As in previous years (see the entries for 2006, 2007, and 2008), I read as many of the short fiction finalists for the 2008 Nebula Award as I could get my hands on. Most of the nominees were available free online thanks to the graciousness of many publishers and authors. A few were not online that I could find, but two of those I had already consumed when they appeared in print earlier. That left only 2 stories of all the short fiction nominees that went unread by me.

Some of the stories impressed me less than I would initially expect award-nominated fiction to do. But then I remember that I have a hit-and-miss track record with award-nominated fiction, so maybe that's not so surprising after all. Also not surprising, given my personal tastes, the science fiction stories fared better than the non-sf stories. (I say non-sf, because some of them were not what I would classify as fantasy. They were more mainstream, or slipstream, if you prefer.)

In a nutshell, then, here are my impressions of the stories in each category, sorted from most enjoyable to least enjoyable. My winning picks are the tops ones listed in each category. Story titles link to online versions, where available.


"The Spacetime Pool" by Catherine Asaro
"Dangerous Space" by Kelley Eskridge
"The Duke in His Castle" by Vera Nazarian
"The Political Prisoner" by Charles Coleman Finlay
"Dark Heaven" by Gregory Benford


"Baby Doll" by Johanna Sinisalo
"Pride and Prometheus" by John Kessel
"Night Wind" by Mary Rosenblum
"Kaleidoscope" by K.D. Wentworth
"The Ray-Gun: A Love Story" by James Alan Gardner
"Dark Rooms" by Lisa Goldstein
"If Angels Fight" by Richard Bowes


"Mars: A Traveler's Guide" by Ruth Nestvold
"The Button Bin" by Mike Allen
"26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss" by Kij Johnson
"The Dreaming Wind" by Jeffrey Ford
"Don't Stop" by James Patrick Kelly
"Trophy Wives" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
"The Tomb Wife" by Gwyneth Jones

Individual story reviews follow...



In "The Spacetime Pool" by Catherine Asaro, prophecy leads to an MIT Mathematics graduate (Janelle) being whisked away to a parallel dimension where she encounters an evil Emperor (Maximillian), the brother (Dominick) who is trying to capture the throne, and a world that is mysteriously medieval given the technological information they possess. For some reason, Janelle, despite losing her family and having nothing to hold her to our Earth, seems to take the change in locale and the sudden prospect of romance in stride. But the drama that unfolds - particularly when Maximillian exercises his military might about midway through - made this story ultimately enjoyable.

Kelley Eskridge takes readers headlong into the independent music scene with "Dangerous Space". The narrator, Mars, a skilled sound engineer for Seattle music bands, hooks up with the band Noir, which is led by the enigmatic Duncan Black. There is lots of innuendo and sexual tension between Mars and Duncan, a relationship that, if it were to progress, could spell the ending for the band. This would be too bad because the band is gaining popularity, culminating in a pending endorsement deal with F-tech - wired headsets that let you feel recorded emotions. Cool technology, to be sure, but not really integral to the story beyond serving as a vehicle for Mars and Duncan to connect. Indeed it's the only connection this story has with the fantastic. This is basically a love story, which is not really my cup of tea, and limited my ability to become fully immersed. Though my interest was piqued in trying to decipher whether Mars was a man or a woman; pursuant to the author's desire to explore the theme of sexuality, Mars' gender is never specified. Throughout the piece, the prose is wonderfully poetic, most notably in making the music (another vehicle for sexual tension) seem like a living, breathing character.

At the heart of Vera Nazarian's "The Duke in His Castle" is a fairy-tale-like story about Duke Rossian (the violet Duke) who is imprisoned in his own castle by an invisible force. This is the result of a magic spell initiated by the Just King generations before; a spell that is passed down to the living Dukes' descendants, and thus Duke Rossian. The story is also a puzzle, since any of the Dukes can gain freedom by learning the secret powers of all the others. Despite (or maybe because of) his incarceration, the morose Duke Roassian seems inexplicably resigned to his loneliness. He simply lacks the desire to gain freedom - even when he gets a visit from Izelle, a representative of the White Duchess, offering to help him learn. (It does not help that the Duke is unaware of any power that he might himself possess, thus making it hard for anyone to gain freedom.) The level of unexplained magic employed in this story was too much for my fantasy-indifferent tastes. (What is "life force"?) And some extensive and unnecessary descriptive passages make it really hard to focus on the fact that the story has an interesting premise and an equally intriguing puzzle at its core.

