Nebula Awards Showcase 2003 Part 1

Nancy Kress.

Nebula Awards Showcase 2003.

INTRODUCTION: ENTERING THE FIELD.

You always remember your first Nebula Awards banquet. Mine was Friday, May 3, 1985, at the Warwick Hotel in New York City. Young and starry-eyed, I was thrilled to be introduced to Donald Kingsbury and Harlan Ellison. At the banquet I sat next to A. J. Budrys and talked about advertising.

William Gibson won Best Novel forNeuromancer . I lost Best Novella to John Varley for "PRESS ENTER." He was gracious, I was gracious, and everyone went around saying, "It's an honor just to be nominated."

The Nebula banquet held April 27, 2002, at the Westin Crown Center hotel in Kansas City both was and was not different. I knew nearly everyone, and they all looked older. The awards format was by now completely familiar (". . . and the nominees are . . ."). As in 1985, some of the works I wanted to win did so, some didn't. And everyone still went around saying, "It's an honor just to be nominated."

Oddly enough for a genre supposedly looking toward the future, SF generates a lot of nostalgia. People reminisce endlessly about the great editors, writers, and stories of yesteryear, with "yesteryear"

sometimes defined as half a decade ago. Comparisons are made, trends dissected, time lines created. In one sense, all of speculative fiction is one huge time machine, in which past, present, and future are not distinctly separate ent.i.ties but rather coexisting ones, like rooms in the same house.

That seems especially true of this year's Nebula ballot, in three ways. First, the nominees range from new writers like Kelly Link and William Shunn, who have yet to publish their first novels, to veteran Jack Williamson. At ninety-four, Jack is a time machine all by himself, able to entertainingly tell you about SF in 1929 or in 1999.

Second, nearly all of the fiction nominated for the 2001 Nebula was not published in 2001. The reason is the esoteric nominating rules. The effect is to create an impression of temporal fluidity, as if January 2000 sat side-by-side with December 2001, separated by no more than the second it takes to turn a single page.

Third, the stories themselves bend time. Severna Park's winner, "The Cure for Everything," is rooted firmly in present-day biotech explorations-with terrifying implications for the future. Lucius Shepard's "Radiant Green Star" and James Morrow's " Auspicious Eggs" take place in the future but comment witheringly on messes we've made in the past. Andy Duncan's "The Pottawatomie Giant" sets its events in the past-two pasts, take your choice-in the hope of shaping a more benevolent present. Jim Kelly cavalierly disregards any temporal barriers whatsoever as he careens around time in "Undone." Connie Willis's novelPa.s.sages goes one step further, discarding time altogether in the world the brain creates for itself during-and maybe after-that major event, death.

Among science fiction writers, a common question is, "When did you first enter the field?" Usually theanswer is a simple number ("1968" or "two years ago"), but I think this question, like so much else in SF, is about more than the usual interpretation of time. The question also carries implications about the writing itself.

Look at that phrase "enter the field." All sorts of SF devices use fields, including, of course, time machines. A field can be defined as "a s.p.a.ce in which there are electromagnetic oscillations due to a radiator." In one sense, we all enter the field every time we read a good SF story. It radiates, and our minds oscillate in response. In fact, more than our minds oscillate: eyes may widen, breath shorten, muscles tighten. (If symptoms become extreme, consult your physician.) The stronger the story, the greater the field strength.

Not everyone, however, oscillates to the same kind of speculative fiction story. Some like hard SF, some dark fantasy, some satire, some social extrapolation. This has been known to cause astonishment ("You voted forthat ?") or even hard feelings ("That story does not belong on a Nebula ballot at all"). But, in the long run, I think this diversity is a strength. Hard SF, social-extrapolation SF, s.p.a.ce adventure, high fantasy, dark fantasy, urban fantasy, magic realism, satire, whimsy, alternate history, cyberpunk, apocalyptic SF . . . we are a rich field, or fields, ranging across category as well as across time, all radiating like mad. The Nebula stories in this volume, and the many nominees I did not have s.p.a.ce to include, demonstrate that. You may not resonate with all of them. But I'm sure you will find among them at least some whose fields you enter with pleasure.

Go and oscillate.

-Nancy Kress.

THE 2001 NEBULA AWARDS BALLOT.

