anthology
In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs or excerpts by different authors.
In genre fiction, the term ''anthology'' typically categ ...
of
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
and
fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving Magic (supernatural), magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy ...
short works edited by
Mercedes Lackey
Mercedes Ritchie Lackey (born June 24, 1950) is an American writer of fantasy novels. Many of her novels and trilogies are interlinked and set in the world of Velgarth, mostly in and around the country of Valdemar. Her Valdemar novels include i ...
. It was first published in trade paperback by Pyr in May 2016.''Publishers Weekly'' (review) Feb. 22, 2016.
Summary
The book collects pieces that won or were nominated for the
Nebula Award
The Nebula Awards annually recognize the best works of science fiction or fantasy published in the United States. The awards are organized and awarded by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), a nonprofit association of profe ...
novella
A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most short stories. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian ''novella'' meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) facts ...
short story
A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest ...
for the year 2014 (presented in 2015), and nonfiction pieces related to the awards, together with an introduction by the editor and a list of past Nebula Award winners. Nominees for the Best Novella award are represented by excerpts, as is the winner of the Best Novel award (nominees for Best Novel are omitted).
Contents
* "Introduction" (
Mercedes Lackey
Mercedes Ritchie Lackey (born June 24, 1950) is an American writer of fantasy novels. Many of her novels and trilogies are interlinked and set in the world of Velgarth, mostly in and around the country of Valdemar. Her Valdemar novels include i ...
)
* "About The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America"
* "About the Nebula Awards"
* "2014 Nebula Awards Ballot"
* "A Stretch of Highway Two Lanes Wide" est Short Story nominee, 2015(
Sarah Pinsker
Sarah Pinsker is an American science fiction and fantasy author. A nine-time finalist for the Nebula Award, Pinsker's debut novel '' A Song for a New Day'' won the 2019 Nebula for Best Novelest Short Story nominee, 2015(
Aliette de Bodard
Aliette de Bodard is a French-American speculative fiction writer.
Writing
de Bodard published her first short story in 2006. In 2007, she was a winner of Writers of the Future, and in 2009 was nominated for the John W. Campbell Award for Best ...
Usman T. Malik
Usman T. Malik is a Pakistani speculative fiction author. His short fiction has been published in magazines and books such as ''The Apex Book of World SF'', ''Nightmare'', ''Strange Horizons'', ''Black Static'', and in a number of "year's best" an ...
Matthew Kressel
Matthew Kressel is a multiple Nebula, World Fantasy Award, and Eugie Award nominated author and coder. His short stories have been published in Tor.com, io9.com, Lightspeed Magazine, Clarkesworld, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Interzone, Apex Magazi ...
Eugie Foster
Eugie Foster (December 30, 1971 – September 27, 2014) was an American short story writer, columnist, and editor. Her stories were published in a number of magazines and book anthologies, including '' Fantasy Magazine'', ''Realms of Fantasy'', ' ...
Alyssa Wong
Alyssa Wong is an American writer of speculative fiction, comics, poetry, and games. Wong is a recipient of the Nebula Award, World Fantasy Award, and Locus Award.
Wong studied fiction at North Carolina State University, graduating in 2017 ...
Ursula Vernon
Ursula Vernon (born May 28, 1977) is an American freelance writer, artist and illustrator. She has won numerous awards for her work in various mediums, including the Hugo Award for her graphic novel '' Digger'', the Nebula Award for her short st ...
Richard Bowes
Richard "Rick" Dirrane Bowes (born 1944) is an American author of science fiction and fantasy.
Biography
Bowes was born in 1944 in Boston, Massachusetts. He attended school both in Boston and on Long Island, New York. His brother is fine artis ...
Carmen Maria Machado
''Carmen'' () is an opera in four acts by the French composer Georges Bizet. The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the Carmen (novella), novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée. The opera was first perfo ...
Tom Crosshill
Tom Crosshill (real name Toms Kreicbergs) is a Latvian author of speculative and literary fiction, active since 2010. His work has appeared in publications in Chinese, Cuban, English, Finnish, Latvian and Polish. Crosshill has been nominated for ...
Sam J. Miller
Sam J. Miller (born February 7, 1979) is an American science fiction, fantasy and horror short fiction author. His stories have appeared in publications such as ''Clarkesworld'', ''Asimov's Science Fiction'', and ''Lightspeed'', along with ov ...
Alaya Dawn Johnson
Alaya Dawn Johnson (born 1982) () is an American writer of speculative fiction.
Career
Apart from short fiction, Johnson has published two urban fantasy novels about "vampire suffragette" Zephyr Hollis set in an alternate 1920s New York City, a ...
M. Rickert
Mary Rickert, known as M. Rickert (born December 11, 1959 in Port Washington, Wisconsin), is an American writer of fantasy fiction. Many of her stories have been published in ''The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction''. Her first collection, ...
Ken Liu
Ken Liu (born 1976) is an American author of science fiction and fantasy. His epic fantasy series ''The Dandelion Dynasty'', which he describes as silkpunk, is published by Simon & Schuster. Liu has won Hugo and Nebula Awards for his short fic ...