Charles Coleman Finlay's novella "The Political Prisoner" is a sequel to his 2002 "The Political Officer" (reviewed here). It's about political officer and double-agent Max Nikomedes, embroiled in the battle between the departments of Political Education and Intelligence on Jerusalem, a terraformed Christian planet. Max is taken prisoner and subjected to much cruelty. Despite some memorable and horrifying scenes of civil rights violations, I can't say I enjoyed this one much more than the earlier one. It seemed about twice as long as it needed to be. It was, however, interesting to see the tactics used by the guards from the point of view of Max, himself an expert in breaking the human spirit.

[The following story was originally reviewed in Alien Crimes edited by Mike Resnick.]
In "Dark Heaven" by Gregory Benford, Homicide Detective McKenna investigates the murder of a Gulf Coast fisherman whose death just might be related to the amphibious aliens that have taken up residence nearby. This was a way-too-long story about a crime whose investigation moved way-too-slowly. McKenna, occasionally lamenting about his deceased wife, uses his experience as a fisherman to gain confidence with the locals - who continually proceed to finger him for what he is and offer him nothing. And the Centauri aliens are apparently being guarded by the feds, offering yet another dead end for our protagonist. At times, it was a race to see whether McKenna would give up the case before I gave up reading the story. The only pertinent science fictional element - the aliens - was withheld for the majority of the story until the disappointing payoff at the end. Was this story an attempt to seem "Literary" by avoiding sf tropes in favor of longwinded passages about life, the sea and growing old? I don't know, but the result was not very entertaining. Benford can do - and has done - better than this.




Johanna Sinisalo's "Baby Doll" is perhaps the most socially shocking story I've ever read. Through the eyes of eight year-old Annette, it extrapolates today's emphasis on beauty and materialism to frightening conclusions. Incredible social pressures on the unpopular Annette drive her to an unfortunate decision that affects her sister Lulu, who is a wildly popular child model. The story elements - particularly having children portrayed as socially-acceptable objects of desire - are effectively shocking and go a long way towards painting this ultimately sad portrait of a future society gone out of control. Well done.

If you could smash together Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein you would get John Kessel's wonderful story "Pride and Prometheus". It uses characters from both novels, most prominently Mary Bennet (the black sheep daughter of a well-to-do family that is most interested in seeing their daughters married to established gentlemen) and Victor Frankenstein (a visitor with some dark secrets). Mary forms a fondness for Victor, being intellectually drawn to "philosophical sciences". Despite a slow start, I couldn't help but be drawn in by the middle of the story, when Victor's past catches up with him. I was hoping for a better ending, but I guess the interesting parallels between Mary's and Victor's lives will have to suffice.

Mary Rosenblum's "Night Wind" reads like a mashup of the Western and magic-based fantasy genres. The protagonist, Alavro, is a magician who has yet to realize his powers. While returning home to help his family, he encounters a Robin Hood-like bandit known a Night Wind. Alvaro comes to learn that Night Wind is indeed fighting for the common good, including helping slave workers of a neighboring rival farm. The reader is drawn into Alavaro's story through the hints at the interesting world being created. Magic, it seems, exists only within certain families and only to the men. But there is dark magic present as well; a "shadow-demon" has sapped the powers from Alavaro's father and wakened his family's status. This leads to Alvaro's mother arranging a marriage with a woman Alvaro has yet to meet. Rosenblum's story is ultimately a nice mix or world building adventure and drama.

In "Kaleidoscope" by K.D. Wentworth, fifty-something retiree Ally Coelho seems to be losing her grip on the real world. She seems to have multiple memories of people and events. This is disconcerting for Ally as her life seems to become disconnected from reality. Ally maintains the universe is playing tricks on her, but my first (and Ally's eventual) guess is Alzheimer's. The question is never fully answered; the story is really a metaphor for holding onto the fleeting memories of life. Well told and interesting, Wentworth's story is quite touching.

"The Ray-Gun: A Love Story" by James Alan Gardner is a simple story, simply told, about Jack, who finds a Ray Gun that has fallen from space. Jack treats the ray-gun with respect, training himself to be a hero, and along the way gets a girlfriend or two. Soon Jack suspects that the ray-gun might be controlling some aspects of his life. Gardner's straightforward prose makes this read like a children's fable. Accordingly, the story seems to be lacking any significant element that propels this above simple plot-driven fiction.