The Nebula Awards are chosen by the members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

On April 26, 2002, they were given in five categories: short story: under 7,500 words; novelette: 7,500 to 17,499 words; novella: 17,500 to 39,999 words; novel: more than 40,000 words; and script for a dramatic presentation. SFWA members read and nominate the best SF stories and novels throughout the year, and the editor of the " Nebula Awards Report" collects these nominations and publishes them in a newsletter. At the end of the year, there is a preliminary ballot and then a final one to determine the winners. The awards are then presented at a formal banquet.

The Nebula Awards originated in 1965, from an idea by Lloyd Biggle Jr., then secretary-treasurer of SFWA. The award itself was originally designed by Judith Ann Blish from a sketch by Kate Wilhelm.

The official description reads, "a block of Lucite four to five inches square by eight to nine inches high into which a spiral nebula of metallic glitter and a geological specimen are embedded." Each award is different, and all are treasured.

BEST NOVEL.

(winner)The Quantum Rose , Catherine Asaro (Tor) Eternity's End, Jeffrey A. Carver (Tor)Mars Crossing, Geoffrey A. Landis (Tor) A Storm of Swords, George R. R. Martin (Bantam Spectra) The Collapsium, Wil McCarthy (Del Rey) The Tower at Stony Wood, Patricia A. McKillip (Ace) Pa.s.sage, Connie Willis (Bantam) BEST NOVELLA.

"A Roll of the Dice," Catherine Asaro (a.n.a.log) "May Be Some Time," Brenda Clough (a.n.a.log) "The Diamond Pit," Jack Dann (Fantasy & Science Fiction) "Radiant Green Star," Lucius Shepard (Asimov's) (winner) "The Ultimate Earth," Jack Williamson (a.n.a.log) BEST NOVELETTE.

"To Kiss the Star," Amy Sterling Casil (Fantasy & Science Fiction) "The Pottawatomie Giant," Andy Duncan (SCIFI.COM) "Undone," James Patrick Kelly (Asimov's) (winner) "Louise's Ghost," Kelly Link (Stranger Things Happen, Small Beer Press) "Auspicious Eggs," James Morrow (Fantasy & Science Fiction) "Dance of the Yellow-Breasted Luddites," William Shunn (Vanis.h.i.+ng Acts, edited by Ellen Datlow, Tor) BEST SHORT STORY.

"Kaddish for the Last Survivor," Michael A. Burstein (a.n.a.log) (winner) "The Cure for Everything," Severna Park (SCIFI.COM) "The Elephants on Neptune," Mike Resnick (Asimov's) "Mom and Dad at the Home Front," Sherwood Smith (Realms of Fantasy) "Wound the Wind," George Zebrowski (a.n.a.log) BEST SCRIPT.

O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Ethan Coen and Joel Coen (Touchstone/Universal) X-Men, Tom DeSanto and Bryan Singer (story) David Hayter (screenplay), (20th Century Fox) (winner)Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon , James Schamus, Kuo Jung Tsai, and Hui-Ling w.a.n.g (Sony Pictures Cla.s.sics)The Body, Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayerepisode)

SEVERNA PARK.

"Severna Park" is the pseudonym of an artist in two media: ceramics and words. She lives in Maryland with her partner of almost twenty years and makes her living teaching ceramics, but her literary output is obviously far more than a sideline. Severna's first novel,Speaking Dreams (1992), was a finalist for SF's Lambda Award. Her second novel,Hand of Prophecy (1998) was a Tiptree Award finalist.The Annunciate (2001) made finalist for both awards. And in 2001, Severna's short story "The Golem" was on the final Nebula ballot.

And now, after all these finalists, Severna has won for a story about an unexpected peril of genetic engineering. "The Cure for Everything" is notable for not only its thought-provoking story but also for its rain forest atmosphere. Severna says that she has never actually been to the Amazon jungle, but she does have "a well-thumbed collection ofNational Geographic s and a burning desire to dance the lambada in Rio." Clearly, those sufficed.

THE CURE FOR EVERYTHING.

Severna Park

Maria was smoking damp cigarettes with Horace, taking a break in the humid evening, when the truck full of wild jungle Indians arrived from Ipiranga. She heard the truck before she saw it, laboring through the Xingu Forest Preserve.

"Are we expecting someone?" she said to Horace.

