{"id":3669,"date":"2022-05-05T13:32:18","date_gmt":"2022-05-05T13:32:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/world-science-fiction\/?p=3669"},"modified":"2022-05-05T13:32:18","modified_gmt":"2022-05-05T13:32:18","slug":"a-septet-of-stories-nebula-award-stories-number-three-edited-by-roger-zelazny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/world-science-fiction\/wsf\/a-septet-of-stories-nebula-award-stories-number-three-edited-by-roger-zelazny\/","title":{"rendered":"A Septet of Stories: Nebula Award Stories Number Three edited by Roger Zelazny"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3670\" src=\"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/world-science-fiction\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/312\/2022\/05\/Nebula-Award-Stories-Number-Three.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"443\" height=\"757\" srcset=\"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/world-science-fiction\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/312\/2022\/05\/Nebula-Award-Stories-Number-Three.jpeg 443w, https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/world-science-fiction\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/312\/2022\/05\/Nebula-Award-Stories-Number-Three-176x300.jpeg 176w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 443px) 100vw, 443px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>(Post by Nora Sullivan Horner)<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b style=\"font-size: 1rem\">1) what made you choose the book you did<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I wanted an anthology of short stories for the same reason that Professor Saiber has chosen to almost exclusively assign short stories: to get exposure to as many samples of SF writing as possible. The first page reads: \u201cThis selection of the best science fiction stories of 1967 was chosen by ballot by the 200-member Science Fiction Writers of America.\u201d This self-description appealed to me since I wanted a vetted anthology with well-established authors and it turned out that we\u2019ve read a good portion of the featured authors.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>2) what the book is about<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A short description on the first page reads: \u201c[The stories in this book] comprise what has been aptly called folk literature of the machine age, as they examine the basic elements of man\u2019s nature in terms of the expansions of science and human awareness.\u201d I thought this classification as \u201cfolk literature of the machine age\u201d was a sharply clever characterization of this genre, one with which I\u2019d agree.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This book contains seven stories, an introduction and afterword from Zelazny, and a demi-appendix listing the Nebula-award winners from 1965 to 1967. The stories and their authors are as follows: \u201cThe Cloud-Sculptors of Coral D\u201d by J. G. Ballard, \u201cPretty Maggie Monkeyeyes\u201d by Harlan Ellison, \u201cMirror of Ice\u201d by Gary Wright, \u201cWeyr Search\u201d by Anne McCaffrey, and the three Nebula winners \u201cAye, and Gomorrah\u201d by Samuel Delany, \u201cGonna Roll the Bones\u201d by Fritz Leiber, and \u201cBehold the Man\u201d by Michael Moorcock.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In this book review, for each story I\u2019ll give a seductive, seven-word synopsis (SSS), discussion of its style and themes, favorite lines, whether I recommend it, and how I rank it compared to the other stories included. The recommendation scale numbers one to five according to the following scale: one means actively avoid for fear of psychic damage; two means read at your own risk of pointed displeasure; three means there is ambiguous gain if you feel compelled to read the story; four means reading is encouraged if you want a solidly good, entertaining, or eye-opening story; five means reading is almost required for an enlightening experience. The two scales don\u2019t necessarily correspond with each other; I may dis\/like a story that still ranks high\/low when held in comparison.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>NUMBER ONE: \u201cThe Cloud-Sculptors of Coral D\u201d by J. G. Ballard\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">SSS: Men sculpt and die for eccentric widow.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Style and themes: beautiful, witty turns-of-phrase that wake up the reader on the page; whimsical in its plot, characters, and details. Themes\/tropes include: a \u201cbeautiful but insane woman,\u201d alternate worlds, psychology, landscape editing\/small scale engineering (via old school and new school tech, gliders and iodine crystal spray), [new weird?].<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Favorite lines and good vocab words:\u00a0<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cThe hunchback nodded encouragingly to me, his eyes lit by an astronomy of dreams\u201d (3).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cHer strong and elegant face seemed sealed within the dark glass of the limousine like the enigmatic madonna of some marine grotto\u201d (6).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201c\u2018Clouds, Beatrice? Those are tigers, tigers with wings. We\u2019re manicurists of the air, not dragontamers\u2019\u201d (9).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201c\u2018You\u2019re very mysterious. Such as?\u2019 \u2018She played games with her eyes. \u2018I\u2019ll tell you in a month\u2019s time when my contract expires. Now, when are your men coming?\u2019\u201d (10).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cWith the diamonds fixed around her eyes she reminded me of some archaic priestess. Beneath the countour jewelry her breasts lay like eager snakes\u201d (11).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cShe was looking up at her [cloud-hewn] portrait as it began to break up over the lake, seeing it for the first time. The veins held the blood in her face\u201d (12-13).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cLeonora was wearing an evening dress of peacock feathers that lay around her legs in an immense train. The hundred of eyes gleamed in the electric air before the storm, sheathing her body in their blue flames\u201d (14).