Rachel Swirsky
Rachel Swirsky (born April 14, 1982, in San Jose, California) is an American literary, speculative fiction and fantasy writer, poet, and editor living in Oregon. She was the founding editor of the PodCastle podcast and served as editor from 20 ...
)
* "
We Are All Completely Fine
''We Are All Completely Fine'' is a 2014 horror novel by Daryl Gregory. It was first published by Tachyon Publications. The book won the 2015 World Fantasy Award—Novella and the 2014 Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novella.
Synopsis
At a suppor ...
Daryl Gregory
Daryl Gregory (born 1965) is an American science fiction, fantasy and comic book author. Gregory is a 1988 alumnus of the Michigan State University Clarion science fiction workshop, and won the 2009 Crawford Award for his novel ''Pandemonium''.
P ...
Nancy Kress
Nancy Anne Kress (born January 20, 1948) is an American science fiction writer. She began writing in 1976 but has achieved her greatest notice since the publication of her Hugo- and Nebula-winning 1991 novella ''Beggars in Spain'', which became a ...
)
* ''
Annihilation
In particle physics, annihilation is the process that occurs when a subatomic particle collides with its respective antiparticle to produce other particles, such as an electron colliding with a positron to produce two photons. The total energy a ...
Jeff VanderMeer
Jeff VanderMeer (born July 7, 1968) is an American author, editor, and literary critic. Initially associated with the New Weird literary genre, VanderMeer crossed over into mainstream success with his bestselling Southern Reach Trilogy. The tr ...
)
* "Past Nebula Award Winners"
Reception
''
Publishers Weekly
''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of B ...
'' calls the anthology a "thought-provoking sample of Nebula Award nominees and winners spotlight ngthe best of science fiction and fantasy published in 2014." After discussing the Johnson, Pinsker, Wong, Liu, Foster, VanderMeer, and Kress pieces individually, it concludes that " ch of these tales offers something compelling and the collection will appeal to a wide range of tastes."
Brandon Sanford, writing in the ''Portland Book Review'', takes issue with the editor's introductory disclaimer that the contents "probably won’t be what the 'average reader' would like," feeling it "reeks of elitism, or defensiveness," and detects "a certain irony to declaiming popular taste and then releasing a collection for popular consumption." Regardless, he finds "a lot to love about ''Nebula Awards Showcase 2016'', even for the 'average reader.'" He describes the short stories as "beautiful gems, polished to perfection" and the novelettes as "all entertaining and unique, though some are not as successful as others – perhaps suffering from a lack of brevity." He assesses the novella winner as "spectacularly wonderful ... leav ngthe reader wanting more," but the excerpts of the other novella nominees as "a little awkward, like textual book trailers stuck showing only one scene. Some give tastes of the skill that won their nomination, while others do not dazzle with such a limited glimpse." He feels the novel winner excerpt "does not reveal much and, because of this, promises inscrutable mysteries and tense, psychological thrills in a surreal landscape." Over all, he determines each story "has immersive characters for the reader to climb inside and abide in for awhile," and recommends the book as "well worth your time."
Clay Kallam in the San Jose ''
Mercury News
''The Mercury News'' (formerly ''San Jose Mercury News'', often locally known as ''The Merc'') is a morning daily newspaper published in San Jose, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is published by the Bay Area News Group, a subsidiar ...
'' also finds irony in Mercedes Lackey, "best known for professionally written but seriously lightweight fantasies," editing "fiction that ssupposed to make you uncomfortable." He finds in the book's selections a "tug-of-war" between stories "quite clearly meant to be literature, and others ... more focused on entertainment." He cites the Foster piece as an instance of the former, the Kress piece as an example of the latter, and the Vernon as one combining both traits: " as a reader you land on one side of the fence or the other, you're bound to be a little disappointed, because half of the book won't make you happy. ... So on the one hand, this is a rather lukewarm recommendation for these books, but on the other, they show the depth and creative power of the genre."Kallam, Clay. "'Showcase' Displays Sci-Fi Highbrow and Low" (review) in ''The Mercury News'', San Jose, CA, March 5, 2017, p. 5D.
The anthology was also reviewed by
Norman Spinrad
Norman Richard Spinrad (born September 15, 1940) is an American science fiction author, essayist, and critic. His fiction has won the Prix Apollo and been nominated for numerous awards, including the Hugo Award and multiple Nebula Awards.
Pe ...
in ''
Asimov's Science Fiction
''Asimov's Science Fiction'' is an American science fiction magazine which publishes science fiction and fantasy named after science fiction author Isaac Asimov. It is currently published by Penny Publications. From January 2017, the publication ...
'', v. 40, no. 10/11, Oct./Nov. 2016, and Lynne Bispham in ''
Vector
Vector most often refers to:
*Euclidean vector, a quantity with a magnitude and a direction
*Vector (epidemiology), an agent that carries and transmits an infectious pathogen into another living organism
Vector may also refer to:
Mathematic ...