Just got my contributor's copy of the Nebula Awards Showcase 2007,
this one edited by the esteemed Mike Resnick, who very kindly roped me in to writing an essay on the small and independent presses. I always pick this up anyway, for the great essays on the state of the genre. Since I'm in it this year, now I have to decide whether to file this one on the "Lou shelf" or next to the previous volumes.But leaving me aside, there is great fiction here by Kelly Link, Joe Haldeman, Carol Emshwiller, Robert J Sawyer and others, as well as the aforemetioned essays. Cool, no?
6 comments:
Lou,
Does this volume include John Picacio's essay about Richard Powers? Hoping so...
Robert
Yes it does. I think I told you that essay, or the germ of the idea for it, actually came about when we were discussing the Fast Forward cover. I wanted to run it there, but ended up going long (hi, John Meaney) and John ended up rushed anyway, then he was able to use the sentiments when Mike asked him in.
Lou,
Thanks -- that's good news. One of my first encounters with Powers' art was when I was in Jr High. The school library was having a new pb book sale, and amazingly and inexplicably some Berkeley Books edtions of J G Ballard had sneaked in amongst the more mundane stuff.
My eye was caught by Powers' surrealistic dreamshapes on the cover of Ballard's The Voices of Time. His art lead me to the stories, which I found to be disturbing, powerful, and fascinating. I'd never read anything like those stories before; didn't completely understand what was happening in them...but knew I liked it, and wanted to read more. All thanks to Richard Powers' cover art.
Robert
Unrelated Content!
I was at Borders last night, and they've finally gotten Keeping it Real in. Mind you, it's not on any tables, it's on the shelf. If you guys worked out a deal, you may want to appeal to someone or something. Or I could! They're already annoyed at me for constantly asking about Interzone, why not piss them off a little more.
Tim, thanks for the spotting. The promotion was moved back to later this month. I'm glad to see the books are in. I don't have a Borders here, though I saw 4 in my local B&N, which is nice. They were not face out when I got there. They are now.
Robert,
You are describing my experiences as well. I hit Powers artwork as a child, and as a result, I imprinted on SF as something sophisticated, modern, adult, dignified, mysterious. I knew it was "over my head" but it inspired me to reach. I went from there to spending my teenage years with rock bands that sang about Starship Troopers and Mordor. It was only later in life that I realized there was any kind of stigma about SF at all, as I had always thought it was something a) adult and b) part and parcel of popular culture. Which, of course, it is.
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