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cIn her face the diagram of bones formed a geometry of murder\u201d (15).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cAfter the spectacle of this death within the exploding replica of their hostess\u2019s face, the guests began to leave\u201d (16).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201c\u2026I found a shallow basin among the dunes where sonic statues had run to seed beside a ruined studio\u2026.His companion was squatting by the sonic statues, twisting their helixes so that their voices became more resonant\u2026.Disturbed by the noise, the statues had begun to whine\u201d (2, 13).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Vocab:<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Laconic &#8211; using or involving the use of a minimum of words; concise to the point of seeming rude or mysterious<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Droll &#8211; having a humorous, whimsical, or odd quality\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Nubile &#8211; of a marriageable condition or age; sexually attractive\u2014used of a young woman\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Giocanda &#8211;\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Nacreous<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Toque<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Quay<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Chatelaine<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rictus<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Recommendation and ranking: I give this story a 3.5. Out of the collection, I rank it as number two.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>NUMBER TWO: \u201cPretty Maggie Moneyeyes\u201d by Harlan Ellison<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">SSS: morbid colonizer and Native gambling sex fantasy\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Style and themes: I thought the Zelazny introduction described Ellison\u2019s writing in this story aptly: \u201cHis prose is as stark as a skull by Georgia O\u2019Keefe and as steady as a jackhammer.\u201d Wildly imaginative in a way that weaves webs between the mundane and the elevated in a seamlessly coherent way. Themes\/tropes include: computers, dimensions, disaster, drugs, games, immortality, media landscape, perception, psychology, sex\/gender, new weird(?).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Favorite lines and good vocab words:<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cLong legs, trim and coltish; hips a trifle large, the kind that promote that specific thought in men, about getting their hands around it; belly flat, isometrics; waist cut to the bone, a waist that works in any style from dirndl to disco-slacks; no breasts\u2014all nipple, but no breast, like an expensive whore (the way O\u2019Hara pinned it)\u2014and no padding\u2026\u201d (20).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cAmazing cheekbones, the whole face, really; simple uplifted eyes, the touch of the Cherokee, eyes that looked out at you, as you looked in at them, like someone peering out of the keyhole as you peers in; actually, dirty eyes, they said you can get it\u201d (21).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cHair, the way a man wants it, so he can dig his hands in at the base of the neck and pull all that face very close an operable woman, a working mechanism, a rigged and sudden machinery of softness and motivation\u201d (21).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cMaggie, Maggie, Maggie, pretty Maggie Moneyeyes,\u00a0 who came from Tucson and trailers and rheumatic fever and a surge to live that was all kaleidoscope frenzy of clawing scrabbling no-nonsense. If it took lying on one\u2019s back and making sounds like a panther in the desert, then one did it, because nothing, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">but<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> nothing, was as bad as being dirt-poor, itchy-skinned, soiled-underwear, scuff-toed, hairy and ashamed lousy with the no-gots. Nothing!\u201d (21-22).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cAnd the old dealer, who could no longer cut it at the fast-action boards, who had been put out to pasture by a grateful management\u201d (23).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cSomewhere, a connection was made, and electricity, a billion volts of electricity, were shot through Kostner. His hair stood on end, his fingertips bled raw, his eyes turned to jelly, and every fiber in his musculature became radioactive\u201d (23).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cIt was a leathery grin; something composed of stretched muscles and conditioned reflexes, totally mirthless\u201d (24).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cFrom somewhere, not in the Casino room, he heard a tinkle of rhodium-plated laughter\u201d (24).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cMen stared after her as she walked. She carried herself like a challenge, the way a squire carried a pennant, the way a prize bitch carried herself in the judge\u2019s ring. Born to the blue. The wonders of mimicry and desire\u201d (26).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cShe had to keep the patina of the world off her, had to remain clean and smooth and white. A presentation, not an object of flesh and hair. A chromium instrument, something never pitted by rust and corrosion\u201d (27).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cSuddenly total cellular knowledge\u2026.a soundless owl of frenzy trapped in a cave of prisms\u2026.overhead the odor of stop\u2026. this is the stopover between hell or heaven\u2026.trapped and doomed alone in a mist-eaten nowhere\u201d (28).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cHe was in his late fifties, a velvet-voiced man whose eyes held nothing of light and certainly nothing of kindness\u201d (29).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201c\u2026he was numb, partaking of the action around him only as much as a drinking glass involves itself in the alcoholic\u2019s drunken binge\u201d (29).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201c\u2026the gamblers with poached-egg eyes who had been up all night, the showgirls with massive breasts and diminutive sugar daddies\u2026\u201d (30).