The Locus Awards: Thirty Years of the Best in Science Fiction and Fantasy

Since 1968, Locus has been the trade magazine of SFF publishing. It's the place to go for news of publishing deals, reviews of new fiction, and comprehensive lists of what's been published each month. In 1971, they began the Locus Awards, honoring the best fiction of each year. This anthology was published in 2004, and includes selected winners from the first 30 (ish) years of the award.

With so vague a theme, this collection does feel a little shapeless. There's no unifying authorial voice, no thematic similarities, not even a "here's what the genre looks like at this specific moment" snapshot. The only thing these stories share is excellence, and on that level, Brown and Strahan have assembled a terrific collection.

There are four show more stories here good enough to make my personal list of all-time classics: Harlan Ellison's "Jeffty Is Five," which starts as Bradbury-esqe nostalgia, then rips your heart out in the final paragrahps; John Varley's "The Persistence of Vision," about a man who stumbles into happiness at an unusual desert commune; Octavia E. Butler's "Bloodchild," about an alien race who establish a violently symbiotic relationship with humanity; and Ted Chiang's "Hell Is the Absence of God," in which despite angelic visitations and other visible signs of God's existence, one man simply cannot bring himself to accept or love God.

Chiang's is the best of the three stories on religious themes, but the others are also quite good. In "The Way of Cross and Dragon," George R. R. Martin sends a cleric, representing a future Inquisition, to a distant planet to wipe out a dangerous new heresy; Joanna Russ's "Souls" gives us a medieval abbey run by an extraordinary abbess.

And the rest of the authors here are like an all-star team of these three decades: Ursula K. Le Guin, Connie Willis, John Varley, James Tiptree Jr., Bruce Sterling, Greg Egan. There are a couple of stories that didn't do much for me, but both are by authers to whom I've never quite connected; Gene Wolfe and Lucius Shepard both write prose that's too ornate for my taste, though I certainly understand why so many do like them.

A strong, solid collection of late-20th century SF. If you enjoy the genre at all, there will be something here, and probably several somethings, that will delight you. show less

I found this book in a Little Free Library in the summer of 2020. It has sat at the side of my bed since then and every once in a while when I had finished one book and wasn't quite ready to start another I would read a story from it. As the subtitle says the stories span thirty years from the 1970s to the 2000s. Many of the authors are well-known: Octavia Butler, Harlan Ellison, Neil Gaiman, Ursula K. Le Guin, George R. R. Martin, Connie Willis. I enjoyed all the stories but some stood out for me. Ursula Le Guin's short story called "The Day Before the Revolution" evoked her fabulous book The Dispossessed as it is the final thoughts of the founder of the society explored in that book. Connie Willis is represented by the short story show more "Even the Queen" which postulates a society in which women control their reproductive cycles and don't even have menstrual periods unless they wish to conceive. The story "Rachel in Love" is by Pat Murphy, a writer I haven't encountered previously. The Rachel in the title is a primate who has been reared by Dr. Aaron Jacobs. Rachel thinks of Aaron as her father and so, when he dies of a heart attack, she is bereft. What follows is even worse for her.

At the back of the book is a list of all the works that have won Locus Awards up until 2003. Locus Awards are voted on by readers of the magazine so they represent what works have appealed to people the most in that year. Looking at the list for best science fiction novel I can see that I have read about half of them and they were all very good. So I'm going to see if I can get my hands on some of the rest. show less

Listen to this list of authors: Harlan Ellison, Ted Chiang, Ursula K. LeGuinn, Connie Willis, James Tiptree Jr.. Listen to this list of stories: “ The Death of Doctor Island”, “The Day Before the Revolution”, “Jeffty is Five”, “The Persistance of Vision”. (And those are literally the first four stories – it goes on from there.)

This book is a collection of Locus Award winners, but that also means it is a collection of some of the best Hugo and Nebula Award winners. In other words, it represents some of the best writing in science fiction from 1970 to 2000. And what that means is that it is a fantastic collection.

This is the book you give someone when they want to know what you see in that “sci-fi stuff”, this is the show more book you give to fellow fans to share why you all got into science fiction in the first place, this is the book you buy yourself if you need an introduction to the genre, and this is the book you buy for your collection so you can relive the best the genre has to offer. show less

A very strong anthology of high quality work. Unlike many anthologies there is little if any "filler" to be found here. Worth owning for the Ellison, Varley, Gaiman and Bisson stories. Gaiman's OCTOBER IN THE CHAIR is a loving homage to Bradbury that should not be missed. And for the record this got remaindered quickly and may currently be had for pennies on Amazon.

http://nhw.livejournal.com/197044.html

This is a totally superb collection. OK, $15.95 for 500 pages paperback may seem a bit pricy, but the quality of the stories really justifies it. Of the 18 stories, I had read eight previously - the six that have won both Hugo and Nebula (as well as the Locus Award, a precondition for inclusion), and also Sterling's "Maneki Neko" and Le Guin's "The Day Before The Revolution". The other ten are all classics which I should have read years ago and somehow hadn't:

"The Death of Doctor Island" by Gene Wolfe
"The Way of Cross and Dragon", by George R.R. Martin
"Souls" by Joanna Russ
"The Only Neat Thing to Do", by James Tiptree Jr - possibly the weakest story in the collection, I thought, but still very show more good
"Rachel In Love", by Pat Murphy
"The Scale-Hunter's Beautiful Daughter", by Lucius Shepard
"Buffalo", by John Kessel
"Gone", by John Crowley
"Border Guards", by Greg Egan
"October in the Chair", by Neil Gaiman

Go out and buy it. show less

This collection of short stories has it's ups and downs, but is mostly very enjoyable. I especially liked one of the stories entitled "Even the queen" by Connie Willis which was funny and refreshing. I also really enjoyed "The only neat thing to do" by James Tiptree Jr. I didn't care for "Buffalo" by John Kessel at all. Even though it was really short, it took me at least three tries to get through it. Also, "The Scalehunter's beautiful daughter" by Lucius Shepard was a story I just couldn't get through. "Jeffty is five" by Harlan Ellison and "The Persistence of vision" by John Varley thoroughly enchanted me though. "Bloodchild" by Octavia E. Butler simply blew me away, so all in all not bad at all for an anthology!

This was a book that show more was definitely worth it's price, I'd recommend it! show less

Excellent collection. Of course, when you're aiming to select the best stories from the last 30 years, you're bound to get some good ones! I'd already read about half of them, which wasn't a bad ratio, and I only disliked a couple. The anthology really works as an overview and a retrospective of the genre - I'd recommend it highly to anyone who asked me, "So, why do you like SF, anyway?"


Contents:
The Death of Doctor Island • (1973) • Gene Wolfe
The Day Before the Revolution • (1974) • Ursula K. Le Guin
Jeffty Is Five • (1977) • Harlan Ellison
The Persistence of Vision • (1978) • John Varley
The Way of Cross and Dragon • (1979) • George R. R. Martin
Souls • (1982) • Joanna Russ
Bloodchild • (1984) • Octavia E. show more Butler
The Only Neat Thing to Do • (1985) • James Tiptree, Jr.
Rachel in Love • (1987) • Pat Murphy
The Scalehunter's Beautiful Daughter • (1988) • Lucius Shepard
Bears Discover Fire • (1990) • Terry Bisson
Buffalo • (1991) • John Kessel
Even the Queen • (1992) • Connie Willis
Gone • (1996) • John Crowley
Maneki Neko • (1998) • Bruce Sterling
Border Guards • (1999) • Greg Egan
Hell Is the Absence of God • (2001) • Ted Chiang
October in the Chair • (2002) • Neil Gaiman show less