Nebula Award Stories 9

This collection represents an interesting time in Science Fiction. This is when the genre was still struggling between hard core and new age (little realizing that both were going to win.) And the stories show a nice blend. (I hasten to add that this includes stories that became classics in short order.) “The Death of Doctor Island” by Gene Wolfe is an excellent example of this combination. There is a hard science fiction story in here (an orbiting satellite being used as a separated area to provide psychiatric treatment) but it is enmeshed with the other aspects – the talking island, the travels in the mind of the psychotic – so that each part is dependent on the other. “Shark” by Edward Bryant does the same – it includes show more the hard science fiction of transferring people into animals while exploring the personal side of what happens to the man that is left behind. Also in here are “Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand”, Vonda N. McIntyre’s story of Snake the Healer, “A Thing of Beauty” by Norman Spinrad (a great take on the Japanese buying up all of America – a story I recognized within the first paragraphs and couldn’t wait to re-read) and James Triptree, Jr’s “Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death” (“spiders” learning through time and history – trying to overcome their instincts) which is almost the farthest from hard science fiction that you will see in this collection. And the furthest is Harlan Ellison’s “The Deathbird” which, if you haven’t read, I can’t explain. Also of interest in this book is the introduction (once again lamenting that fiction may be dieing – how many times have we all read that one) and “1973: The Year In Science Fiction” which is also interesting to read from our genius position of having lived into the future. (Easy for us to laugh, aren’t we the ones who said the stock markets would never bust.) As with all Nebula Award Stories books a nice collection. Maybe not the absolute best – but a nice cross-section of famous and well-written. show less

Probably the high water mark of the series with stories by Gene Wolfe, George R R Martin, Vonda N McIntyre, Harlan Ellison and James Tiptree Jr, among others. We won't see days like those again! Minor irritation is the absence of a contents page.