NEBULA WINNERS FOURTEEN

by Frederik--Ed. Pohl ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 27, 1980

1978 was not one of the more distinguished Nebula years. The short-story winner was Edward Bryant's ""Stone,"" a trivial effort about a Janis Joplin type literally and perilously linked with the emotions of her audience by a multi-channel reciprocal feedback system. Charles Grant won in the ""novelette"" category with the mildly attractive ""A Glow of Candles, A Unicorn's Eye,"" in which two actors fed up with their profession's brainless gimmickries contrive to rediscover the spoken word. The strongest of the winners is John Varley's novella ""The Persistence of Vision""; set in one of those all-too-probable apocalyptic near-futures, it presents a gentle deaf-blind community achieving its own apocalypse. An unfortunate editorial innovation is the inclusion of an out-of-context excerpt from this year's winning novel (Vonda N. McIntyre's Dreamsnake). More intelligently, however, Pohl reprints a couple of also-rans: Gene Wolfe's novella ""Seven American Nights"" (Arab innocent abroad in decadent post-holocaust Washington, D.C.) is an even greater tour-de-force than Varley's; less special is C. J. Cherryh's ""Cassandra"" (a precognitive girl living out an anticipated disaster). Plus: a genially retrospective article by Isaac Asimov, a trenchantly predictive one by Norman Spinrad, and a pleasantly debunking one by ""Grand Master"" laureate L. Sprague de Camp. Middling returns.

Pub Date: Aug. 27, 1980

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harper & Row

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1980

Categories: FICTION