Nebula Awards 21


Nebula Awards 21 is an anthology of award-winning science fiction short works edited by George Zebrowski, the second of three successive volumes under his editorship. It was first published in trade paperback by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich in December 1986, with a hardcover edition following from the same publisher in January 1987.

Summary

The book collects pieces that won or were nominated for the Nebula Awards for novella, novelette and short story for the year 1986 and various nonfiction pieces related to the awards, together with a story by 1986 Grand Master award winner Arthur C. Clarke, the two Rhysling Award-winning poems for 1985, a couple other pieces, and an introduction by the editor. Not all nominees for the various awards are included.

Contents

  • "Introduction"
  • "What Was 1985 That We Were Mindful of It?"
  • "Heirs of the Perisphere"
  • "Out of All Them Bright Stars"
  • "The Fringe"
  • "Sailing to Byzantium"
  • "More Than the Sum of His Parts"
  • "Portraits of His Children"
  • "For Spacers Snarled in the Hair of Comets"
  • "Letter from Caroline Herschel "
  • "The Steam-Powered Word Processor"
  • "Paper Dragons"
  • "Effing the Ineffable"
  • "Science Fiction Films of 1985"

    Reception

Publishers Weekly calls the anthology's contents "a mixed bag, the best of them are treasures." The pieces by Card, Silverberg and Blaylock are singled out for comment, as are the "three critical essays, two of which are stimulating reevaluations of science fiction."
John G. Cramer in the Los Angeles Times judges the book a "first rate anthology," commenting on the pieces by Kress, Martin and Silverberg, while noting those by Haldeman, Card, Blaylock and Waldrop as "also excellent." Of the nonfiction pieces, he calls Budrys's "penetrating" and Benford's "interesting." He criticises the inclusion of the lengthy discussion of science fiction films, however, opining that "f I have any problem... it is the inappropriateness of the latter piece. Nebulas are, for excellent reasons, not awarded for film. It is regrettable that the editor chose to devote 14% of the anthology to a survey of films, which, in many cases, deserve obscurity." Cramer feels including "some of the excellent Nebula nominees missing from this volume" would have been a better use of the space.
The anthology was also reviewed by Debbie Notkin in Locus v. 20, no. 1, January 1987, Dave Mead in Fantasy Review v. 10, no. 2, March 1987, Edward Bryant in Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone Magazine v. 7, no. 2, June 1987, Don D'Ammassa in Science Fiction Chronicle v. 9, no. 1, October 1987, and Tom Easton in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, v. 107, no. 10, October 1987.

Awards

The book placed sixteenth in the 1987 Locus Poll Award for Best Anthology.