, and short story. The anthologies usually reprint the winners in each category except "best novel," as well as some of the other nominated stories. The editor for Nebula Award Stories Eleven was the very fine author Ursula K. LeGuin.
In the back of the book all the nominees for the year 1975 are listed. The winners were:
Best Novel:
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
Best Novella:
"Home Is the Hangman" by Roger Zelazny
Originally published in Analog
Best Novelette:
"San Diego Lightfoot Sue" by Tom Reamy
Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
Best Short Story:
"Catch That Zeppelin!" by Fritz Leiber
Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
The other stories included in this book are three of the short story nominees: "Child of All Ages" by P. J. Plauger; "Shatterday" by Harlan Ellison; and "Time Deer" by Craig Strete. There is also a long excerpt from the Best Novel winner, The Forever War. There are two articles written especially for this book and Ursula LeGuin's Introduction as well.
Of the six stories included, my favorite is "San Diego Lightfoot Sue," an excellent fantasy story by Tom Reamy. In the early 1960's, a fifteen year old boy from Kansas moves to Los Angeles after his mother's death. He believes his older brother lives somewhere in California. He is taken in by a very thoughtful gay male couple, and meets their neighbor, a talented artist named Sue.
There is magic performed in this story, and the story itself is close to magical. Reamy was a relatively new writer at the time. The introduction to the story says this was the second story Reamy had ever written. He should have had a wonderful career. Tom Reamy died of a heart attack in 1977, two years after publishing "San Diego Lightfoot Sue." In addition to the Nebula he won for this story, Reamy was nominated for two other Nebulas and two Hugo Awards. He was forty-two when he died.
"Home Is the Hangman" was one of three stories by Roger Zelazny featuring the same main character, a man who, in an increasingly computer-dependent future, has managed to stay off the "World Data Bank" and consequently, to most of the world, does not exist. In this story he is trying to track down and stop the Hangman, a telefactor made to explore other planets. A telefactor is "a slave machine operated by remote control." The Hangman had stopped responding to orders and had returned to Earth. It is possible that the Hangman may have returned with the purpose of killing his three creators. (Zelazny also died young at the age of fifty-eight.)
Fritz Leiber was a superb writer and one of the most important twentieth century authors of science fiction and fantasy. "Catch That Zeppelin!" is a complex fantasy. An aging man, an American of German extraction, is walking in New York City. He seamlessly and without surprise becomes another person, a German who has come to the Empire State Building to get on a zeppelin moored there to return to Germany. But first he meets his son for lunch. They discuss his son's theory of historical cusps by which small changes in history could have resulted in huge changes later.
It was always nice to see Leiber win awards but this is not one of my favorite stories of his. I think that there were better choices for the Nebula.
The three other Nebula nominated short stories in this book are all quite good. P. J. Plauger has had a relatively sparse career as a writer of fiction. According to the science fiction and fantasy website ISFDb, he published several stories in the 1970's and then one story in each of the following three decades. "Child of All Ages" concerns a girl who appears to be in her early teens but is really over twenty-four hundred years old.
In Harlan Ellison's "Shatterday," a man absent-mindedly dials his own phone number. His own voice answers. There are now two of him.
Craig Strete's "Time Deer" is about an elderly Native American traveling into the past in his mind. But there may be more traveling to follow.
Ursula LeGuin wrote the introduction to the book and I believe she also wrote the individual introductions for each entry. Whoever did write those gave Tom Reamy credit for an extra Nebula. His story "Twilla" did get a Nebula nomination but did not win.
Vonda N. McIntire and Peter Nicholls each have an essay in the book, "Potential and Actuality in Science Fiction" by McIntire and "1975: The Year in Science Fiction, or Let's Hear It for the Decline and Fall of the Science Fiction Empire!" by Peter Nicholls.
In the back of the book all the nominees for the year 1975 are listed. The winners were:
Best Novel:
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
Best Novella:
"Home Is the Hangman" by Roger Zelazny
Originally published in Analog
Best Novelette:
"San Diego Lightfoot Sue" by Tom Reamy
Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
Best Short Story:
"Catch That Zeppelin!" by Fritz Leiber
Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
The other stories included in this book are three of the short story nominees: "Child of All Ages" by P. J. Plauger; "Shatterday" by Harlan Ellison; and "Time Deer" by Craig Strete. There is also a long excerpt from the Best Novel winner, The Forever War. There are two articles written especially for this book and Ursula LeGuin's Introduction as well.
Of the six stories included, my favorite is "San Diego Lightfoot Sue," an excellent fantasy story by Tom Reamy. In the early 1960's, a fifteen year old boy from Kansas moves to Los Angeles after his mother's death. He believes his older brother lives somewhere in California. He is taken in by a very thoughtful gay male couple, and meets their neighbor, a talented artist named Sue.
