Nebula Awards Showcase 2010 - By Bill Fawcett Page 0,2
AWARD Graceling | Kristin Cashore Harcourt, October 2008
Lamplighter | D.M. Cornish Monster Blood Tattoo, Book 2 Putnam Juvenile, May 2008
Savvy | Ingrid Law Dial, May 2008
The Adoration of Jenna Fox | Mary E. Pearson Henry Holt and Company, April 2008
Flora’s Dare: How a Girl of Spirit Gambles All to Expand Her Vocabulary, Confront a Bouncing Boy Terror, and Try to Save Califa from a Shaky Doom (Despite Being Confined to Her Room) | Ysabeau S. Wilce Harcourt, September 2008
2009 NEBULA AWARD WINNERS
BEST NOVEL
Powers by Ursula K. Le Guin
BEST NOVELLA
The Spacetime Pool by Catherine Asaro
BEST NOVELETTE
“Pride and Prometheus” by John Kessel
BEST SHORT STORY
“Trophy Wives” by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
BEST SCRIPT
WALL-E Screenplay by Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon,
Original story by Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter
ANDRE NORTON AWARD
Flora’s Dare: How a Girl of Spirit Gambles All to
Expand Her Vocabulary, Confront a Bouncing Boy Terror, and Try
to Save Califa from a Shaky Doom (Despite Being Confined
to Her Room) by Ysabeau S. Wilce
2009 NEBULA AWARD HONOREES
ALGIS BUDRYS SOLSTICE AWARD
M. J. ENGH AUTHOR EMERITA
MARTY GREENBERG SOLSTICE AWARD
HARRY HARRISON DAMON KNIGHT
MEMORIAL GRAND MASTER
JOSS WHEDON RAY BRADBURY AWARD
KATE WILHELM SOLSTICE AWARD
EARLY SF IN THE PULP MAGAZINES
ROBERT WEINBERG
The pulp magazine was the invention of publisher Frank A. Munsey, who, in 1896, reasoned that readers were more interested in the content of a magazine than the quality of paper it was printed on. In December 1896, Munsey dropped the price of his all-fiction magazine, Argosy, from a quarter to a dime and changed the paper stock from glossy white finish to cheap wood pulp. Almost immediately, circulation doubled, and by 1905 had soared from selling 40,000 copies a month to ten times that number.
Argosy published a variety of popular fiction, ranging from short stories to complete novels to multipart serials. Adventure fiction of all types was the main thrust of the magazine, and there were no rules regarding content. So Frank Aubrey’s novel, A Queen of Atlantis, appeared in Argosy for February through August 1899 and William Wallace Cook contributed “A Round Trip to the Year 2000” in the July through November 1903 issues. And there was more science fiction, much more, to follow.
In American publishing, success breeds competition. Thus it was with the pulp magazines. By 1910, Munsey was publishing a second magazine, Munsey’s, modestly named after himself, and had announced a third, a weekly fiction magazine, titled The All-Story. Other publishers had their own cheap “wood-pulp paper” fiction magazines, soon nicknamed “pulps.” Adventure began in 1910, and it was quickly followed by Detective Story Magazine. Pulps began to diversify in content and by 1930, more than a hundred different titles crowded the newsstands, with a combined circulation of over 50,000,000 copies.
Editor of The All-Story magazine was Bob Davis, who had worked for the Munsey chain for years. Davis understood the appeal of good science fiction, having bought George Allan England’s Darkness and Dawn trilogy in 1908. The three novels told of a modern couple who fell into suspended animation; their awakening hundreds of years later in a long-abandoned New York City; and their search for civilization. The series was immensely popular and was reprinted complete in one thick hardcover soon after serialization. But even Davis couldn’t predict the incredible success of his next science fiction discovery.
The serial, published in The All-Story from February to July 1912, was titled “Under the Moons of Mars,” and the author, under a pen name, was Edgar Rice Burroughs. The story told of ex-soldier John Carter, who was magically transported to the planet Mars, where he discovered an ancient, dying civilization; barbaric green men with four arms; and a beautiful princess name Dejah Thoris. Fortunately, John Carter was one of Earth’s greatest swordsmen.
Carter and “Mars” was a tremendous hit and the Age of the Scientific Romance was born. A year later, Burroughs cemented his place as the world’s most popular pulp author with the publication of Tarzan of the Apes complete in the October 1912 issue of The All-Story magazine. For the next quarter-century, much of science fiction consisted of vividly imagined adventure stories taking place on far worlds or among lost civilizations with noble heroes conquering savage hordes and winning beautiful princesses. It was all quite entertaining but not very deep.
Notable pioneers of the scientific romance included Ray Cummings, Ralph Milne Farley, and Abraham Merritt. Cummings’ first story, “The Girl in the Golden Atom,” popularized the concept of atoms resembling miniature solar systems and advanced civilizations living on electrons. A prolific author, Cummings moved effortlessly from the Munsey pulps to the early science fiction magazines.