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Title: Nebula Award Stories 5 by James Blish ISBN: 0-385-03851-8 Publisher: Doubleday Pub. Date: August, 1969 Format: Hardcover List Price(USD): $4.95

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Average Customer Rating: 4 (1 review)

Rating: 4
Summary: Oldies but memorable classics
Comment: This is an anthology of the best short stories of 1969; this pocketbook edition was published in 1972. It contains some classics that are still well known:

- Harlan Ellison's "A Boy and His Dog," about a survivor in the tough times after an atomic war. This is gritty and shocking, but logical, and can leave a lasting impression. Now that we may hope to live long enough to die a natural death, it's not quite the nightmare prediction that it once was. It won the Nebula award for best novella.

- Larry Niven's "Not Long Before the End," about the exhaustion of magic as a natural resource. Niven's hero, "The Warlock," appears in other stories in his history of a mythical time when Atlantis flourished and magic was still possible. Every word counts to make this a well told parable in the sword and sorcery genre. It was nominated for the Nebula award for best short story.

- Samuel R. Delaney's "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-precious Stones," which is memorable perhaps because its title is so odd. It is a different kind of society, futuristic in an understated way, and about different kinds of outsiders--people whose nature isolates them, yet their worlds interweave: empaths, petty criminals, major criminals, and anti-criminals--"the Feds" with imaginationor at least initiative. It won the Nebula award for best novelette.

- Theodore Sturgeon's "The Man Who Learned Loving." I do remember this one after all, as "Brownshoes"--another good story about the meaning of love in the long term. It was a good story then, and it's a good story now. It was nominated for the Nebula award for best short story.

And others:
- "Nine Lives" by Ursula K. Leguin, in which a clone of ten men and women with one genome are sent to an isolated mining planet. This one is about people and identity, not gadgets. It was nominated for the Nebula award for best novelette (7500 - 17500 words).

- "Passengers" by Robert Silverberg, about possession by aliens--not very memorable but it won a Nebula award. It's basically about a man who tries to rush a relationship with a woman he finds attractive. The fellow doesn't even have the sense to pick a comfortable rendezvous. Oddly enough, even Spider Robinson does this theme better with "User Friendly." Nevertheless, it won the Nebula award for best short story (fewer than 7500 words).

The introduction is by James Blish and there are essays on science fiction by D. Suvin (whom I don't know) and the Russian writer Alexi Panshin.

Story lengths:
- short story: under 7 500 words
- novelette: 7 500 - 17 500 words
- novella: 17 500 - 40 000 words
- novel: over 40 000 words