The SFWA have announced the 2002 Final Nebula Ballot [click here], and so I thought I would put together my reviews of these stories and direct you to the online stories (catch 'em while you can!).

The rolling elibility which means that the award covers stories from 2001 and 2002 makes the whole award a bit silly IMHO, but heigh-ho.

Novellas Bronte's Egg. Richard Chwedyk. - [ online here ]
Originally in F&SF August 2002.
My comments at the time:

"The second story about 'toy' dinosaurs who are living in a refuge, safe from the cruel acts of their previous owners. The main protagonist is a 'cute' young Dino, who dreams of the stars, and wants to build a robot. In building said robot, he inadvertently stumbles upon a way of bringing an egg from a fellow resident to hatch.

A little too 'cutesy' for me, to be honest, as the story veered towards a somewhat saccharin Disneyesque feel."

I think we can safely say that my opinion does not match that of the SFWA members who voted this one in.

The Chief Designer. Andy Duncan. - [ online here ]
Originally in Asimovs June 2001.
My comments at the time:

"The US space program has been the focus of a number of short stories of late, a number of which have been alternate histories (Stephen Baxter's 'Moon Six' being worth hunting down IMHO - except that you don't have to hunt it down, it's online at the excellent InfinityPlus).

Doubtless this retrospective approach is due to a sense of frustration at the lost opportunity and momentum : One Small Step for Man was a hesitant step, which has not been followed up. We are no futher forward, and are far short of Arthur C Clarke's then-reasonable projection for 2001, taking pride in having a Very Big Telescope, and just how sad is that? Where is our collective sense of wonder?

Andy Duncan looks at the Russian space program, and the driving force behind it: Sergei Korolev. Rescued from the gulag, Korolev and his team at Baikonur struggle to achieve their dreams. Duncan's story has echoes of Arthur C Clarke's best work in the sixties/seventies in the way he uses human emotion and commitment alongside the technical and political. Top Notch."

So - an agreement on this story.

Magic's Price. Bud Sparhawk - [ online here ]
Originally in Analog March 2001.

My comments at the time:

"Jacob lives on his family's farm. Unlike most, he is fascinated by the strange machines that lie inertly around the countryside.

When magicians arrive in the village, one of whom is a strikingly attractive young woman, he takes the chance to learn from them. The magicians are in fact engineers who are struggling with technology which their society has, due to some unknown event in the past, lost the use of. The extent to which the society now fears the magicians and the old technology, is shown dramatically, and Jacob finds his life changing.

Although not stated, it reads as the first in a series. I for one will be looking out for any subsequent stories."

The Political Officer. Charles Coleman Finlay. - [ online here ]
Originally in F&SF April 2002.
My comments at the time:

"A throw back in tone to the Golden Age. An all-male (with one exception) crew is heading out in a military ship on a risky reconaissance mission against the alien threat to humanity. However, humanity is doing a fine job of threatening itself, and a Maoist-type regime is in place. On board the ship the loyalties of the crew are tried and tested. Is the Political Officer alone, or can he find help from someone? "

In the review of the issue I also said: "the Finlay story is stretched just a bit too far to have really held my attention".

Sunday Night Yams at Minnie and Earl's. Adam-Troy Castro. - [ online here ]
Originally in Analog June 2001.
My comments at the time:

An elderly man returns to a tamed, tourist attraction moon, far different to the one he knew some seventy years ago when there as one of the early pioneer developers. He is wanting to revisit Minnie and Earl, who...

The early part of the story evokes the potential reality of life on the moon for the early pioneers. Although neatly structured, intertwining the current and the long past, Adam Troy Castro makes what I count as a Cardinal Sin: referring to another SF story (suspension of disbelief disappearing faster than oxygen out of punctured spacesuit helmet). It's doubly unfortunate in that the story which is referred to has a not-dissimilar plot, and trebly unfortunate in that it is a Ray Bradbury story which led me to ponder that Bradbury would have written this story somewhat more elegantly and concisely. The ending is also cheesily Disneyesque.

The lead up to the Big Surprise does generate tension. But the Big Surprise had me puzzled

I also have trouble in recognising this story as one which, according to the promotional blurb "easily qualifies as one of the most unusual and probably controversial stories we’ve (ie Analog) ever published" OK, quite unusual for Analog, but controversial?

As a metaphor for losing our sense of adventure with the sadly lost space programme for cosy commercialism, fine, although the recent space tourist says just as much.

Or am I being obtuse and missing out on something in the story, big time?

A mixed bag of novellas IMHO, and certainly not a classic ballot-list.

Novelette

The Days Between. Allen Steele. - [ online here ]
Originally in: Asimovs March 2001.
My comment at the time:

The second in a series of stories featuring the USS Alabama. The first story (USS Alabama, Asimovs January 2001), was a complex, taut thriller, which I enjoyed hugely, and which had me looking forward to subsequent stories.

On that basis, this story disappoints.

Whilst en route to its faraway destination, the AI of the Alabama disgorges Leslie Gillis from biostasis. This is neither accident nor malfunction, but harks back to the conspiracy element of the first story. Gillis is unable to return to biostasis and is thus condemned to a Robinson Crusoe existence.

The story follows him through alcoholism, insanity (I would have preferred a more scientific term!) and his eventual fate as a writer of fantasy tales about a Prince Rupurt - on that score I think alcoholism and insanity would have been a kinder fate!

The story does not really get to grips with what would surely be the bone-chilling horror of realisation that you are going to be truly alone for the rest of your life, nor the desperate sense of loss of what one has left behind (Gillis has a brief, maudlin rummage through some old photographs) or for the future not to be.