Lisa Goldstein's "Dark Rooms" is a poignant story about a man named Stevens who meets up with filmmaker Georges Méliès in France at the end of the 19th century. Stevens learns filmmaking techniques from Méliès and claims them as his own. Stevens, having moved back to America, prospers from it while Méliès falls on hard times. The story shows how guilt weighs on Stevens. This is one of those stories that is only marginally genre, if at all; some hallucinatory scenes near the end of the story, symbolizing Stevens' guilt, is said to be magic. Classification notwithstanding, Goldstein has written an affecting story.

"If Angels Fight" by Richard Bowes follows the nameless protagonist as he searches for an old friend, Mark, at the request of Mark's influential family. The catch is that the friend has been dead for years and when he was alive, he carried an angel inside of him, so the protagonist is really looking for the angel. There are certainly some cool concepts here regarding angel possession, but my indifference towards fantasy was in full force on this one; I just had a hard time getting into it and kept wondered about the necessity of the excessive family history.




Ruth Nestvold's clever story "Mars: A Traveler's Guide" is simply wonderful. Written as a series of encyclopedia entries being accessed by someone unseen, it explains the workings of the planetary world on which it takes place, but also slowly reveals the compelling story of the person accessing it. Brilliant.

Mike Allen's edgy "The Button Bin" pushes the envelope of comfort as we are put in the position of the protagonist who is looking for his lost niece. The search ostensibly leads to a mysterious craft store owner who possesses a magical chest in the basement, where ultimately the answers lie with other dark truths. The second-person narrative style was odd at first, but goes well into putting you right in the middle of this off-putting but gripping story.

"26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss" by Kij Johnson is a seemingly superficial story about a traveling fairgrounds monkey act run by a woman named Aimee. The monkeys can perform amazing feats, including vanishing into thin air, only to return some time later carrying trinkets from wherever they've been. As the story unfolds, though, it reveals layers of surprising depth about life and Aimee's in particular. It's about loneliness and how she came to fill her life with meaningless things (like her boyfriend). And it's about healing and moving on. Serious topics for a monkey act, eh?

[The following story was originally reviewed in The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume 2 edited by Jonathan Strahan]
In "The Dreaming Wind" by Jeffrey Ford, a small town is affected by a strange annual event - a late-summer wind that temporarily causes waking dreams. The effect on the residents is generally positive, despite their pretense of dread. When the winds don't blow through town one fateful year, the people are despondent...until the children do something to replace the emptiness left by the wind's absence. This is, to be sure, an interesting concept, but there are limits, I think, as to how well it can carry a story. But Ford's prose is certainly elegant and highly descriptive, evoking clear imagery and characters.

Lisa Schoonover sees dead people. In fact, in James Patrick Kelly's "Don't Stop," She sees lots of dead people; people that nobody else can see - ever since the age of 6, when she was in a car accident that claimed the life of her father. Since then, she has been seeing a ghost she calls Crispin, who has the uncanny ability to show up when she doesn't him to, like when she is trying to forge a relationship with her boyfriend Matt. Forty-something Lisa, who is into running, also sees the ghost of her old running coach and other people from her past. The story is not about ghosts, or course. If I am picking up on the author's subtle metaphor properly, it's about moving on with your life. This lends the story some import, but perhaps the message is too subtle to give it any significant impact.

"Trophy Wives" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman is about two women, Ylva Sif and Alanna, who share each others thoughts and sights. Together, they decide to help a stranger to their planet avoid her fate as a trophy wife to an alien who keeps his wives in see-through bubbles to elevate his social status. Despite an interesting idea and capable writing, the story itself lacks any real confrontation that would have made it more noteworthy. Maybe the irony of Ylva Sif and Alann themselves being trophy wives to Gwelf was supposed serve this purpose?

An interstellar freighter carrying alien artifacts is the setting for "The Tomb Wife" by Gwyneth Jones. One of the relics is a tomb thought to be occupied by the ghost of a "tomb wife" which, in the alien culture that followed the custom, was a spouse (of either gender, despite the implication otherwise) who lived a secluded life inside the deceased spouse's tomb. To complicate the story, it seems to take place either outside normal space-time or inside some sort of Matrix-like virtual reality -- at least that's what I think is going on. I could not seem to get a clear sense of what was going on. That off-putting lack of foothold, coupled with dimensionless characters, seriously hindered my enjoyment of this story (though I did like the Twilight Zone-ish ending).

Comments (9) | PermaLink | Category: Book Review
Posted by John DeNardo at Tuesday April 14, 2009 at 12:28 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

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