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cI\u2019ve been waiting for you. A long time, I\u2019ve been waiting for you, Kostner. Why do you think you hit the jackpot? Because I\u2019ve been waiting for you, and I want you. You\u2019ll win all the jackpots. Because I want you, I need you. Love me, I\u2019m Maggie, I\u2019m so alone, love me\u201d (30).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cHartshorn\u2019s smile was a stricture\u2026.Hartshorn\u2019s smile became hieroglyphic, permanent, stamped on him forever\u201d (33).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201c\u2026blue eyes deep as the past, misted with a fine scintillance like lavender spiderwebs; taut body that was the only body Woman ever had, from the very first\u201d (35).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cAnd she came to him, fully. Her body was a declaration of truth and trust such as no other Kostner had ever known before. She met him on a windswept plain of thought, and he made love to her more completely than he had known any passion before. She joined with him, entered him, mingled with his blood and his thought and his frustration, and he came away clean, filled with glory\u201d (36).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cThere was a terrible shriek, of tortured metal, of an express train ripping the air with its passage, of a hundred small animals being gutted and torn to shreds, of incredible pain\u2026\u201d (37).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Vocab (interesting stylistic choice = <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">underlined<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">)<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Many-colored<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bindlestiff<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Popped for<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A tot too much<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Allathat<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Vale<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rheumatic \/ rheumy<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Vomity<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cuculiform<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pealed<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Resigned-weary<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Recommendation and ranking: I question whether the content of this story classifies it as SF or if it was considered so because Ellison is a SF writer; the role of tech is minimal and wholly unexplained, so much so that it bypasses even a fantasy category and plunges into a hallucinogenic, gravity-unbound drug-trip. I give this story a 3. Out of the collection, I rank it as number three.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>NUMBER THREE: \u201cMirror of Ice\u201d by Gary Wright<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">SSS: adrenaline junkie meets Nascar meets Winter Olympics<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Style and themes: one moment to the next narration, fast-paced and vivid. Like the previous story, less and less identifiably (obviously) SF; touches no listed themes.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Favorite lines and good vocab words:<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201c[the sled] was a mean-looking missile, low and lean\u201d (41)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cThis was what had changed bobsledding into\u2026<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">this:<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> this special thing with its special brotherhood, this clan apart, this peculiar breed of men set aside for the wonder of other men. The Kin, they called themselves\u201d (41).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201c<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u2026someone once, laughing, had said, \u2018Without peer, we are the world\u2019s fastest suicide<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201d (41).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cSimply open his canopy, that was the signal, and when the start came the other sleds would dive down and away and he would be sitting here alone. But, God, so alone! And he would be alone for the rest of his life. He might see some of the Kin again, sometime, somewhere. But they would not see him. It was a kind of death to stay behind\u2026<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">and a real death to go. Death, the silent rider with every man in every race\u2026<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201d (42)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201c<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u2026and it had to be that way. On the course sleds crashed and were no more\u2026.Only later, in the valley, were there men missing<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201d (43).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Of these sixteen, chances were that nine would finish. With luck, maybe ten. And chances also said that only fourteen of these men would be alive tonight. Those were the odds, as hard and cold as the ice, the fascinating frosting for this sport. Violent death! Assured, spectacular, magnetic death in a sport such as the world had never known. Incredible men with incredible skills doing an incredible thing\u201d (43).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cWas that why they did it?\u2026<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">yes, always that question: \u2018Why do you do it?\u2019 And before he had died on the Plummet, Sir Robert Brooke had told them, \u2018Well, why not?\u2019 <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">(43)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cNo, there were no quitters here; only the doers or the dead. And which was he going to be tonight?\u201d (47)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cThe Jackhammer smoothed out and plunged downward, and they were hurtling now into the Wingover at over 90 mph. Here were the second biggest grandstands on the course, the second greatest concentration fo cameras. Here two ambulance helicopters stood by, and a priest too. The Wingover\u2026\u201d (47)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u2018Remember when Otto Domagk left Cripple\u2019s Corner in that snow storm?