And a couple of other issues:

• Surely the AI and the ship would have systems in place for dealing with failures in biostasis pods? There appears to be ample space and energy for there to be some spare biostasis units.
• Gillis evidently gives no thought to causing major technical problems which the AI states are the only reason it would wake the crew
• In the darkness of his despair might not Gillis have attempted to unfreeze a companion - a Man or Woman Friday, so to speak. In William Barton's Heart of Glass (Asimovs January 2000) the sole crew member on a long-haul cargo ship finds the temptation some of his cargo offer beyond resistance.
• The story ends with a note that the rest of the flight went smoothly. If this is to be the only reported incident of a long interplanetary journey I would suggest the author has not quite hit the mark.

And voting on a story 24 months old!

The Ferryman's Wife. Richard Bowes. - [ online here ]
Originally in F&SF May 2001.
My comments at the time:

I have to admit to a frisson of apprehension when the intro to this story mentioned it being part of a new series of stories concerning 'Time Rangers', mysterious people who patrol the streams of time. Shades of Kage Baker's 'Company' series!

Suburban 1950s is the setting for two of the said Time Rangers, who play host to an attractive young woman who is on her way 'upstream' in an alluded-to far future conflict. The husband is particularly welcoming.

An interesting start to a series, suggesting a bit more depth than the rather, to my mind, flat 'Company' stories of Kage Baker who largely uses the time travel Company as a conceit to do a wide range of historical stories.

Hell is the Absence of God. Ted Chiang. - [ online here ]
Originally in Starlight 3.
I've read this story, and was sure that I'd reviewed it. But can I lay my hands on the book, or the review? Anyway, in the last paragraph I said 'not a standout'. This story: standout. 'nuf said.

Lobsters. Charles Stross. - [ online here ]
Originally in Asimovs June 2001.
My comments at the time:

Another treat for me! If you don't read the UK magazines Interzone and Spectrum SF (and if not, why not?) you may not be aware of Charles Stross. I like his work, and so does Gardner Dozois, who is putting two of his recent stories in his forthcoming Annual Collection.

Here we have a high-tech near future story. Not unlike, in some respects, Nancy Kress's Steamship Soldier on the Information Front, but IMHO much better. It features lots of techie stuff which I like (others won't), and also features two of my own favourite drinking places in Amsterdam, and kinky sex in which the female takes the lead.

The story shows you can have technology in stories without having to forego characterisation, wit and invention. Did someone mention Analog?

Madonna of the Maquiladora. Gregory Frost. - [ online here ]
Originally in Asimovs May 2002.
My comments at the time:

The author refers to Lucius Shepard's help to the author in moving from incubating idea to story. Indeed the story is redolent of Shepard, with the US/Mexican border, and the downtrodden denizens working for a pittance in local factories having a very Shepardian feel.
• Frost's characters take a photographic peek into some dark corners, although, like the story, they do not quite get into the darkness as Shepard would have done. But a good story nevertheless.

The Pagodas of Ciboure. M. Shayne Bell. - [ online here ]
Originally in 'The Green Man: Tales From the Mythic Forest,'.
Didn't read it.

Novelette-wise, a couple of good ones. But the creme de la creme. non!

Short Story

Creation. Jeffrey Ford. - [ online here ]
Originally in : F&SF May 2002.
My comments at the time:

Ford paints a child's view on life, as the young protagonist becomes convinced that whilst in the nearby woods he has breathed life into a creature of branches, leaves and moss. The childish belief that this may have been so is lovingly created.

Creature. Carol Emshwiller - [ online here ]
Originally in F&SF Oct/Nov 2001.
My comments at the time:

The story is presented as a follow-up to 'Foster Mother' in F&SF Feb 2002, a dark, brooding and strange tale of a goatboy.

This story is slightly more straightforward - a possibly post-holocaust scenario in which a main living alone in the mountains finds/is found by an enhanced, intelligent lizard/dino. Part of the ongoing battle, the creature is wounded and in need of help.

The pair are both in need and find in each other, against the odds, something, however small, to counteract that which is going on around them.

So this story gets in, whilst from the same issue, Ian Watson's 'One of Her Paths', doesn't. Doh!

Cut. Megan Lindholm. - [ online here ]
Originally in Asimovs May 2001.
My comments at the time:

Body art and freedom of choice conspire to create a fad for female circumcision. A grandmother is horrified when her granddaughter decides to opt for this procedure.

A short, but powerful story.

The Dog Said Bow-Wow. Michael Swanwick. - [ online here ]
Originally in Asimovs Oct/Nov 2001.
My comments at the time:

As you will now if you have been reading my reviews for some time, humour in SF is not one of my favourite reading matters - primarily because a lot of SF humour is so rarely funny.

Swanwick proves that it can be done, in a wonderfully bizarre/baroque sort of futuristic-steampunk-ishy way. Sir Blackthorpe Ravenscairn de Plus Precieux is an upright, walking, talking dog of some class, who falls in with a rum sort of cove when visiting London. A plot is hatched in which the very heart of the English monarch (a gross, maggot like Queen, symbolising, perhaps....) is threatened. Gads sir, a palpable hit!

Little Gods. Tim Pratt. - [ online here ]
Strange Horizons, February 2002.
Not read.

Nothing Ever Happens in Rock City. Jack McDevitt - [ online here ]
Originally in Artemis Summer 2001.
Not read.

A very uninspiring collection of short stories.

Overall - nice to see the small presses getting a look-in. But no stories from SCI FICTION, and a definite anti-Asimovs bias.

A fair representation of the best short SF over the period it covers? Not! For that we will have to wait for the Dozois/Silverberg/Hartwell anthologies. Or take a peek at LocusMag's Best of 2002, which has a much higher quality selection. And LocusMag also have online Claude Lalumiere's somewhat more obscure best of 2002.