Horace shook his head, scratched his thin beard, and squinted into the forest. Diesel fumes drifted with the scent of churned earth and cigarette smoke. The truck revved higher and lumbered through the Xingu Indian a.s.similation Center's main gates.

Except for the details of their face paint, the Indians behind the flatbed's fenced sides looked the same as all the other new arrivals; tired and scared in their own stoic way, packed together on narrow benches, everyone holding something-a baby, a drum, a cooking pot. Horace waved the driver to the right, down the hill toward Intake. Maria stared at the Indians and they stared back like she was a three-armed sideshow freak.

"Now you've scared the c.r.a.p out of them," said Horace, who was the director of theProjeto Brasileiro Nacional de a.s.similac?o do indio . "They'll think this place is haunted."

"They should have called ahead," said Maria. "I'd be out of sight, like a good little ghost."

Horace ground his cigarette into the thin rain forest soil. "Go on down to the A/V trailer." he said. "I'll give you a call in a couple of minutes." He made an attempt to smooth his rough hair, and started after thetruck.

Maria took a last drag on the cigarette and started in the opposite direction, toward the Audio/Visual trailer, where she could monitor what was going on in Intake without being seen. Horace was fluent in the major Amazonian dialects of Tupi-Guarani, Arawak, and Ge, but Maria had a gut-level understanding that he didn't. She was the distant voice in his ear, mumbling advice into a microphone as he interviewed tribe after refugee tribe. She was the one picking out the nuances in language, guiding him as he spoke, like a conscience.

Or like a ghost. She glanced over her shoulder, but the truck and the Indians were out of sight. No matter where they were from, the Indians had some idea of how white people and black people looked, but you'd think they'd never seen an albino in their lives. Her strange eyes, her pale, translucent skin over African features. To most of them, she was an unknown and sometimes terrifying magical ent.i.ty. To her . . . well . . . most of them were no more or less polite than anyone she'd ever met stateside.

She stopped to scuff her cigarette into the dirt, leaned over to pick up the b.u.t.t, and listened. Another engine. Not the heavy grind of a truck this time.

She started back toward the gate. In the treetops beyond Xingu's chain-link fence and scattered asphalt roofs, monkeys screamed and rushed through the branches like a visible wind. Headlights flickered between tree trunks and dense undergrowth and a Jeep lurched out of the forest. Bright red letters were stenciled over its hood:Hiller Project .

Maria waved the driver to a stop. He and his pa.s.senger were both wearing bright red jackets, withHiller Project embroidered over the front pocket. The driver had a broad, almost Mexican face. The pa.s.senger was a black guy, deeply blue-black, like he was fresh off the boat from Nigeria. He gave Maria a funny look, but she knew what it was. He'd never seen an albino either.

"We're following the truck from Ipiranga," the black man said in Portuguese. His name was stenciled over his heart.N'Lykli .

She pointed down the dirt road where the overhead floodlights cut the descending dusk. "Intake's over there," she said in the same language. "You should have called ahead. You're lucky we've got s.p.a.ce for them."

"Thanks," said N'Lykli, and the driver put the Jeep in gear.

"Hey," said Maria as they started to pull away. "What's a Hiller Project?"

Another cultural rescue group, she figured, but the black guy gave her a different funny look. She didn't recognize it and he didn't answer. The Jeep pulled away, jouncing down the rutted access road.

Maria groped in her pocket for another cigarette, took one out of the pack, then stuck it back in. Instead of heading for the A/V trailer, she followed them down the hill to Intake.

She found N'Lykli and the driver inside with Horace, arguing in Portuguese while four of Xingu's tribal staffers stood around listening, impa.s.sive in their various face paint, Xingu T-s.h.i.+rts, and khaki shorts.

"These people have to be isolated," the driver was saying. "They have to be isolated or we'll lose half of them to measles and the other half to the flu."

He seemed overly focused on this issue, even though Horace was nodding. Horace turned to one of thestaffers and started to give instructions in the man's native Arawak. "Drive them down to Area C. Take the long way so you don't go past the Waura camp."

"No," said N'Lykli. "We'll drive them. You just show us where they can stay for the night."

Horace raised an eyebrow. "For thenight? "

"We'll be gone in the morning," said N'Lykli. "We have permanent quarters set up for them south of here, in Xavantina."

