Wonderful collection of outstanding sci-fi and speculative fiction work - some standouts are "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" by Ted Chiang and "Pol Pot's Beautiful Daughter (Fantasy)" by Geoff Ryman. ( )

A nicely varied selection of short stories, extracts, and essays.

The stories:
Ted Chiang's "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate' is a wonderful story of time travel, as told by the traveller to the Caliph in an attempt to explain that he is not mad, nor is he a vagrant. Karen Joy Fowler's "Always" tells of a cult of immortality that falls apart when the leader has a heart attack, until the only one left is just keeping going, because who will do the work if she doesn't? David D Levine's "Titanium Mike Saves the Day" is a matrioshka doll of stories about the power of stories, in a space setting. Geoff Ryman's "Pol Pot's Beautiful Daughter" talks of ghosts, and making amends, and the many unmourned dead of Cambodia. The excerpt from Michael Chabon's "The Yiddish Policeman's Union" is interesting enough to make me want to read the rest, but not enough for me to hunt it down, especially as it has little in the way of story. Lucius Shepard's "Stars seen through stone" compares petty human monsters with truly inhuman monsters of supernatural origin, with a side order of working in the music publishing industry. Kij Johnson's "The Evolution of Trickster Stories among the dogs of North Park after the change" is another story of human monstrosity, this time in light of dogs learning to talk, and the widespread abandonment that happens as a result. Jennifer Pelland's "Captive Girl" is yet another monstrosity of humans story - this time, the willingness of the many to ignore the destruction of a handful of individuals in the quest for their safety. Andy Duncan's "Unique Chicken Goes in Reverse" is a light-hearted story about a little girl who terrifies a priest, with only a chicken. Nancy Kress's "Fountain of Age" is story of lost love, and what happens when what makes one person immortal can be passed to others, at the price of freedom.

The rest:
As to essays and other non-fiction writing: Howard Waldrop reviews a year of films, almost inspiring me to go and watch Enchanted. Barry N Malzberg presents a brief essay on the future of science fiction, not inspiring me much - the quality of the stories here did that much better. Assorted people write about the meanings of assorted awards, and why they are gathered in a volume that purports to be about only one of these awards. Kim Newman summarises the contributions of Michael Moorcock, and why they make him a Grand Master. Gwenda Bond talks about the explosion in YA sf/f, and how it should be interpreted. Ellen Asher talks of her time editing at the Science Fiction Book Club

There are also three poems, which I find impossible to comment on, an example short story from Moorcock, and a list of all of the past Nebula winners. I plan to read through this last one day, and maybe even try and source all of the items. But that will have to be another time. ( )

The last time I read one of the Nebula Awards Showcase series, it was the 2007 volume and while there were some decent stories in it and one very good one, I was disappointed in it overall. Since these were meant to be award winning and award nominated stories, it made me wonder whether it was just a poor selection of stories or whether it was genuinely the best the science fiction and fantasy genres had to offer these days. So I was quite wary when I saw the 2009 book in the library, but I had to give it a go. Thankfully it’s restored some of my faith in the genre. It’s a far superior book. The stories were generally of a high standard throughout and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

In terms of the amount of content, the book is good value. As well as the winner of each of the short story, novelette and novella categories, it includes three of the other nominated short stories, two of the runner-up novelettes, an old Michael Moorcock story in celebration of his winning the Grand Master awards and even an extra novella. Not a gigantic number of stories, but considering the number of longer stories there’s a lot of content there. They also include the winning Rhysling entries for genre poetry. On the other hand, there are some disappointments. As nice as it is to have some variety, the short non-fiction pieces interspersed between the stories are mostly just filler. Then there’s the 12 page excerpt from the winner in the Best Novel category. I’ve never understood the point of things like this. Why would I want to read part of a novel without being able to get any conclusion to the story.

