Nebula Awards Showcase: The Year's Best SF and Fantasy Chosen by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of American

There's a year in SF etc. roundup, pieces from Daniel Keyes, a list of previous winners and current winners, and a little more. Story from the grandmaster is rubbish, though. Pretty poor at those these anthologies, it seems. Standout work from Ted Chiang and Michael Swanwick, though. A 3.57 average, with the added material, enough to make this a 4. Nebula Awards Showcase 2001 : Story of Your Life - Ted Chiang Nebula Awards Showcase 2001 : Mars Is No Place for Children - Mary A. Turzillo Nebula Awards Showcase 2001 : The Cost of Doing Business - Leslie What Nebula Awards Showcase 2001 : Epilogue from Parable of the Talents - Octavia E. Butler Nebula Awards Showcase 2001 : The Wedding Album - David Marusek Nebula Awards Showcase 2001 : Radiant Doors - Michael Swanwick Nebula Awards Showcase 2001 : Judas Danced - Brian W. Aldiss Predicting language. 4.5 out of 5 Sick girl trouble fraternal correspondence dowsing sojourn. 3.5 out of 5 Professional victim. 4 out of 5 'She never stopped working. For Earthseed, she used herself up several times over, speaking, haining, politicking, writing, establishing schools that boarded and educated promising students, rich and poor alike. She raised money and directed it into areas of study that she believed would bring fulfillment of the Earthseed Destiny closer. She sent students to universities and helped ihem to fulfill whatever potential she saw in them.' 3 out of 5 If you think the only intelligent conversation you can get is talking to yourself, Sim Polis is the place for you. 3 out of 5 Future Ownership fightback. 4.5 out of 5 Caesar Cheezer. 2.5 out of 5

Celebrating their 35th anniversary, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) collect the final award-winning short fiction of the old millennium in Nebula Awards Showcase 2001, edited by SF legend Robert Silverberg. This volume gathers together the winning short story, novella, and novellette - plus selected runners-up and non-fiction commentaries. Highlights include:"Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang (Best Novella), in which a woman learns to break away from her time-constrained thinking while deciphering the language of visiting aliens."Mars is No Place for Children" by Mary A. Turzillo (Best Novellette), the heart-rending tale of a young girl growing up on Mars, where the ever-present solar radiation is tragically lethal to kids."The Cost of Doing Business" by Leslie What (Best Short Story), telling of a future where "surrogates" agree to act as stand-ins, enduring whatever unpleasantness their wealthy employers wish to avoid.Two excellent runners-up are included: David Marusek's "The Wedding Album," a story told from the point of view of holographic simulacrums who experience a virtual revolt against their flesh-and-blood progenitors; and Michael Swanwick's "Radiant Doors," set in a huge refugee camp which exists as the result of a time-war.The anthology also includes the epilogue from Octavia E. Butler's Nebula-winning novel Parable of the Talents, an early short story from Brian W. Aldiss (who was proclaimed a Grand Master last year), and an excerpt from Daniel Keyes's Charlie, Algernon and I, his non-fiction account of how the much-celebrated novella Flowers for Algernon came to be.The fiction in this collection is truly first-class (as one would expect). Some of the non-fiction, with the exception of Keyes's entry, is of little interest to anyone but SFWA insiders and hardcore followers.All in all, this is an excellent continuation of the fine tradition of the Nebula Awards.