Horace drew himself up. "Once they're on Xingu property, they're our responsibility. You can't just drop in and then take them somewhere else. This isn't a f.u.c.king motel."

The driver pulled a sheaf of papers out of his jacket and spread them on the table. Everything was stamped with official-looking seals andHiller Project in red letters over the top of every page. "I have authorization."

"So do I," said Horace. "And mine's part of a big fat grant fromPlano de Desenvolvimento Economico e Social in Brasilia."

The driver glanced at his Hiller companion.

"Let me make a phone call," said N'Lykli. "We'll get this straightened out."

Horace snorted and waved him toward Maria. "She'll show you where it is."

"This way," said Maria.

It wasn't that Horace would kick the Indians out if they didn't have authorization. He'd kick out the Hiller whatever-the-f.u.c.k-that-was Project first, and hold on to the Indians until he knew where they were from and what they were doing on the back of a truck. Indians were s.h.i.+pped out of settlements all over Brazil as an act of mercy before the last of the tribe was gunned down by cattle ranchers, rubber tappers, or gold miners. Xingu's big fat grant was a sugar pill that thePlano de Desenvolvimento gave out with one hand while stripping away thousands of years of culture with the other. Horace knew it. Everyone knew it.

N'Lykli followed her across the compound, between swirls of floodlit mosquitoes, through the evening din of cicadas. The phone was on the other side of the reserve, and Maria slowed down to make him walk beside her.

"So what's a Hiller Project?" she said.

"Oh," he said, "we're part of a preservation coalition."

"Which one?" asked Maria. "Rainforest Agencies?"

"Something like that."

"You should be a little more specific." Maria jerked a thumb in Horace's direction. "Horace thinks Rainforest Agencies is a front for the World Bank, and they're not interested in preservinganything . If he finds out that's who you work for, you'll never get your little Indian friends out of here."

N'Lykli hesitated. "Okay. You've heard of International Pharmaceuticals?"

"They send biologists out with the shamans to collect medicinal plants.""Right," he said. "IP underwrites part of our mission."

"You mean rain forest as medical resource?" Maria stopped. "So why're you taking Indians from Ipiranga to Xavantina? They won't know anything about the medicinal plants down there. Ipiranga's in an entirely different ecological zone."

He made a motion with his shoulders, a shrug, she thought, but it was more of a shudder. "There's a dam going up at Ipiranga," he said. "We had to relocate them."

"To Xavantina?" She couldn't think of anything down there except abandoned gold mines, maybe a rubber plantation or two. "Why can't you leave them with us?"

"Because they're . . . unique."

He was being so vague, so unforthcoming, she would have guessed that the entire tribe was going to be sold into gold-mining slavery, except something in his tone said that he really cared about what happened to them.

"Unique?" said Maria. "You mean linguistically? Culturally?"

He stuck his hands in his pockets. He licked his lips. After a while he said, "Genetically."

That was a first. "Oh yeah?" said Maria. "How's that?"

"Ipiranga's an extremely isolated valley. If it wasn't for the dam, these people might not have been discovered for another century. The other tribes in the area told us they were just a fairy tale." He glanced at her. "We don't think there's been any new blood in the Ipiranga population for five hundred years."

Maria let out a doubtful laugh. "They must be completely inbred. And sterile."

"You'd think so," said N'Lykli. "But they've been very careful."

A whole slew of genetic consequences rose up in her mind. Mutants. Family insanities and nightmarish physical defects pa.s.sed down the generations. She knew them all. "They'd have to have written records to keep so-and-so's nephew from marrying his mother's grandniece."

"They have an oral tradition you wouldn't believe. Their children memorize family histories back two hundred generations. Theyknow who they're not supposed to marry."

Maria blinked in the insect-laden night. "But they must have a few mistakes. Someone lies to their husband. Someone's got a girlfriend on the side-they can't be a hundred percent accurate."

"If they've made mistakes, none of them have survived. We haven't found any autism, or Down's." He finally gave her that three-armed sideshow freak look again. "Or Lucknow's."

Maria clenched her teeth, clenched her fists. "Excuse me?"

"Lucknow's Syndrome. Your albinism. That's what it is. Isn't it?"

She just stood there. She couldn't decide whether to sock him or start screaming. Not even Horace knew what.i.t was called. No one was supposed to mentionit . It was supposed to be as invisible as she was.