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This one was published in 1970, collecting the stories published in 1969, and there isn't a single mention of Apollo 11 anywhere in the book. Which I thought was very interesting.
The introduction, by editor James Blish, is all about disspelling the rumor of a conspiracy to hand out Nebulas only to New Wave writers, and is interesting if you care about the thirty year old politics of a particular science fiction organaztion.
Best novella: "A Boy and His Dog," by Harlan Ellison. Look, science fiction has discovered swearing and sex! A vicious but oddly compassionate story about, well, a post-apocalyptic boy and his sentient dog, invented to fight the Chinese during World War III, as I recall. Blish describes it as being "Jacobian," but I know less about old and bloody English plays than him. Turned into a movie starring a young Don Johnson.
"Nine Lives," by Ursula K. Le Guin. In the eyes of some mainstream critics, the only writer of worth ever produced by the genre. This story is a sort of mediation on the meaning of family and friends, told from the perspective of two coworkers and friends, alone on a prospecting mission on some distant planet, who get sent a group of clones that all work and think together. I'm not describing it very well. It's really good.
Best short story: "Passengers," by Robert Silverberg. Aliens, or maybe ghosts (no one knows, or by this point particularly cares) have come to Earth to hijack the bodies of random people for a few hours or days or months. A story about the difficulties of starting new relationships when at any moment you might disappear.
"Not Long Before the End," by Larry Niven. I used to really like Niven, but it's been ages since I've read anything by him, other than a recent novel I found pretty disappointing. This is a more or less typical Niven story, with a crazy science twist at the end, despite the fact that it is about a sorcerer fighting a sword-wielding barbarian. Hint: not even sorcerers can escape the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Fun.
Best novelette: "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones," by Samuel R. Delany. On the surface, a very ephemeral (in that the plot kind of floats away from you while reading) story about a futuristic thief and the circles in which he travels. Really beautifully written, however. In his little essay later in the book, Alexei Panshin declares it isn't really a story at all, but just a fragment from a life. Well, whatever. Recommended.
"The Man Who Learned Loving," by Theodore Sturgeon. A hippie invents a perpetual motion machine, and has to give up being a hippie to ensure it ends up being used for the greatest good. Not a very good description, but the story is not essentially about either hippies or perpetual motion, instead being about the tension between two kinds of love.
Essays: "The SF Novel in 1969," by Darko Suvin. Uh, a better year than the last is basically his conclusion. Notable for the claim that, with Macroscope, Piers Anthony has become an author to watch. (To be fair, I understand that lots of people thought this, only to be horrified at what came later.)
"Short SF in 1968," by Alexei Panshin. Is the date a typo? I'm really not sure. Notable for claiming that the short story was dead everywhere but within science fiction, which is interesting because today it is dead everywhere, science fiction included.
Best Novel: The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. Le Guin. I haven't read it.
Registered: Mar 1999
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