Nebula Awards Showcase 2018 Read online

  ALSO AVAILABLE:

  Nebula Awards Showcase 2017

  edited by Julie E. Czerneda

  Nebula Awards Showcase 2016

  edited by Mercedes Lackey

  Nebula Awards Showcase 2015

  edited by Greg Bear

  Nebula Awards Showcase 2014

  edited by Kij Johnson

  Nebula Awards Showcase 2013

  edited by Catherine Asaro

  Nebula Awards Showcase 2012

  edited by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel

  Published 2018 by Pyr®, an imprint of Prometheus Books

  Nebula Awards Showcase 2018. Copyright © 2018 by Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA, Inc.). All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the internet or a website without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Any characters, organizations, products, locales, and events portrayed either are products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously.

  Cover illustration © Galen Dara

  Cover design by Nicole Sommer-Lecht

  Cover © Prometheus Books

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  ISBN 978–1–63388–504–2 (paperback)

  ISBN 978-1-63388-505-9 (ebook)

  ISSN 2473–277X

  Printed in the United States of America

  For the members of SFWA who had the bad grace to elect me twice to be their president.

  PERMISSIONS

  “Introduction” © 2018 by Jane Yolen.

  “A Fist of Permutations in Lightning and Wildflowers” © 2016 by Alyssa Wong, first published on Tor.com, March 2016.

  “Sabbath Wine” © 2016 by Barbara Krasnoff, first published in Clockwork Phoenix 5, April 2016.

  “Things with Beards” © 2016 by Sam J. Miller, first published in Clarkesworld, June 2016.

  “Welcome to the Medical Clinic at the Interplanetary Relay Station | Hours Since the Last Patient Death: 0” © 2016 by Caroline M. Yoachim, first published in Lightspeed, March 2016.

  “This Is Not a Wardrobe Door” © 2016 by A. Merc Rustad, first published in Fireside Fiction, January 2016.

  “Our Talons Can Crush Galaxies” © 2016 by Brooke Bolander, first published in Uncanny, November 2016.

  “Seasons of Glass and Iron” © 2016 by Amal El-Mohtar, first published in The Starlit Wood: New Fairy Tales, October 2016.

  Excerpt from The Jewel and Her Lapidary ©2016 by Fran Wilde, first published by Tor.com Publishing, May 2016.

  “Blood Grains Speak Through Memories” © 2016 by Jason Sanford, first published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, March 2016.

  “Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea” © 2016 by Sarah Pinsker, first published in Lightspeed, February 2016.

  “The Orangery” © 2016 by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam, first published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, December 2016.

  “You’ll Surely Drown Here If You Stay” © 2016 by Alyssa Wong, first published in Uncanny, May 2016.

  “The Long Fall Up” © 2016 by William Ledbetter, first published in Fantasy and Science Fiction, May 2016.

  Excerpt from Every Heart a Doorway © 2016 by Seanan McGuire, first published by Tor.com Publishing, April 2016.

  Excerpt from All the Birds in the Sky © 2016 by Charlie Jane Anders, first published by Tor, January 2016.

  Excerpt from Arabella of Mars © 2016 by David D. Levine, first published by Tor, July 2016.

  Cover art © Galen Dara, for “These Constellations Will Be Yours” written by Elaine Cuyegkeng, published at Strange Horizons, August 2017.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  INTRODUCTION

  Jane Yolen

  ABOUT THE SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY WRITERS OF AMERICA

  ABOUT THE NEBULA AWARDS

  2016 NEBULA AWARDS BALLOT

  Nebula Award Nominees: Best Short Story

  “A Fist of Permutations in Lightning and Wildflowers”

  Alyssa Wong

  “Sabbath Wine”

  Barbara Krasnoff

  “Things with Beards”

  Sam J. Miller

  “Welcome to the Medical Clinic at the Interplanetary Relay Station │ Hours Since the Last Patient Death: 0”

