num_pages: 326
description: In reviewing last year's Nebula Awards anthology -- the annual selection of award-winning and award-nominated fiction from the Science Fiction Writers of America -- I commented that the series "may turn out to be the best record we have of how SF writers have wanted to represent their craft to the world." Jack Dann, the editor of Nebula Awards 32, apparently agrees -- he includes that quotation in his introduction to this year's selection. But it's not only the stories that make each new Nebula anthology exciting; it's also the essays by various science fiction writers about the state of the field (they're worried), the inclusion of some of the year's best science fiction poetry (the Rhysling Award winners), an acute overview of the year's science fiction films by Bill Warren (a bit dated, since the films covered are from 1996), and tributes and fiction from the Grand Master Nebula winner (in this case Jack Vance, whose short story "The Men Return" is still stunningly audacious 40 years after its original appearance). Of the fiction selections, the most impressive include Dann's own Nebula-winning novella "Da Vinci Rising" (which reworks material from his novel The Memory Cathedral), Harry Turtledove's alternate Civil War/World War II history "Must and Shall," Esther M. Friesner's controversial abortion story "A Birthday," and equally entertaining stories from Dean Wesley Smith, Paul Levinson, Jonathan Lethem, Bruce Holland Rogers, and Nicola Griffith. Gary Wolfe
language: English
title: Nebula Awards 32: SFWA's Choices for the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year
titlecomplete: Nebula Awards 32: SFWA's Choices for the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year
genres: Fantasy, Speculative Fiction, Anthologies, Short Stories, Fiction, Science Fiction
ratings_count: 37
publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt