Introduction to the Nebula Awards Showcase 2009
Acclaimed editor Ellen Datlow introduces the Nebula Awards Showcase 2009 Anthology
People are still saying that science fiction is dead, but I’ve been editing SF/F for over twenty-five years, and I see science fiction and fantasy writers continuing to create vibrant, original, provocative fiction. Both sub groups of fantastic fiction have branched out into a variety of subgenres and readers can find their kind of SF/F that still gives them a kick, as there are book publishers and professional magazines/webzines catering to many different tastes.
The delivery systems for text are evolving too: from print to the internet, on to portable electronic readers. Sony’s e-reader and Amazon’s Kindle may herald an important shift that can only help our field. But that doesn’t mean that print is going away.
The “mainstream” of fiction has been embracing science fiction and fantasy for a very long time--it just perhaps hasn’t acknowledged it. Science fiction and fantasy stories, some from genre sources, have been chosen for The Best American Short Stories and the O’Henry Award volumes for decades, including work by Harlan Ellison, Kelly Link, Tim Pratt, James P. Blaylock, Ray Bradbury, Kevin Brockmeier, Stephen King, Cory Doctorow, A. S. Byatt, George Saunders, Dan Chaon, Bruce McAllister, and Michael Bishop. Every year the discerning reader can discover fantastic literature --stories and novels—not marketed as science fiction or fantasy but as mainstream.
Sometimes I worry that the ghetto mentality has closed us off in a little bubble, blinding us from acknowledging the fact that sometimes writers outside our field get it right. So I’m always delighted to be proven wrong—perhaps the fact that Michael Chabon’s wonderful alternative history, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union won the Nebula Award for best novel this year is a positive step in breaking down our own biased walls.
New writers are still published by magazines and publishing houses, some sf/f novels make the bestseller lists and are read by people outside the field. Magazines and webzines continue to pop up and publish noteworthy stories. What’s this all mean? To me, it’s that the Nebula Awards are a celebration of a field that has endured.
This is the Nebula Awards Showcase of 2009, reprinting the winners and several of the nominees from 2007, plus an excerpt from the award-winning novel. In addition, there is a classic story by our new Grand Master.
The Rhysling award-winning poems are also part of the volume, as are essays on a number of subjects. Ellen Asher, looks back at her thirty-four year tenure with the Science Fiction Book Club. Barry N. Malzberg provides an entertainingly jaundiced view of the state of the art of science fiction and its blurring with fantasy fiction and Kathleen Ann Goonan counters with a passionate counterpunch as to why she believes the writing of science fiction is not only a viable career choice for writers but important for our society. Gwenda Bond celebrates the booming market for young adult science fiction and fantasy. Howard Waldrop covers the movies: the good, the bad, the awful. And Tim Lucas, editor and publisher of Video Watchdog writes about Guillermo del Toro’s screenwriting award-winner Pan’s Labyrinth.
And so here is the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America’s annual snapshot of the field--I hope you enjoy what you see as I much as I do.
ELLEN DATLOW has been editing short science fiction, fantasy, and horror for over twenty–five years.
She is co-editor of The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror and has edited or co-edited a large number of award-winning original anthologies, most recently The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Inferno
, and The Coyote Road
(with Terri Windling). Forthcoming in 2009 are Poe: 19 New Tales of Suspense, Dark Fantasy, and Horror Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe
and Troll’s Eye View: A Book of Villainous Tales
(this last with Terri Windling).
She has won multiple awards for her editing, including the World Fantasy, Locus, Hugo, International Horror Guild, and Stoker Awards. She was named recipient of the 2007 Karl Edward Wagner Award for “outstanding contribution to the genre.”




