NEBULA AWARD STORIES SIXTEEN

The 1980 awards: three winners, three runners-up, and four non-fiction pieces summing up the year's sf activities. The winners: Suzy McKee Charnas, with ""The Unicorn Tapestry"" (best novella), a powerful, involving tale wherein a modern-day Dracula consults an analyst (cf. her novel The Vampire Tapestry); Howard Waldrop's charming, much-anthologized dodo yarn, ""The Ugly Chickens"" (best novelette); and, rather surprisingly, Clifford D. Simak, whose ""Grotto of the Dancing Deer"" (best short story) is a so-so variant on the ""lonely immortal"" theme. Representing the runners-up: a splendid tale of aliens and navigation via black holes from the ever-improving Michael Swanwick; an alternative view of the afterlife by the late Philip K. Dick; and a low-key, horror-child variant from Charles L. Grant. In the non-fiction, Gregory Benford (the award-winning Timescape) draws on his own experiences to discuss fiction by and about scientists; Michael Glyer holds forth informatively on fandom and conventions; Bill Warren dissects 1980s films; and Algis Budrys, examining 1980's novels in uncharacteristically rambling and toothless style, concludes that ""sf is intrinsically different from all other literary forms."" Some soft spots, then--but overall: a combination of solid fiction and thoughtful essays that's better-balanced than most Nebula gatherings.