\u2019 \u2018Ya, und ven him was dogged out\u2014Vas? Two hours?\u2014he was so sleeping.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> (47)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201c<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u2026how many were dead now? Himself and how many others? But it wasn\u2019t fear of death\u2014what was it? What was it that he\u2019d walled off inside\u2014that something secret always skirted as carefully as a ship veers from a hidden reef, knowing it is there\u2014what? And now the wall was down, and was facing\u2026.<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201d (48)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cHere were the biggest grandstands and the most hungry eyes of the cameras. Here there were three clergy, and emergency operating rooms. Here\u2026<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u2026here he would complete the formality of dying<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201d (48)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201c<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u2026and that was it; you kept trying. Over and over. No matter how many times you faced yourself it had to be done again. And again. The Self was never satisfied with single citifies\u2014you had to keep trying\u2026<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And he was empty no more\u201d (49)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The entire ending conversation!<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Vocab<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cantilevered<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Steaking [into]<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Recommendation and ranking: I give this story a 3. Out of the collection, I rank it as number six.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>NUMBER FOUR: \u201cAye, and Gomorrah\u201d by Samuel Delany<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">(I\u2019m skipping this story because we read it as a class, and, honestly, because I found the other ones more compelling to discuss more deeply\u2014Delany\u2019s story isn\u2019t one of my personal favorites.)\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Recommendation and ranking: I give this story a 4. Out of the collection, I rank it as number one.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>NUMBER FIVE: \u201cGonna Roll the Bones\u201d by Fritz Leiber<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">SSS: Tim Burton nuclear family man battles bread\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Style and themes: Wacky, swanky, engaging. High paced, exciting, unpredictable. New weird(?); aside from that touches on no SF themes. Like the previous ones, very difficult to immediately conceive of as SF.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Favorite lines and good vocab words:<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">(In the introduction): \u201c<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It is timeless, though, and like all such things, timely\u201d <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">(62)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cThe night was up-side-down deep among the forstoy stars\u201d (64)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cDown below it looked as if the whole town of Ironmine had blown or buttoned out the light\u2026\u201d (64)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201c\u2026it occurred to him that something deep down inside him had for relays been planning things so that he and the house and his Wife and Mother and Mr. Guts would all come to an end together\u201d (64)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cEvery tight-locked atom of the place was controlledly jumping. Even the dust motes jibed tensely in the cones of light\u201d (66)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cBack a little from the other end was the nakedest change girl yet and the only one he\u2019d seen whose tray, slung from her breasts, was stacked with gold in gleaming little towers with jet-black chips. While the dice-girl, skinnier and taller and longer armed than his Wife even, didn\u2019t seem to be wearing much but a pair of long white gloves. She was all right if you went for the type that isn\u2019t much more than pale skin over bones with breasts like china doorknobs\u201d (66)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cJoe traded all his greasy dollars for an equal number of pale chips and tweaked her left nipple for cut. She playfully snapped her teeth toward his fingers\u2026\u201d (67)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cBehind the man in black was a knot of just about the flashiest and nastiest customers, male or female, Joe had ever seen. He knew from one look that each bediamonded, pomaded bully had a belly gun beneath the flap of his flowered vest and a blackjack in his hip pocket, and each snake-eyed sporting girl a stiletto in her garter and a pearl-handled silver-plated derringer under the sequined silk in the hollow between her jutting breasts\u201d (67)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cOr like silver space-liners with dozens of jewel-flamed jets, their portholes a-twinkle like ranks of marshaled asteroids\u201d (68)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201c\u2018Or Miss Flossie here can kiss you to death.\u2019 He drew forward beside him his prettiest, evilest-looking sporting girl. She preened herself and flounced her short violet skirt and gave Joe a provocative, hungry look, lifting her carmine upper lip to show her long white canines.\u2019\u201d (82)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">83<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cThen her turned and headed straight for home, but he took the long way, around the world\u201d (83)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Recommendation and ranking: I give this story a 2.5. Out of the collection, I rank it as number seven.