NEBULA WINNERS FIFTEEN

The 1979 Nebula award winners and a selection of runners-up--as usual, a mixed bunch, along with Herbert's biographical notes and comments on the dangers of writers judging other writers' work. As for the winners themselves, George R. R. Martin's ""Sandkings"" (best novelette) is a gratifying horrid tale of exotic alien pets escaping the control of their sadistic master; ""Enemy Mine"" (best novella), from the YA-ish Barry B. Longyear, is a variation on the ""human and alien enemies meet and become friends through shared adversity"" routine; and Edward Bryant's best short story, ""giANTS,"" is a clever title and not too much more. Representing the runners-up are Jack Dann's ""Camps"" (hospital patient dreams about a Nazi extermination camp), Joanna Russ' ""The Extraordinary Voyages of Amelie Bertrand"" (a charming Jules Verne pastiche), and ""Unaccompanied Sonata""--the title story from Orson Scott Card's recent collection. Add on ho-hum essays from Ben Bova (Is. sf moving towards the mainstream, or vice versa?) and Vonda N. McIntyre (yet another ""how to write and sell sf"" piece)--and it's an about-average vintage, with the accent, in the fiction, on cleverness rather than substance.