Nebula Award Stories: 1 [Paperback]

Damon Knight (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Bantam Books (July 1984)
• ISBN-10: 9997376471
• ISBN-13: 978-9997376473
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 0.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,470,557 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Decent Collection of 8 sci-fi short stories, February 14, 2011

By 

. "mattb123" (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nebula Award Stories: 1 (Paperback)

This anthology represents the FIRST set of Nebula award winners (from 1965) and features that year's winners as well as honorable mentions in the areas of short story, novella, and novellete. This particular collection features some very well known sci-fi authors such as Gordon Dickson, Harlen Ellison, J.G. Ballard, Brian Aldis, Larry Niven and 2 stories by Roger Zelanzy. It's overall a decently enjoyable collection but with that list of authors I hoped for a little more classic stuff, whereas I felt most of the stories were a bit better than average. (Granted, the collection is all from a single year, and it can be hard to come up with a lot of stories from a single year that remain classics).

As I said the collection contains 2 of Zelanzy's works - "The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth" & "He Who Shapes." Though I've liked some of Zelanzy's short stories, neither of these ended up totally working for me.... (further they take up over 100+ of the books 250 pages). It doesn't mean either were bad, and I know Zelanzy uses a variety of different themes and some of his stuff may not be as accesible to those not familiar with his style. And Further "He who Shapes" was later developed into a short novel called "The Dream Master" that seems to have had popularity - at least amongst Zelanzy's fans ("The Dream Master" apparently was then later dveloped into the screenplay "Dreamscape").

Perhaps it's a matter of taste...or based mainly on writing style...but I ended up enjoying Brian Aldiss' "The Saliva Tree" probably the most in the collection. Set in late 1800's England, it's very much an obvious ode to H.G. Wells (and Wells is even loosly featured in it), and it also clearly has similarities to H.P. Lovecraft, but it is an interesting variation on the "visitors-come-to-Earth" theme. Niven's "Becalmed in Hell," might have been my second favorite - a 10-page or so piece of "hard sci-fi." J.G. Ballard's story ("The Drowned Giant") should be given credit for leaving the reader with rather wierd, dark feeling, which may be exactly what the author set out to do! Harlen Ellison's contribution ("Repent Harrlequin, said the Ticktockman"), Gordon Dickson's ("Computers Don't Argue") and James Schmitz ("Balanced Ecology") round out the collection - all 3 enjoyable and well-written.

In summary, though perhaps this collection is not a "must-read" anthology, it's an overall enjoyable collection and I could come close to giving it another star - or at lease half a star. Further, for sci-fi gurus (or those who wish to read as much on the Nebula or Hugo awards as possible) this may be an interesting read simply because it the first set of "Nebula Award" winners to be given. It personally did leave me interested in continuing to find and read more from the series... However, for a bit better anthology from the 60's I recommend "The Mammoth Book of New World Sci-fi..short novels of the 60's." Nearly every story in it is quite good, and it is an overall a stronger offering.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars some good stories in this early New Wave compilation, September 15, 2010

By 

J. Higgins (Jessup MD) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Nebula Award Stories: 1 (Paperback)

It could be argued that the New Wave movement in SF in the US started up in 1965, with the publication of quintessential New Wave stories like Ellison's `"Repent, Harlequin ! Said the Ticktockman"' and Zelazny's `The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth'.

Damon Knight, President of the newly formed Science Fiction Writers of America, possessed a quasi-religious devotion to the New Wave prose style. Knight fervently believed that by promoting a sub-group of authors who crafted `speculative fiction', the Literary World would be forced to admit that, far from consisting of frivolous stories about rocket ships and slide rules, SF was a maturing art form whose foremost practitioners were as deserving of praise as Pynchon, Barth, and Vonnegut.

Accordingly, in 1966 the first Nebula Awards were primarily handed out to New Wave authors; those stories (all seeing print in 1965) are represented in this collection.

`The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth' deals superficially with a deep-sea fishing expedition on Venus; the emphasis is on the psychology of the lead character, a `baitman', and his tumultuous relationship with his former wife. `Ticktockman' is a fable about a regimented society and a rebellious Everyman.

While at the time these stories were considered daring and witty expansions of the boundaries of the genre, I suspect that most modern readers will find them contrived and unremarkable.

James H. Schmitz provides `Balanced Ecology', a more conventional SF story in terms of plotting and setting. On a planet that features trees made of a diamond-like substance, two children must defend their farm from a rapacious corporation. The ecology theme was certainly a prominent one for the New Wave era, and Schmitz's accessible writing style makes this one of the better stories in the collection.

Zelazny appears again with the novelette `He Who Shapes', about a psychiatrist named Render who uses a high-tech gadget to enter the subconscious mind of his patients. Contemporary readers will recognize this trope from `Inception', the big Summer blockbuster of 2010, as well as any number of Philip K. Dick's novels and short stories. But for this audience, `Shapes' is going to seem lengthy and dull. There are too many belabored passages where Zelazny is intent on demonstrating his ability to write meaningful dialogue. As well, the author can't resist stuffing the narrative with sections of overly figurative prose designed to showcase his ability to relate the visions inherent in the dream-world; such quasi-psychedelic chunks of text were bearable in the `Amber' novels, but work poorly here.

Gordon Dickson's entry, `Computers Don't Argue', is a half-humorous look at how the increased use of computers and automated systems can entrap the unwary consumer. While contemporary readers may raise an quizzical eyebrow over the use of the term `punch cards', the underlying theme of the story is still relevant.

Larry Niven provides `Becalmed in Hell', a hard science-oriented short story. The fact that this tale was considered for a Nebula is an indication that not all the SFWA members were as besotted with the New Wave form as Damon Knight. The pilot of the first spaceship to Venus must deal with an equipment malfunction; complicating things is his suspicion that the ship's brain-in-a-jar AI may be the source of the trouble.

During the 60s and 70s Brian Aldiss was regularly churning out New Wave stories in imitation of his hero, J. G. Ballard; most of Aldiss's entries in this area were unremarkable. Fortunately, when he set his mind on putting together a straightforward SF adventure rather than a Work of Art, Aldiss could write very well. `The Saliva Tree' is a proto-steampunk novelette set in England at the end of the 19th century. A spacecraft submerges itself in the depths of a rural pond, and strange mutations arise in the flora and fauna of the surrounding farm. A Victorian gentlemen must come up with a plan to combat the invaders even as he struggles to convince the eccentric farmer that the visitors from the stars have unpleasant intentions. This story should be very appealing to present-day steampunk fans.

The final story in the anthology comes from the era's foremost practitioner of the New Wave approach, J. G. Ballard. Ballard's New Wave tales could be hit-or-miss, either pretentious efforts at `experimental' writing (`The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race'), or well-composed stories dealing with traditional SF topics (`Billenium').

`The Drowned Giant', which lost to `Ticktockman' for the short story Nebula, is one of his better efforts at mingling a cleanly written narrative with an offbeat, imaginative theme. Here, it is the corpse of an enormous man that washes up on a beach on the English coast. With its existential, melancholy tone, a focus on mood and setting rather than plot machinations, `Giant' has aged as well as, or better than, many of the other New Wave pieces seeing print in the 60s.

To sum it all up, some of the pieces in this anthology have aged better than others. Readers looking for examples of early New Wave SF, before it collapsed under its own excessive artiness, may want to pick up this volume.