There is magic performed in this story, and the story itself is close to magical. Reamy was a relatively new writer at the time. The introduction to the story says this was the second story Reamy had ever written. He should have had a wonderful career. Tom Reamy died of a heart attack in 1977, two years after publishing "San Diego Lightfoot Sue." In addition to the Nebula he won for this story, Reamy was nominated for two other Nebulas and two Hugo Awards. He was forty-two when he died.
"Home Is the Hangman" was one of three stories by Roger Zelazny featuring the same main character, a man who, in an increasingly computer-dependent future, has managed to stay off the "World Data Bank" and consequently, to most of the world, does not exist. In this story he is trying to track down and stop the Hangman, a telefactor made to explore other planets. A telefactor is "a slave machine operated by remote control." The Hangman had stopped responding to orders and had returned to Earth. It is possible that the Hangman may have returned with the purpose of killing his three creators. (Zelazny also died young at the age of fifty-eight.)
Fritz Leiber was a superb writer and one of the most important twentieth century authors of science fiction and fantasy. "Catch That Zeppelin!" is a complex fantasy. An aging man, an American of German extraction, is walking in New York City. He seamlessly and without surprise becomes another person, a German who has come to the Empire State Building to get on a zeppelin moored there to return to Germany. But first he meets his son for lunch. They discuss his son's theory of historical cusps by which small changes in history could have resulted in huge changes later.
It was always nice to see Leiber win awards but this is not one of my favorite stories of his. I think that there were better choices for the Nebula.
The three other Nebula nominated short stories in this book are all quite good. P. J. Plauger has had a relatively sparse career as a writer of fiction. According to the science fiction and fantasy website ISFDb, he published several stories in the 1970's and then one story in each of the following three decades. "Child of All Ages" concerns a girl who appears to be in her early teens but is really over twenty-four hundred years old.
In Harlan Ellison's "Shatterday," a man absent-mindedly dials his own phone number. His own voice answers. There are now two of him.
Craig Strete's "Time Deer" is about an elderly Native American traveling into the past in his mind. But there may be more traveling to follow.
Ursula LeGuin wrote the introduction to the book and I believe she also wrote the individual introductions for each entry. Whoever did write those gave Tom Reamy credit for an extra Nebula. His story "Twilla" did get a Nebula nomination but did not win.
Vonda N. McIntire and Peter Nicholls each have an essay in the book, "Potential and Actuality in Science Fiction" by McIntire and "1975: The Year in Science Fiction, or Let's Hear It for the Decline and Fall of the Science Fiction Empire!" by Peter Nicholls.
October 4, 2011
LeGuin - herself a multi-award winning author - collects some real gems here from her peers. Of particular note are "Home is the Hangman" by Roger Zelazny, "Shatterday" by Harlan Ellison, and the only short story to ever make me misty-eyed, the poignant, wistful "San Diego Lightfoot Sue" by Tom Reamy.
July 16, 2013
I only read some of the stories. "Catch that zeppelin!" - didn't really like the, obviously intentional but still pretentious style; "End Game" was nice, especially if you're familiar with Forever War series (which by the way won the Nebula award for best novel the same year - 1975); I was pleasantly surprised by Zelazny's "Home is the hangman" (1975 Nebula Award for Best Novella) and by Plauger's "Child of all ages" (and his quality sense of humor); The biggest disappointment was the novelette winner for 1975 - "San Diego lightfoot sue" - which featured lots of sensuality and promiscuous atmosphere but very little science fiction...
October 19, 2022
Whoever edited the order of these stories—Le Guin or otherwise—had to know they saved the best for last. “San Diego Lightfoot Sue” by Tom Reamy and “Time Deer” by Craig Strete. The others are good, but those two—wow.
April 7, 2024
As expected with a Nebula Award anthology, the stories in here are exceptionally good. As the anthology goes from story to story, they get progressively better. The final stories really pack a punch.
November 4, 2017
pretty disappointing for a hugo winner, though i like the mannered language
November 21, 2024
7 stories:
** Catch That Zeppelin! (1975) • Fritz Leiber
***** End Game (1975) • Joe Haldeman
**** Home Is the Hangman (1975) • Roger Zelazny
*** Child of All Ages (1975) • P. J. Plauger
** Shatterday (1975) • Harlan Ellison
**** San Diego Lightfoot Sue (1975) • Tom Reamy
*** Time Deer (1974) • Craig Strete
** Catch That Zeppelin! (1975) • Fritz Leiber
***** End Game (1975) • Joe Haldeman
**** Home Is the Hangman (1975) • Roger Zelazny
*** Child of All Ages (1975) • P. J. Plauger
** Shatterday (1975) • Harlan Ellison
**** San Diego Lightfoot Sue (1975) • Tom Reamy
*** Time Deer (1974) • Craig Strete
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews