Nebula Awards Showcase 2010

by Bill Fawcett

  “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream,” “The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World,” “A Boy and His Dog,” “Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes” and “Shattered Like a Glass Goblin,” racking up a considerable collection of Hugos and Nebulas in the process. (One writer said, “They ought to give him a Hugo every time he writes a story, just for the titles.”) There was no doubt that Harlan was a major SF writer. The only jarring note was that Harlan was dissatisfied with that pigeonhole, and so his production of SF stories dwindled as he went on to the exploration of other pastures.

  Harlan Ellison was not the only writer who tried to shake off the SF label. Kurt Vonnegut even went so far as to quietly ask some friends who were members of the SF writers’ trade union, the Science Fiction Writers of America, not to vote for his novel Slaughterhouse Five for a Nebula. It wasn’t that he thought it was a bad award. He just wasn’t sure he could afford it. He had a good deal, and he knew it. His books were shelved in bookstores on tables of their own, up front and near the cash register, identified not by category but by his name. Sales were good. What they would be if the books were in the crowded shelves in the category areas he didn’t know, and wasn’t in any hurry to find out.

  In a different category are the writers who make a great splash and then, with no apparent reason, disappear from the scene. By the sixties Walter Miller Jr. had become in a short period one of the most productive and esteemed SF writers around—John Campbell once remarked with a semi-embarrassed grin, “I just can’t stop buying everything he sends in.” People talked of him as the next Heinlein, sure to dominate the field for decades to come, especially after his 1961 novel, A Canticle for Leibowitz, won its Hugo. But then one of those invisible switches that people carry with them in their heads turned, and he stopped.

  Then there’s Larry Niven, one of science fiction’s favorite writers for getting close to half a century now, but there was a time when that seemed unlikely to happen. Larry was born to money, was a millionaire as soon as the nurse began to clean him up to show to his mom. His parents were a nice young couple, related to the Dohenys of Doheny Drive and much other Los Angeles real estate. Mr. and Mrs. Niven loved their little boy, but as he began to become a bigger boy, then close to a man, there were worries. What interested him mostly, it seemed, wasn’t anything to do with business or investments or any of the things wealthy people enjoyed; it was the possibility of nonhuman creatures from other planets and rocket ships. In short, young Larry was a faaan. There were friends and family members urging the Nivens to try to discourage the boy’s aberration, some of them in terms of apocalyptic warning. They didn’t want to interfere with their son’s life, but they were getting concerned.

  Then young Larry himself had a stroke of luck.

  Like any true fan he had tried writing a story of his own. The SF magazine If had a policy of, in each issue, publishing one story by a brand-new writer, so Larry had sent his story there—and now the magazine had sent him a check. It wasn’t much, $15. The story was very short and If ’s rates were low.

  But it had sold. Larry was now a published author.

  How this first display of earning capacity impressed the Niven and Doheny families is not known, but that was not the end. Emboldened, Larry sent If another story and before long a check came back for that one, too. The word rate was the same but the story was longer so this time the amount was ninety dollars. And a little later Larry’s third story sold, this one longer still and the rate better: $225. “And,” Larry once said, “they thought the curve was going in an interesting way, so I didn’t get much discouragement from my parents after that.”

  Although Robert A. Heinlein certainly did not begin his career in the 1960s, he came close to owning it, with three more Hugos (in addition to his earlier one for The Puppet Masters): Starship Troopers in 1960, Stranger in a Strange Land in 1962, and The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress in 1967. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress in particular restored faith in Heinlein’s almost magical storytelling gifts, for, just when his talents might be expected to be waning, up he came with what was arguably his very best novel ever. It may even have put the seal on a cult following such that his fans were apparently willing to read anything he wrote after that—and some of the later novels were not so great—in hopes of repeating the excitement they felt. Although Heinlein usually missed the mark when he tried to write explicitly feminist fiction, especially when his protagonist was female as in Podkayne of Mars, I Will Fear No Evil, and Friday, he did practice a kind of “quiet” feminism in that his women and girls were not simply wives, daughters, or sweethearts waiting to be rescued: they actually did things—that is they had jobs that were significant and they moved the action forward themselves rather than always waiting to be rescued.

  But the end of the decade produced a novel that seemed to be a harbinger of the explosion of feminist novels and women writers that followed in the seventies, eighties and nineties and it’s probably fair to say that this novel inspired both men and women writers to write differently and about subjects that especially interested the growing female readership. This was, of course, Ursula K. LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, which won a Nebula in 1969. Especially remarkable is chapter 7, which can be excerpted as a short story on its own, and its challenging series of ideas beginning with the rhetorical opening, “Consider . . .” The fact that the protagonist is a black man is usually ignored by feminist critics who get caught up in the implications of Le-Guin’s gender comments, but it fit into the tradition of Heinlein’s making Juan Rico Hispanic in Starship Troopers and Manuel black in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. Today even unadventurous writers will commonly make women and minorities be scientists and hold positions of responsibility (like mayor, governor, president, captain, commander, lieutenant, etc.) and women and girls do not need to rely on men and boys to figure out the clues to solve problems.

  . . . So say the two of us.

  However, one of us (Hull) is demanding that the other of us (Pohl) close this enterprise by saying a few words about himself as a writer in the decade of the 1960s. And so I therefore shall.

  I should say that I wasn’t a full-time writer in the 1960s. Horace Gold, the editor of Galaxy and If, was in poor health. For some time he had been increasingly unable to deal with the issues involved in getting the magazines out and had asked me for my assistance. At the last he had had to resign and Bob Guinn, the publisher, had asked me to take the job. I couldn’t say no. Being given a magazine to edit, to me, is like being given the world’s best set of electric trains when you are twelve years old. It’s fun. Even dealing with the authors was pleasurable—well, more often than not, it was. Not surprisingly, SF writers have enough traits in common that it is easy for friendships to form. True, editing did interfere with writing in unexpected ways. There were sometimes stories I couldn’t write because they were close to the kinds of stories some of my contributors were writing. Sometimes I suggested these to the contributor. There were even some I didn’t want to write because I knew a contributor who could write that particular story far better than I. Neutron stars were hot news at the time and so I asked Larry Niven for a neutron-star story. It won him his first Hugo.

  But such conflicts are rare. And one of the reasons why I’ve enjoyed doubling up as writer and editor so frequently is that editing has made me a better writer. Looking to see what another person has done wrong has definitely sharpened my perceptions of flaws of my own.

  I think it may have been true for others, even including John Campbell. His work before he became an editor was pretty much derivative, particularly of Doc Smith’s space-operas. He didn’t do much to touch the heart and soul until after his experience with editing, when he became Don A. Stuart. (Sadly, he didn’t keep the writing up as other interests came along.)

  So, at the end, let’s summarize: What was it like to be an SF writer in the 1960s?

  Why, pretty much what it has been in every other decade since 1926. If you can be a good SF writer you probably
could do somewhat better in terms of prosperity and social standing at something else. But if you can be a good SF writer why would you want to do anything else?

  NEBULA AWARD BEST NOVELETTE

  PRIDE AND PROMETHEUS

  JOHN KESSEL

  “Pride and Prometheus” is the second story for which John Kessel has won a Nebula Award, the first being “Another Orphan” in 1982. The story blends elements of Frankenstein and Pride and Prejudice with, of course, a unique twist. John is the director of the Master of Fine Arts Creative Writing program at North Carolina State University.

  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 Professor 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 nonplussed. 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.”

  “I should say not!” said Kitty. “He came to forget his grief! His little brother William was murdered, not six m
onths ago, by the family maid!”

  “How terrible!” said 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.”