The Hugo Awards Showcase - 2010 Volume

by John Kessel

  THE HUGO AWARD SHOWCASE

  2010 VOLUME

  EDITED BY MARY ROBINETTE KOWAL

  Copyright © 2010 by Prime Books.

  Cover art © 2010 by Donato Giancola.

  Cover design by Stephen H. Segal.

  Ebook design by Neil Clarke.

  All stories are copyrighted to their respective authors, and used here with their permission.

  “World Science Fiction Society”, “WSFS”, “World Science Fiction Convention”, “Worldcon”, “NASFiC”, “Hugo Award”, the distinctive design of the Hugo Award Trophy, and the Hugo Award Logo are service marks of the World Science Fiction Society (www.wsfs.org), an unincorporated literary society, and are used under license.

  ISBN: 978-1-60701-245-0 (ebook)

  ISBN: 978-1-60701-225-2 (Trade Paperback)

  Prime Books

  www.prime-books.com

  No portion of this book may be reproduced by any means, mechanical, electronic, or otherwise, without first obtaining the permission of the copyright holder.

  For more information, contact Prime Books:

  prime@prime-books.com

  Table of Contents

  INTRODUCTION, Mary Robinette Kowal

  PRIDE AND PROMETHEUS, John Kessel

  26 MONKEYS, ALSO THE ABYSS, Kij Johnson

  THE ERDMANN NEXUS, Nancy Kress

  FROM BABEL’S FALL’N GLORY WE FLED, Michael Swanwick

  SHOGGOTHS IN BLOOM, Elizabeth Bear

  TRUTH, Robert Reed

  THE RAY-GUN: A LOVE STORY, James Alan Gardner

  EVIL ROBOT MONKEY, Mary Robinette Kowal

  THE TEAR, Ian McDonald

  2009 HUGO NOMINEES AND WINNERS

  ABOUT THE EDITOR

  INTRODUCTION

  All of us come to science fiction and fantasy from different roads, but it is hard to spend any time in the genre without becoming aware of the Hugo Awards. For many readers, the Hugo Awards are one of the ways of deciding what to read in a given year. Looking at the ever widening array of science fiction and fantasy on the bookstore shelves it’s easy to become overwhelmed and the stamp of “Hugo Award winner” on the cover offers a reassurance that a large number of fans, of people like you, thought that book was outstanding.

  That’s because the Hugo Awards are voted on by the membership of the World Science Fiction Society, an international collection of science fiction and fantasy readers. The awards have been given out annually since 1955 although the history of the award stretches back to 1939. Originally the members of the World Science Fiction Society voted on the “bests” of the year, without presenting any awards. In 1953, in Philadelphia, the committee decided to act on the brainchild of Hal Lynch and present actual awards. These slender rockets were handmachined by Jack McKnight. That year the awards went to: Alfred Bester, Novel, The Demolished Man; Astounding and Galaxy, Professional Magazine; Virgil Finlay, Interior Illustrator; Hannes Bok and Ed Emshwiller, Cover Artist; Philip José Farmer, New Author or Artist; Willy Ley, Excellence in Fact Articles; and Forrest J. Ackerman, #1 Fan Personality.

  What’s interesting to me about those early awards is that short fiction was overlooked. Today, it is easy to walk into a bookstore and buy the 2009 Hugo winning novel, The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. The short fiction on the other hand tends to slip through the cracks and get lost as magazines go off the rack. It’s true that many of the stories gets picked up in Year’s Best anthologies or appears in other forms elsewhere but it is still easy to miss. How can you tell which anthology has a Hugo winner in it?

  This collection is intended to bring together the winners and some of the nominees to show you what the World Science Fiction Society thought were the most remarkable short stories, novelettes and novellas last year. Now, the Hugos were originally called the Annual Science Fiction Achievement Awards which is, to my mind, a beautifully accurate way to describe them, because even if you don’t like a story or a novel it’s still possible to recognize that it stood out from the crowd and achieved something special. Sometimes that achievement is in the use of language, or the thought experiments, or the sheer moving power of a story. The wonderful thing about the works in this volume is that they are wildly different from one another.

  Looking at the short fiction categories, particularly when you pull the nominees into the mix, demonstrates the wide range of possibilities within science fiction and fantasy.

  So what exactly are novellas? It means short novel, but the definition that the Hugos use is that it is a work of fiction between 17,500 and 40,000 words. It was first awarded in 1968 to Philip José Farmer’s Riders of the Purple Wage and Weyr Search by Anne McCaffrey. Maybe you’ve heard of these authors? Weyr Search, interestingly enough, was the first part of her extremely popular novel Dragonflight and was in Analog.

  One reason people pay attention to the short fiction categories, in fact, is that they often spotlight authors who might have interesting novels in them.

  Novelettes have a tricky role. Running between 7,500 and 17,500 words they fill the space between short stories and novellas. Some people feel that the categories are arbitrary distinctions and so the novelette category periodically gets dropped from the ballots. It was first awarded in 1955 to Walter M. Miller Jr’s “The Darfstellar.” The award was dropped for the year 1957 then again from 1959-1966. It ran for three years and was again dropped until 1973 from whence it has remained on the ballot. It is a different form than either a short story or a novella but the lines between where one begins and the other ends are fairly fluid. A novelette gives an author the breathing room to explore a complicated idea without trying to fit into a small wordcount, while at the same time retaining a tighter focus than novellas or novels typically have.

  Short stories have been around since 1955, with the exception of 1957, and was first awarded to Eric Frank Russell’s “Allamagoosa.” You see what I mean about short fiction often getting lost into the mists of time?

  The fiction that you’ll be reading in this volume runs the gamut from seasoned professionals to first time nominees. The shortest story is 970 words the longest is 28,500. The stories span the time between 1813 and so far in the future that Earth is a myth like Eden. In structure and voice they are wildly different.

  The strength of this volume, I think, is in how different these stories are from one another. That diversity is one of the strengths of the fields of science fiction and fantasy.

  I hope you enjoy exploring the short fiction worlds of the Hugo Awards.

  Mary Robinette Kowal

  June 2010

  JOHN KESSEL—NOVELETTE

  PRIDE AND PROMETHEUS

  It takes a certain level of audacity to decide to take two of the great literary establishments and create a mashup. I mean, let’s not pretend that taking Pride and Prejudice and bringing Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein into the mix is anything other than that.

  Except, of course, Kessel takes it way past that point. In less experienced hands, this would be fan fic at best. What we have instead is something that stays true to the social manners books of Austen’s day while introducing the gothic horror of Mary Shelley and then creates something totally new. It is an intimate study of a girl, Mary, doomed to be a supporting cast member not just in Austen’s story but in her life outside the story. She is an observer and gives us a picture of Dr. Frankenstein from the outside.

  Since Mary Shelley’s original story is told in first person, we are never able t
o see Frankenstein without the lens of himself in the way. Kessel shows us an awkward man, during part of his journey where he is most damaged emotionally. It is fascinating and feels oddly voyeuristic.

  Kessel has a PhD in English and teaches American literature, science fiction, fantasy, and fiction writing at North Carolina State University. He has been nominated for numerous awards and won a Theodore Sturgeon Award, a James Tiptree Jr. award, and a Nebula. This is his third Hugo nomination.

  PRIDE AND PROMETHEUS

  JOHN KESSEL

  Had both her mother and her sister Kitty not insisted upon it, Miss Mary Bennet, whose interest in Nature did not extend to the Nature of Society, would not have attended the ball in Grosvenor Square. This was Kitty’s season. Mrs. Bennet had despaired of Mary long ago, but still bore hopes for her younger sister, and so had set her determined mind on putting Kitty in the way of Robert Sidney of Detling Manor, who possessed a fortune of six thousand pounds a year, and was likely to be at that evening’s festivities. Being obliged by her unmarried state to live with her parents, and the whims of Mrs. Bennet being what they were, although there was no earthly reason for Mary to be there, there was no good excuse for her absence.

  So it was that Mary found herself in the ballroom of the great house, trussed up in a silk dress with her hair piled high, bedecked with her sister’s jewels. She was neither a beauty, like her older and happily married sister Jane, nor witty, like her older and happily married sister Elizabeth, nor flirtatious, like her younger and less happily married sister Lydia. Awkward and nearsighted, she had never cut an attractive figure, and as she had aged she had come to see herself as others saw her. Every time Mrs. Bennet told her to stand up straight, she felt despair. Mary had seen how Jane and Elizabeth had made good lives for themselves by finding appropriate mates. But there was no air of grace or mystery about Mary, and no man ever looked upon her with admiration.

  Kitty’s card was full, and she had already contrived to dance once with the distinguished Mr. Sidney, whom Mary could not imagine being more tedious. Hectically glowing, Kitty was certain that this was the season she would get a husband. Mary, in contrast, sat with her mother and her Aunt Gardiner, whose good sense was Mary’s only respite from her mother’s silliness. After the third minuet Kitty came flying over.

  “Catch your breath, Kitty!” Mrs. Bennet said. “Must you rush about like this? Who is that young man you danced with? Remember, we are here to smile on Mr. Sidney, not on some stranger. Did I see him arrive with the Lord Mayor?”

  “How can I tell you what you saw, Mother?”

  “Don’t be impertinent.”

  “Yes. He is an acquaintance of the Mayor. He’s from Switzerland! Mr. Clerval, on holiday.”

  The tall, fair-haired Clerval stood with a darker, brooding young man, both impeccably dressed in dove gray breeches, black jackets, and waistcoats, with white tie and gloves.

  “Switzerland! I would not have you marry any Dutchman—though ’tis said their merchants are uncommonly wealthy. And who is that gentleman with whom he speaks?”

  “I don’t know, Mother—but I can find out.”

  Mrs. Bennet’s curiosity was soon to be relieved, as the two men crossed the drawing room to the sisters and their chaperones.

  “Henry Clerval, madame,” the fair-haired man said, “And this is my good friend, Mr. Victor Frankenstein.”

  Mr. Frankenstein bowed but said nothing. He had the darkest eyes that Mary had ever encountered, and an air of being there only on obligation. Whether this was because he was as uncomfortable in these social situations as she, Mary could not tell, but his diffident air intrigued her. She fancied his reserve might bespeak sadness rather than pride. His manners were faultless, as was his command of English, though he spoke with a slight French accent. When he asked Mary to dance she suspected he did so only at the urging of Mr. Clerval; on the floor, once the orchestra of pianoforte, violin, and cello struck up the quadrille, he moved with some grace but no trace of a smile.

  At the end of the dance, Frankenstein asked whether Mary would like some refreshment, and they crossed from the crowded ballroom to the sitting room, where he procured for her a cup of negus. Mary felt obliged to make some conversation before she should retreat to the safety of her wallflower’s chair.

  “What brings you to England, Mr. Frankenstein?”

  “I come to meet with certain natural philosophers here in London, and in Oxford—students of magnetism.”

  “Oh! Then have you met Professor Langdon, of the Royal Society?”

  Frankenstein looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. “How is it that you are acquainted with Professor Langdon?”

  “I am not personally acquainted with him, but I am, in my small way, an enthusiast of the sciences. You are a natural philosopher?”

  “I confess that I can no longer countenance the subject. But yes, I did study with Mr. Krempe and Mr. Waldman in Ingolstadt.”

  “You no longer countenance the subject, yet you seek out Mr. Langdon.”

  A shadow swept over Mr. Frankenstein’s handsome face. “It is unsupportable to me, yet pursue it I must.”

  “A paradox.”

  “A paradox that I am unable to explain, Miss Bennet.”

  All this said in a voice heavy with despair. Mary watched his sober black eyes, and replied, “ ‘The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.’ ”

  For the second time that evening he gave her a look that suggested an understanding. Frankenstein sipped from his cup, then spoke: “Avoid any pastime, Miss Bennet, that takes you out of the normal course of human contact. If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections, and to destroy your taste for simple pleasures, then that study is certainly unlawful.”

  The purport of this extraordinary speech Mary was unable to fathom. “Surely there is no harm in seeking knowledge.”

  Mr. Frankenstein smiled. “Henry has been urging me to go out into London society; had I known that I might meet such a thoughtful person as yourself I would have taken him up on it long ere now.”

  He took her hand. “But I spy your aunt at the door,” he said. “No doubt she has been dispatched to protect you. If you will, please let me return you to your mother. I must thank you for the dance, and even more for your conversation, Miss Bennet. In the midst of a foreign land, you have brought me a moment of sympathy.”

  And again Mary sat beside her mother and aunt as she had half an hour before. She was nonplused. It was not seemly for a stranger to speak so much from the heart to a woman he had never previously met, yet she could not find it in herself to condemn him. Rather, she felt her own failure in not keeping him longer.

  A cold March rain was falling when, after midnight, they left the ball. They waited under the portico while the coachman brought round the carriage. Kitty began coughing. As they stood there in the chill night, Mary noticed a hooded man, of enormous size, standing in the shadows at the corner of the lane. Full in the downpour, unmoving, he watched the town house and its partiers without coming closer or going away, as if this observation were all his intention in life. Mary shivered.

  In the carriage back to Aunt Gardiner’s home near Belgravia, Mrs. Bennet insisted that Kitty take the lap robe against the chill. “Stop coughing, Kitty. Have a care for my poor nerves.” She added, “They should never have put the supper at the end of that long hallway. The young ladies, flushed from the dance, had to walk all that cold way.”

  Kitty drew a ragged breath and leaned over to Mary. “I have never seen you so taken with a man, Mary. What did that Swiss gentleman say to you?”

  “We spoke of natural philosophy.”

  “Did he say nothing of the reasons he came to England?” Aunt Gardiner asked.

  “That was his reason.”

  “Hardly!” said Kitty. “He came to forget his grief! His little brother William was murdered, not six months ago, by the family maid!”

  “How terrible!” sai
d Aunt Gardiner.

  Mrs. Bennet asked in open astonishment, “Could this be true?”

  “I have it from Lucy Copeland, the Lord Mayor’s daughter,” Kitty replied. “Who heard it from Mr. Clerval himself. And there is more! He is engaged to be married—to his cousin. Yet he has abandoned her, left her in Switzerland and come here instead.”

  “Did he say anything to you about these matters?” Mrs. Bennet asked Mary.

  Kitty interrupted. “Mother, he’s not going to tell the family secrets to strangers, let alone reveal his betrothal at a dance.”

  Mary wondered at these revelations. Perhaps they explained Mr. Frankenstein’s odd manner. But could they explain his interest in her? “A man should be what he seems,” she said.

  Kitty snorted, and it became a cough.

  “Mark me, girls,” said Mrs. Bennet, “that engagement is a match that he does not want. I wonder what fortune he would bring to a marriage?”

  In the days that followed, Kitty’s cough became a full-blown catarrh, and it was decided against her protest that, the city air being unhealthy, they should cut short their season and return to Meryton. Mr. Sidney was undoubtedly unaware of his narrow escape. Mary could not honestly say that she regretted leaving, though the memory of her half hour with Mr. Frankenstein gave her as much regret at losing the chance of further commerce with him as she had ever felt from her acquaintance with a man.

  Within a week Kitty was feeling better, and repining bitterly their remove from London. In truth, she was only two years younger than Mary and had made none of the mental accommodations to approaching spinsterhood that her older sister had attempted. Mr. Bennet retreated to his study, emerging only at mealtimes to cast sardonic comments about Mrs. Bennet and Kitty’s marital campaigns. Perhaps, Mrs. Bennet said, they might invite Mr. Sidney to visit Longbourn when Parliament adjourned. Mary escaped these discussions by practicing the pianoforte and, as the advancing spring brought warm weather, taking walks in the countryside, where she would stop beneath an oak and read, indulging her passion for Goethe and German philosophy. When she tried to engage her father in speculation, he warned her, “I am afraid, my dear, that your understanding is too dependent on books and not enough on experience of the world. Beware, Mary. Too much learning makes a woman monstrous.”