Nebula Awards 25

It's still two years until officially the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) change their name to the Science fiction AND FANTASY Writers of America (with the F in SFWA changing from Fiction to Fantasy) (in 1991) but unofficially it had already occurred two years *before*, in 1987. This means if your hoping to read science fiction in these anthologies after that date, it's hit or miss. Fortunately the SF collections are still pretty good for the following few years before the shorter works awards eventually become corrupted by the Speculative Fiction writers branch of the SFWA. (The Nebula *novels* are definitely to be approached with extreme caution as none to few are awarded to actual science fiction novels.) But the anthology of this year, 1989, is good. All of three stories awarded the Nebula are good. If you're not familiar with the short fiction breakdown, they loosely follow the 15/30/60 rule of thumb. Roughly: Short story is about 15 pages Novelette is about 30 pages Novella is about 60 pages These are rough estimates. The length could be plus or minus 10 pages or more from the above. First off the novella winner "The Mountains of Mourning" by Lois McMaster Bujold is probably the most solid. Bujold won her first significant SF award last year for her novel Falling Free (although it's debatable on whether that was deserved), but it apparently has given much, much recognition considering the numerous Nebula and particularly Hugo Awards for her novels that she's won. This novella, I believe, is one of her first entries into her Vorkosigan universe, and his story is about Miles Vorkosigan on his first assignment after graduating from the academy on the planet Barrayar. Her writing is brilliant. You can almost feel the air shimmering in the heat and hear the bugs in the air from her writing. "Ripples in the Dirac Sea" by Geoffrey A. Landis, the Nebula short story winner, quite briefly is about time travel in particular back to the 1960's and is brilliant. This has all the nostalgia of that time. Landis has set up the rules for time travel and because of the circumstances he's somewhat `trapped' there, but trapped as in being trapped in paradise from the way it's written. Very enjoyable "At the Rialto" by Connie Willis, the Nebula novelette winner, is quite a funny story and can be appreciated by anyone who had to go to a conference, or even more so by anyone's whose ever had their hotel reservations screwed up. There are other fictional stories in this collection, but what are really worth reading are the several essays. One being "What is Science Fiction?" by Damon Knight. Damon Knight founded the SFWA in 1965 and so he knows quite a bit about it. His essay is actually from 1977 but parts were updated for 1990. In the 1990 section he apparently is not happy with the SFWA becoming amalgamated with Fantasy and as we all now know his hopes and visions have failed. This is what he writes: "I think it's a mistake