  Caroline M. Yoachim

  “This Is Not a Wardrobe Door”

  A. Merc Rustad

  “Our Talons Can Crush Galaxies”

  Brooke Bolander

  Nebula Award Winner: Best Short Story

  “Seasons of Glass and Iron”

  Amal El-Mohtar

  Nebula Award Nominees: Best Novelette

  Excerpt from The Jewel and Her Lapidary

  Fran Wilde

  “Blood Grains Speak Through Memories”

  Jason Sanford

  “Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea”

  Sarah Pinsker

  “The Orangery”

  Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam

  “You’ll Surely Drown Here If You Stay”

  Alyssa Wong

  Nebula Award Winner: Best Novelette

  “The Long Fall Up”

  William Ledbetter

  Nebula Award Winner: Best Novella

  Excerpt from Every Heart a Doorway

  Seanan McGuire

  Nebula Award Winner: Best Novel

  Excerpt from All the Birds in the Sky

  Charlie Jane Anders

  ABOUT THE ANDRE NORTON AWARD

  Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy

  Excerpt from Arabella of Mars

  David D. Levine

  PAST NEBULA AWARD WINNERS

  ABOUT THE EDITOR

  ABOUT THE COVER ARTIST

  INTRODUCTION

  This was an odd year for the Nebulas.

  No, let me rephrase that because every year is an odd year for the Nebulas. Every year, some of the stories and books you and I voted for didn’t win or the ones you or I hadn’t been able to get into, even after multiple attempts, did. There was a challenge to a book’s authenticity or provenance. Sad people wanted to win Nebulas through intimidation or stealth. The odds-on favorite movie did a nose dive. You get the picture.

  Or someone you barely heard of was named the Grand Master.

  (Raises hand.)

  That’s why it seemed to me to be an exceptionally odd year.

  I was in my writing room supposedly—um—writing. The phone rang.

  Oddly enough, it was neither a cold call nor a warning from the Hatfield, MA, police chief about scams targeted at the elderly. (My semi-official title these days.)

  In fact, it was Cat Rambo who’d emailed me a day or two earlier to set up a phone date. For the uninitiated, Cat has been and will be SFWA’s Glorious Leader for a while. As I had been for two years back in the late 1980s. Cat—as other presidents before her—was rigorous about sounding-out past presidents on SFWA matters, so I assumed it was one of those calls.

  I said, “Hi, Cat, how can I help you?”

  She said, “What would you say if I asked you to become our next Grand Master?”

  I laughed. “Nice one. So what’s the actual problem? What do you need to talk
about?”

  “No, actually, that’s it,” she said.

  “Well, first of all, you’d have to poll the past presidents and I doubt you’d get an overwhelming vote.”

  “Already did and it’s unanimous.”

  We both knew there was a bit of fudging there. I mean—I had a bunch of negatives. Most of my writing is not sf. (Let’s consider that “most”: There will be, by the time this book comes out, 365 other books of mine floating around, possibly even in outer space and off to that Mars colony that certain conspiracy theorists are saying has already begun!) Most of my books are about nature or history, or are fantasy or a combination of all three. Most are for young readers. And . . .

  “Done deal,” she said. “Can you come to the Nebs?”

  For the first time in ages—you only have to ask my nearest and dearest and anyone I have ever been on a panel with—I was speechless.

  I hung up. I did the happy dance. And then marveled at what an extremely odd year this was going to be.

  I remembered when I was president of SFWA, my choice for Grand Master had been Isaac Asimov. No one could contest that. The only question the past presidents had was: “Why wasn’t he a Grand Master before?”

  My point exactly. I called him, left a message to call me back. He called back and I was out. The message he left on my machine was: “Tell Jane I called. My name is Isaac Asimov. A-S-I-M-O-V.” The family had a good laugh about that one.

