Nebula Awards 33


Nebula Awards 33 is an anthology of science fiction short works edited by Connie Willis. It was first published in hardcover and trade paperback by Harcourt Brace in April 1999.

Summary

The book collects pieces that won or were nominated for the Nebula Awards for best novel, novella, novelette and short story for the year 1999, profiles of 1998 Author Emeritus Nelson Bond and 1998 Damon Knight Memorial [Grand Master Award|Grand Master award winner] Poul Anderson with representative early stories by them, and various other nonfiction pieces related to the awards, together with the Rhysling Award-winning poems for 1997 and an introduction by the editor. Not all nominees for the various awards are included, and the best novel is represented by an excerpt.

Contents

  • "Introduction"
  • "Sister Emily's Lightship"
  • "Itsy Bitsy Spider"
  • "The Nebula Award for Best Novel"
  • "An Excerpt from The Moon and the Sun
  • "The Flowers of Aulit Prison"
  • "The Crab Lice"
  • "The 1997 Author Emeritus: Nelson Bond"
  • "The Bookshop"
  • "Three Hearings on the Existence of Snakes in the Human Bloodstream"
  • "The Dead"
  • "Rhysling Award Winners"
  • "Day Omega"
  • "Spotting UFOs While Canning Tomatoes"
  • "The Elizabeth Complex"
  • "Abandon in Place"
  • "The Grand Master Award: Poul Anderson"
  • "A Tribute to Poul Anderson"
  • "The Martyr"
  • "Alive and Well: Messages from the Edge of the Millennium"
  • "A Few Last Words to Put It All in Perspective"

    Reception

Kirkus Reviews called the anthology's fiction "errific," singling out McIntyre's novel as "splendid historical fantasy", the finalist pieces as "impressive", and the Anderson selection as "typically brilliant". The reviewer has "a Bronx cheer for the nonfiction," however, characterizing them as a "thumping disappointment... just anodyne scraps ". It also notes the omission of both Bill Warren's film criticism and any obituaries, given the 1997 passings of Jerome Bixby, Judith Merrill, and George Turner. "Maybe somebody decided that last year's opinionated and thoroughly refreshing growls and hisses Simply Wouldn't Do."
The collection was also reviewed by Gary K. Wolfe in Locus no. 459, April 1999, Clinton Lawrence in Science Fiction Weekly, Apr. 12, 1999, and John Clute in The [New York Review of Science Fiction], July 1999.

Awards

The anthology placed twelfth in the 2000 Locus Poll Award for Best Anthology.