But anyway, on to the bulk of the book: the stories themselves. The book opens with Ted Chiang’s “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” which mixes a thoughtful scientific version of time travel into an Arabian Nights style fantasy setting to create a truly exceptional story and a deserving winner of the Best Novelette category. It features stories within stories and ends up being a very thoughtful story about a very specific type of time travel.

The novella category seems to have been particularly strong in this year in fact. (The year comprising some period between 2006 – 2007 due to the weird way the Nebula Award eligibility is worked out, never mind the weird labelling of the books to the year they’re published rather than the year of the awards.) “Pol Pot’s Beautiful Daughter (Fantasy)” seems to have been quite controversial due to the Cambodian setting and the use of a real person as a lead character bearing no resemblance to them, but the story was very well written and made me want to keep on reading. I still can’t quite make up my mind about it. The bizarrely titled “The Evolution of Trickster Stories Among the Dogs of North Park After The Change” is another great story, looking at the change in people’s relationships with animals after they become able to speak. Thoughtful and very different to any of the other stories, it wouldn’t have surprised me to see it as a winner in a year without a Ted Chiang story.

The two novellas included are both very readable with Nancy Kress’s “Fountain of Age” being a worthy winner. Lucius Shepard’s “Stars Seen Through Stone” presented some of the most well realised characters of the book and was mostly believable story. The fantasy elements felt like an afterthought, but at least they’re there so I’m willing to overlook that for now. Neither of them would rank amongst my ultimate favourites of the genre, but they’re both well worth a read.

The short stories aren’t quite as successful overall. The winner, “Always” by Karen Joy Fowler, is about a woman who joins a cult which promises immortality to its members. It’s a reasonable story but unspectacular, and being based on real cults, it isn’t even remotely related to science fiction or fantasy in any way. A very strange choice. Andy Duncan’s “Unique Chicken Goes In Reverse” is about a priest called in to help a young girl who believes that a chicken is Jesus and is mildly amusing at best. Jennifer Pelland’s “Captive Girl” was more of a fetish love story than anything else; deeply disturbing right from the start and seemed to have a very unpleasant message behind it in the end. A story I could really have done without. “Titanium Mike Saves the Day” was the one standout story in this category, consisting of several vignettes, each one further back in time, that chart the telling of a legend back to it’s origins of a simple action in a bar. It’s an interesting story about stories.

So the book isn’t all great, but the longer stories do tend to be the better ones, meaning that there’s a large proportion of good to excellent material. It’s well worth reading for science fiction fans, even if the definition of what classes as sci-fi is stretched to its very limit at times. And frankly, even if all it had going for it was Ted Chiang’s story, it would be worth it just for that. ( )

There's some solid stuff in here! I continue not to be charmed by The Yiddish Policeman's Union, even in excerpt, and the nonfiction in here is frankly crap -- too short and shallow to be worth reading.

Ted Chiang's “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” is totally worth the price of admission, with an interesting low-tech approach to time travel and regressive storytelling. Karen Joy Fowler's "Always" is barely sci-fi; it would not be out of place in the New Yorker or Atlantic Monthly's fiction issues, in terms of its genre cred. “Captive Girl," by Jennifer Pelland, is fascinating, terrifying and creepy and clearly owes a debt to Ender's Game and omg there is so much packed in here. ( )

How many different ways can you say that the Nebula Awards Showcase series (an annual collection going all the way back to the first Nebula Awards in 1965) is the most consistent collection of quality short science fiction you can turn to? I know of what I speak. I own and have read every single one of them. Sure, occasionally there is a collection that is not quite as good as the others. But, this is never (nearly ever) because of the award winners; rather, because of the alternates that have been selected by the editor or by the essays that are always included. In other words, it is hard to go wrong when you are selecting from fiction that has been identified as “best” by the authors themselves.

This collection (2009) is one of the good ones. The award winners all deserved to win, the alternates that were selected stand well with the winners, and the essays do an excellent job of expressing what has happened in 2009 as well as some of the history of the genre.

You never go wrong with the Nebula Awards books, and you definitely will not go wrong with this one. ( )