Asimov's Science Fiction - June 2014 (24 page)

The delays that the diskette drive enforces might be irritating if I were writing fiction, because sometimes fiction is written (at least in the first draft) in a white heat, and waiting for the computer might prove maddening. But I don't write much fiction any more. My last novel was published in 2002, and the encroachment of age leaves me without much desire to embark on any project that big again. Even short stories have become few and far between; I haven't written one since the early months of 2011, and at least for now I have no plans for doing any, though that could change quickly if some editor were to make me an offer I couldn't refuse.

I still do write the regular column for
Asimov's,
though, and various other essays from time to time, introductions to other people's books, and the like, and, because I still prefer to work with my familiar keyboard and the familiar whiteon-black screen and the fine Arrow software of yesteryear, I've learned to do all that on the diskette drive, backing it up for safety's sake to the laptop, and then taking my diskette over to the iMac to convert the new piece into a Word document and e-mail it off to its publisher. Doing business or financial bookkeeping that way plainly makes no sense, though. Some day the rest of the Compaq will die and I'll lose whatever documents may be stranded on it; and the Arrow software that does my arithmetical computations is incompatible with anything now in use, so I can't simply take backups of my business records over to the iMac and feed them into Excel or Word. Therefore I've been busy converting everything that involves mathematical computation into new Excel files—personal and professional tax files, investment data, earnings records, and so on.

It's been a long and wearisome job, and after two months I'm not done with it yet; but once again, as was the case when I had to make the switch from the Compucorp to the Compaq nearly a quarter of a century ago, I recognize it as a blessing in disguise. Instead of keeping those records on a computer almost a quarter of a century old, using software that no one else knows how to use, I have them on my shiny modern iMac, backed up onto a second in-house iMac and also onto an external hard drive. And all the stories and novels that I wrote on the Compaq were long ago backed up and converted to Word files on the iMac, along with much of my pre-computer fiction, which various publishers have scanned and converted for me. So I no longer wonder, at the beginning of each day, whether this is the day that the computer catastrophe arrives at last. Other catastrophes, yes: there are always plenty of those to worry about, a 9.3 earthquake, a home-invasion robbery, a replay of the terrible firestorm of 1989 that destroyed three thousand homes less than a mile from where I live. But I'm not going to turn on my computer some morning and discover that I have lost access to everything I've written in the last couple of decades. There's comfort in knowing that I have successfully lived on into the post-Compaq age, or, more accurately, have been dragged into it, after at least a decade of worrying about what would happen when the old machine finally gave out.

IT'S AN HONOR JUST TO BE NOMINATED

origin story

Although I am writing in the fall of 2013, by the time you read this the nominees for the
Science Fiction Writers of America Nebula Award
sfwa.org/nebula-awards
>, will have been announced. While there are good arguments to be made that we spend too much time thinking about the Nebulas,
Hugos
thehugoawards.org
>,
World Fantasy Awards
worldfantasy.org/awards
> and the like, the fact is that not only do awards provide yearly snapshots of the state of science fiction and fantasy, but they often drive the critical discourse about what our genres do best and what they could do without.

The Nebula Award was the brainchild of
Lloyd Biggle Jr.
sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/biggle_lloyd_jr
>, who was the secretary/treasurer of the fledgling Science Fiction Writers of America in 1965. Biggle calculated that the cost of the awards and their attendant banquet ceremony could be paid for from sales of an anthology of nominees and winners. That yearly
anthology
pyrsf.com/nebula awards2013.htm
> continues to be published to this day, although the cost of the expanded
Nebula Weekend
www.sfwa.org/nebula-awards/nebula-weekend
> exceeds the income it now brings in. The handsome trophy, designed by
J. A. Lawrence
sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/lawrence_j_a
> from a drawing by
Kate Wilhelm
katewilhelm.com
>, has changed little over the years. It takes the form of a transparent block of Lucite, 8x4x4 inches in size, in which is embedded a spiral nebula of glitter suspended over rock crystals. The mechanics of nominating and voting, on the other hand, have been the source of continuing controversy since day one, with more rule changes than anyone cares to remember. For example, in the first year there was no preliminary ballot or short-list, and so the voters of SFWA had to pick their favorites from some seventy nominees! The following year saw the first revision to the rules, resulting in just fourteen finalists.

Five Nebulas in four categories were awarded to that first class of 1966. The winner for best novel was
Frank Herbert's
Dune
dunenovels.com
>, the tied winners for novella were "The Saliva Tree" by
Brian W. Aldiss
brianaldiss.co.uk
> and "He Who Shapes" by
Roger Zelazny
sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/zelazny_roger
>, the novelette was Zelazny's "The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth," and the short story was
Harlan Ellison
harlanellison.com
> "
'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22 Repent,_Harlequin!%22_Said_the_Tick tockman
>. It was a stellar selection; almost all of these stories have stood the test of time.

But consider, for a moment, the snapshot of our genre in the mid-sixties which that first slate of nominees provides. Of the seventy nominees, just one was a woman, Jane Beauclerk, a pseudonym for
M. J. Engh
mjengh.com
>. And with very few exceptions, the nominated stories were all science fiction. Jump ahead to 2012, when
John Kessel
http:// www4.ncsu.edu/~tenshi/index2.html
> and I edited the
Nebula Showcase
anthology; there were more women than men nominated, and more fantasy than science fiction on the final ballot.