  When I did finally connect with him, he was all Isaac A-S-I-M-O-V—funny, overcome, full of himself, and self-demeaning at the same time. His first question to me was, “Can I tell Clarke about it yet?” (Arthur C. Clarke, that is.) I understood—it was an old rivalry.

  Months later at the Nebula Awards, because of a scheduling snafu that put the Nebs on the same weekend as Passover, we held a seder open to anyone—Jewish or not—who wanted to attend.

  I sat next to Isaac.

  During the (always interminably) long reading of the Haggadah and its history, Isaac took out a pen and began writing something on his paper napkin.

  Of course I peeked.

  Wouldn’t you? It was Isaac A-S-I-M-O-V after all. And he was writing a limerick.

  It began:

  There once was a khan named Attila.

  Of mercy had not a scintilla.

  Da-da’-da-da-da’

  Da-da’-da-da-da’

  Da-da-dad-da-da-d-da-da magillah!

  (Alas, I don’t remember all of it.)

  “Isaac,” I whispered, that last line doesn’t scan.”

  “Of course it does,” he snapped.

  I read it over again silently. Shook my head. “Isaac, that last line doesn’t scan.”

  “Don’t be silly,” he said, dismissively.

  “Isaac,” I said, “you know more than I do about almost everything in the universe, but I know that last line doesn’t scan.”

  He held up his hand and addressed the people at the seder with a booming voice. “Stop! I want you to listen to something. Jane says this last line doesn’t scan.” And of course he, being Isaac A-S-I-M-O-V and the newest Grand Master besides, we were all in awe to one degree or another, and we stopped the seder to listen.

  He read the limerick out loud. Waited for applause. And the entire table full of writers, editors, readers said together, “Isaac, that last line doesn’t scan!”

  At which point he crumpled the napkin, poem and all, and shoved it into his pocket. Turned his back to me. Finished his meal in silence.

  Though the next day, when he was officially awarded his Grand Mastership, he winked at me. So I suppose all was forgiven.

  I don’t think that particular limerick was ever published—though I may be wrong, and some fan will certainly let me know.

  So, this has been an odd year for the Nebulas, but they are always odd in some way or another. I remember being at one where a fist fight between two very famous authors (both male) broke out. A hotel guard—very large with a hand gun strapped to his waist, jackboots, and a name tag that said (I am NOT making this up) LUCIOUS—broke up the fight.

  But still we celebrated the winners. The results might not have been what you or I or everyone wanted or expected. But when really good stories—even great stories—go up against one another in the SFWA version of the O. K. Corral, there’s going to be a winner and. . .

  Well, not a loser any more. Just honor books. Now we have a time at the end of the Nebulas ceremony for the honor book winners’ speeches to be read out loud. I even got to read a friend’s honor acceptance speech for her because she had been scheduled somewhere else, and I gave it both the gravitas and the hype it deserved.

  So though we always said it was an honor before, now it truly is an honor to be nominated. As someone who was nominated (and in the old terms “lost”) a number of Nebulas, I would have loved to have given my intended speech instead of scrunching it in my pocket sadly, while dutifully applauding the winner. Yes, I admit it—I wrote out each speech just in case I won so I didn’t babble a Sally Fields response.

  Parenthetically, the two times I have won the Nebulas, I wasn’t even at the con that year, and someone had to accept for me. Maybe I should consider doing that some more.

  So here are some of my quick thoughts about what did win the 2016 Nebula, some of which you have ahead of you in this book.

  First—because the award is closest to my heart—the winner of the Andre Norton award is an Andre Norton-type book with a kick! A book that harkens back to those old, worn-out paperback sf-fantasy novels but manages to haul them into the future, and pummels the prose into brilliant shape with a touch of steampunk as well: Arabella of Mars by David D. Levine, which should also be a winner for sweetest dedication ever.

  Charlie Jane Anders’s novel All the Birds in the Sky is a powerful blend of science fiction and fantasy plus lovely writing. The cast of characters are so well delineated that the novel can also serve as a writing lesson for those of you wanting to try that same doubled genre.

