The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc. (SFWA) spotlights some of the best science fiction and fantasy published in 2018 with the release of The Nebula Awards Showcase 54.This latest volume of the prestigious anthology series contains works that were nominated for or won the 54th Annual Nebula Awards, as voted by SFWA members. Nibedita Sen, a Hugo, Nebula, and Astounding Award-nominated writer and editor, edited the volume and contributed an introduction.
The Showcase’s table of contents includes the following material (winners are noted by an asterisk):
- Introduction by Nibedita Sen
- “It’s Dangerous to Go Alone” by Kate Dollarhyde
- “Into the Spider-verse: A Classic Origin Story in Bold New Color” by Brandon O’Brien
- “The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington” by P. Djèlí Clark*
- “Interview for the End of the World” by Rhett C. Bruno
- “And Yet” by A. T. Greenblatt
- “A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies” by Alix E. Harrow
- “The Court Magician” by Sarah Pinsker
- “The Only Harmless Great Thing” by Brooke Bolander*
- “The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections” by Tina Connolly
- “An Agent of Utopia” by Andy Duncan
- “The Substance of My Lives, The Accidents of Our Births” by José Pablo Iriarte
- “The Rule of Three” by Lawrence M. Schoen
- “Messenger” by R.R. Virdi & Yudhanjaya Wijeratne
- Excerpt: “The Tea Master and the Detective” by Aliette de Bodard*
- Excerpt: “Fire Ant” by Jonathan P. Brazee
- Excerpt: “The Black God’s Drums” by P. Djèlí Clark
- Excerpt: “Alice Payne Arrives” by Kate Heartfield
- Excerpt: “Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach” by Kelly Robson
- Excerpt: “Artificial Condition: The Murderbot Diaries” by Martha Wells
- Excerpt: The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal*
Anthology editor Nibedita Sen is a Hugo, Nebula, and Astounding Award-nominated queer Bengali writer from Calcutta and a graduate of Clarion West 2015 whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in Anathema: Spec from the Margins, Podcastle, Nightmare and Fireside. “The works nominated in 2019 represent a broad range of topics and perspectives that reflect the diversity in science fiction and fantasy being published today,” Sen said. “It was an honor to edit this showcase to represent so many voices.”
The Nebula Awards Showcase #54 is available at all major online retailers for $19.99 for the print edition, $9.99 for the digital version, and for library borrowing through Overdrive. For the complete list of retailers, visit the The Nebula Awards Showcase #54 webpage at the SFWA website here.
[Based on a press release.]
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I don’t know if many other readers feel this way, but I’m not at all interested in reading “excerpts” of longer stories.
StephenfromOttawa says don’t know if many other readers feel this way, but I’m not at all interested in reading “excerpts” of longer stories.
I’m puzzled by these too as they’re not what I was expecting to be here given just many great short stories exist. I’ll be passing on this.
Cat Eldridge: I’m puzzled by these too as they’re not what I was expecting to be here given just many great short stories exist. I’ll be passing on this.
To be fair, Nibedita Sen only had the Nebula Finalists to work with, and since this was for the year that the 20BooksTo50K people slated a bunch of crap onto the ballot in the short fiction and Norton categories, she has my profound sympathy for the shitty hand she was dealt.
JJ: And yet would you like to guess from among the 2019 Nebula finalists in the novelette and short story categories which is the only story absent from the anthology? I wouldn’t know why that is, but the story is Richard Fox’s.
Mike Glyer: And yet would you like to guess from among the 2019 Nebula finalists in the novelette and short story categories which is the only story absent from the anthology? I wouldn’t know why that is
I noticed that, too. It is not outside the realm of possibility that the racist rants posted by him and his sockpuppet at Camestros’ blog had something to do with that.
JJ: After they covered for him on the SFWA website, erasing all vestiges that they’d ever had a public link to the story, and saying nothing against his harassment of Camestros and File 770 with false claims of piracy, why would we think SFWA has a problem with him? It might be Fox’s decision that it’s not included.
Mike Glyer: why would we think SFWA has a problem with him?
SFWA’s willingness to cover for him and Sen’s ability to exercise editorial discretion over the contents of the anthology are two different things, I suspect. Past Nebula anthologies have not included every single finalist work; that may be due to authorial declination or editorial decision.
Re: excerpts in Nebula Awards Showcase
The showcase has featured novel excerpts in previous editions, though not normally as high a number as this year. I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand having excerpts in an anthology makes it seem like I’m buying an advertorial rather than the full product.
But then I remember that my first encounter with “The Hobbit” (“The Golden Treasury of Children’s Literature”) & Neal Stephenson’s “Snow Crash” (gaming magazine “Pyramid” from Steve Jackson games) were both as excerpts that intrigued me so much, I simply had to have the full thing.
So as a marketing device, it can work?