Though not exactly Nebulas, SFWA has created three new literary awards since: the Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation, the An dre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy, and the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award. The first incarnation of the Bradbury began in 1992, but due to very little interest from the Hollywood nominees, it went on hiatus, only to be revived in 1999. However, the attention this award gets from the film and television community remains minimal. The Norton Award was first given in 2006 and has been much more successful in bringing recognition to worthy novels and novelists. The first Grand Master award, a career honor given to living writers, was bestowed on
Robert A. Heinlein
heinleinsociety.org
> in 1975. Readers with long memories may recall that we reviewed the
list of Grand Masters
asimovs.com/_issue_0511/Onthenet.shtml
> in this space back in 2005. Since then, Harlan Ellison,
James Gunn
sfcenter.ku.edu/bio.htm
>,
Michael Moorcock
multiverse.org
>,
Harry Harrison
michaelowencarroll.com/hh
>,
Joe Haldeman
www.joehaldeman.com
>,
Connie Willis
sftv.org/cw
>, and
Gene Wolfe
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Wolfe
> have joined their storied ranks.

keeping score

Since the first Nebulas were awarded in 1966, there have been two hundred and four winners by my (rough) count. This includes several ties, along with the extra Nebulas awarded in those years when they were given to dramatic presentations and scripts (now SFWA offers the Bradbury Award instead) and minus the award that
Lisa Tuttle
lisatuttle.co.uk>
declined in 1982. In that time, those most often called to the podium have been Connie Willis with seven wins,
Ursula K. Le Guin
ursulakleguin.com
> with six, and
Greg Bear
,
Joe Haldeman, and
Robert Silverberg
majipoor.com
> in a three-way tie with five. Meanwhile, Robert Silverberg has racked up the most nominations with twenty-two, followed by Gene Wolfe with twenty, and Ursula K. Le Guin and Kate Wilhelm tied with eighteen.

Of course, for every winner, there is usually a raft of losers non-winners. That is the way of awards, alas.
Avram Davidson
avramdavidson.org
> and
Bruce Sterling
sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/sterling_bruce
> are currently tied for the most nominations without a win with ten each, followed by
Thomas M. Disch
sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/disch_thomas_m
> with nine and
R. A. Lafferty
mulle-kybernetik.com/RAL
> and
Maureen McHugh
sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/mchugh_maureen_f
> with seven. Even those who have Nebulas on their shelves have lost more often than they have won. Gene Wolfe holds the record with eighteen losses; Robert Silverberg has seventeen; and
Jack McDevitt
>,
Michael Swanwick
michaelswanwick.com
>, and Kate Wilhelm have lost fifteen times.

For all the intrepid statisticians out there, here's the breakdown of wins and losses by category. Ursula K. Le Guin has received the most Nebulas for Best Novel, with four wins out of six nominations. On the other hand,
Philip K. Dick
philip kdickfans.com
> and
Poul Anderson
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poul_Anderson
> were both nominated five times without winning.
Nancy Kress
sff.net/people/nan kress
> has won the most Nebulas for Best Novella with three out of her six nominations.
Michael Bishop
www.michaelbishop-writer.com
> has seven nominations without a win.
Ted Chiang
sfencyclopedia.com/entry/chiang_ted
> has the most wins in the novelette category, with a perfect record of three nominations and three awards. At six nominations without a win, the all time novelette loser is... um...
me
jimkelly.net
>. Harlan Ellison has three Nebulas for his eight nominations. Michael Swanwick has the most nominations for short story without winning at six.

so what?

I admit that I was hesitant to draw your attention to the stats above, even though they are easily available on Wikipedia and the invaluable
Science Fiction Awards Database
sfadb.com
>. Why? Because to some extent it reinforces the zero sum mindset that tends to dominate the awards. Immedi ately after ballots are announced, all the nominees are winners. Friends send congratulatory messages; those fortunate few get their names printed in all the best places. Nominees remain in this exalted state right up until the moment the Nebula banquet begins. Then comes Squirm Time. Even if they have convinced themselves that they don't really care and besides they have no chance of winning and of course the whole enterprise of giving awards to works of art is silly, which is why they haven't bothered to write a speech, if they are in the banquet hall they must necessarily breathe the awards atmosphere, overheated as it is by seething ambition. Any anxiety, even if it is completely under control, becomes part of the spectacle. When the winners are announced, the bereft nominees are expected to applaud, smile tightly, and utter the awards mantra with as much grace as they can muster.

It's an honor just to be nominated.

In the immediate aftermath of a Nebula Awards banquet, that commonplace may not offer much consolation. But I would argue that winners and nominees, colleagues and fans, ought to acknowledge its truth. Imperfect as they are, the Nebulas have showcased some amazing fiction over the years and have pointed readers toward work they might otherwise have overlooked. With all the free publicity, a nomination can help launch a fledgling career or boost a sagging one.

Last year, the astute British critic Paul Kincaid published
a dyspeptic view of awards
ttdlabyrinth.wordpress.com/2013/04/07/a-dyspeptic-view-of-awards
> on his blog. In examining "the process, the nature, the character of awards" he limns the flaws in awards culture. Although he focuses on the Hugo and the
British Science Fiction Association Awards
bsfa.co.uk/bsfa-awards
>, his spot-on commentary applies to all awards. Kincaid asks what awards are for, then discounts claims that they honor the best, since best is, after all, clearly hyperbole, and even "one of the best" is slippery terminology that depends on standards that resist consensus definition. Are they then popularity contests? The reality is that there is too much to read across too many genres. Some (?)... most (?)... voters read only the works of a few of their favorite authors and none of the other nominees, and then mark their ballots. So what then does popular mean? " 'Popular' is thus no more coherent, cohesive or explicable than 'best' as a description of what the award is honouring." In that case, what are awards about? "All awards, I would argue, are ways of asserting ownership by claiming the right to decide what is or is not to be acclaimed as the exemplars, the stars, the best of the genre."