  The Novella winner, Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire, is a lyrical, shimmering, surprising novella that brings us back to our childhood reading and forward into murder, magic, mayhem and deep-soul fantasy.

  The Novelette winner, “The Long Fall Up” by William Ledbetter, is true science fiction with an emphasis on the science. Ledbetter, a thirty-year veteran of the aerospace industry is a strong writer, and he’s not faking the science. The politics of birth and the place of women and pregnant women in space is a story that leaves a deep impression.

  Amal El-Mohtar’s winning short story is the crown jewel in the anthology. As a folklorist manqué, I love how she plays with elements from folk tales. Her story is “Seasons of Glass and Iron” (from The Starlit Wood anthology). It’s a melding of several fairy tales. First, she has used the Norwegian “The Princess on the Glass Hill” to delineate one of the two main characters and problems. The second character seems to be from “East of the Sun & West of the Moon” combined with the Romanian story “The Sleeping Prince,” and perhaps “The Black Bull of Norroway,” all difficult and intriguing tales that I know and love. But Amal re-animates and re-imagines them through a feminist telescope, bringing the far-away and once upon a time into a newer, sharper focus.

  Odd winners? You betcha, but in the best possible way.

  —Jane Yolen

  ABOUT THE SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY WRITERS OF AMERICA

  The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc., includes among its members many active writers of science fiction and fantasy. According to the bylaws of the organization, its purpose “shall be to promote the furtherance of the writing of science fiction, fantasy, and related genres as a profession.” SFWA informs writers on professional matters, protects their interests, and helps them in dealings with agents, editors, anthologists, and producers of nonprint media. It also strives to encourage public interest in and appreciation of science fiction and fantasy.

  Anyone may become an active member
of SFWA after the acceptance of and payment for one professionally published novel, one professionally produced dramatic script, or three professionally published pieces of short fiction. Only science fiction, fantasy, horror, or other prose fiction of a related genre, in English, shall be considered as qualifying for active membership. Beginning writers who do not yet qualify for active membership but have published qualifying professional work may join as associate members; other classes of membership include affiliate members (editors, agents, reviewers, and anthologists), estate members (representatives of the estates of active members who have died), and institutional members (high schools, colleges, universities, libraries, broadcasters, film producers, futurist groups, and individuals associated with such an institution).

  Readers are invited to visit the SFWA site at www.sfwa.org.

  ABOUT THE NEBULA AWARDS

  Shortly after the founding of SFWA in 1965, its first secretary-treasurer, Lloyd Biggle, Jr., proposed that the organization periodically select and publish the year’s best stories. This notion evolved into the elaborate balloting process, an annual awards banquet, and a series of Nebula anthologies.

  Throughout every calendar year, members of SFWA read and recommend novels and stories for the Nebula Awards. The editor of the Nebula Awards Report collects the recommendations and publishes them in the SFWA Forum and on the SFWA members’ private web page. At the end of the year, the NAR editor tallies the endorsements, draws up a preliminary ballot containing ten or more recommendations, and sends it all to active SFWA members. Under the current rules, each work enjoys a one-year eligibility period from its date of publication in the United States. If a work fails to receive ten recommendations during the one-year interval, it is dropped from further Nebula consideration.

  The NAR editor processes the results of the preliminary ballot and then compiles a final ballot listing the five most popular novels, novellas, novelettes, and short stories. For purposes of the award, a novel is determined to be 40,000 words or more; a novella is 17,500 to 39,999 words; a novelette is 7,500 to 17,499 words, and a short story is 7,499 words or fewer. Additionally, each year SFWA impanels a member jury, which is empowered to supplement the five nominees with a sixth choice in cases where it feels a worthy title was neglected by the membership at large. Thus, the appearance of more than five finalists in a category reflects two distinct processes: jury discretion and ties.