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>NUMBER SIX: \u201cBehold the Man\u201d by Michael Moorcock<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">SSS: two atheists and time-traveling Jesus role play<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Style and themes: a mixture of modern and bible-adjacent prose; flowery and pragmatic. Told in the way someone would speak and whose words would later be written, much like those older stories in those older books. Themes include alternate history, humor, identity, memory, religion, satire, slavery (vaguely), time travel, messianic alien (almost), travel log (kind of, more of a narration, but snips and pieces, not written by anyone to anyone, but seems journal-adjacent)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Favorite lines and good vocab words:<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201c\u2018The followers of this man do not think at all; he was their act of spontaneous creation. Now he leads them, this madman called Jesus of Nazareth. And he spoke, saying unto them: Yeah verily I was Karl Glogauer and now I Jesus the Messiah, the Christ. And it was so\u2019\u201d (85).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cSometimes they questioned him casually about his chariot\u2014the time machine they intended soon to bring in from the desert\u2014and he told them that it had borne him from Egypt to Syria and then to here. They accepted the miracle calmly,. As he had suspected, they were used to miracles\u2019\u201d (95).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cChirditianity was merely a stage in the meeting, cross-fertilization metamorphosis of Western logic and Eastern mysticism. Look how the religion itself changed over the centuries, reinterpreting itself to meet changing times. Christianity is just a new name for a conglomeration of old myths and philosophies. All the Gospels do is retell the sun myth and garble some of the ideas from the Greeks and Romans\u201d (101).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cIn this way, as priests had always done, they avoided questions they could not answer while at the same time appearing to have much more knowledge than they actually possessed\u201d (116).<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Recommendation and ranking: I give this story a 3.5. Out of the collection, I rank it as number five.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>NUMBER SEVEN: \u201cWeyr Search\u201d by Anne McCaffrey<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">SSS: high dragon fantasy, brooding men and strong woman\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Style and themes: Reads as fantasy (I don\u2019t see any SF traits at all); lush, tastefully archaic, slightly sexist through and through. Enjoyable and immersive when you buy into the world (the page is rife with worldbuilding that doesn\u2019t care if you catch on or not.) Themes include: alternate worlds, ecology, biopunk\/elfpunk(?), animal-human interaction<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Favorite lines and good vocab words:<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Perihelion<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Addlepated\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Inimitable\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Temporize<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Laconically<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Adroitly\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Vaned\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pinions\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Claxon\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Recommendation and ranking: I give this story a 4. Out of the collection, I rank it as number four.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I also wanted to give a little attention to the afterword. The most interesting thing Zelazny writes is, after listing some (then) contemporaneous issues, that:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[The problems] are still with us and we don\u2019t have any handy answers. We can only guess at possible outcomes. Science fiction, as I see it, though, isn\u2019t here to provide handy answers. We can only guess at possible outcomes. Science fiction, as I see it, though, isn\u2019t here to provide handy answers. We may comment upon or extrapolate a particular thing, but it doesn\u2019t provide a solution, it simply points a finger. This is what I believe Theodore Sturgeon meant when he referred to a class of stories as being of the \u201cIf this goes on\u2014\u201c type\u2026.I am going to tell you that our special form of literature is an invitation, an indication, a pastime\u2026.you\u2019re looking at literature, not social commentary. If some of the latter gets mixed in\u2014well, good. It was probably not intentional, though. Like the man who crashes the party, we just want to be on the scene.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I disagree more than I agree with his statement. I agree that science fiction doesn\u2019t provide handy answers because nothing really does, not to the questions of the Vietnam war, big cities, progressive bureaucratization, computerization, outflow of gold, and race relations, as he narrows in on. However, I believe they are critical, if not constructive, meditations on such problems that do indeed have the power to imagine, unapologetically, big solutions to big problems. Not all SF goes in the \u201cif this continues\u201d vein, of course; some deal directly with what to do, not just what may happen. I more strongly disagree with his statement that SF isn\u2019t social commentary; anything that comes from a society is a reflection of that society. There is hardly any writing that could be considered <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">void<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> of social commentary, in my view. SF is definitely close to the heart of what it means to question who we are, what\u2019s around us, the times we\u2019re living in, and the future we\u2019re headed towards. SF is all about society, what happens when it goes wrong, and what may need to happen for things to go right. Maybe his claim that any social commentary found in SF is to be seen as unintentional was true of himself or his close cohort, but as we know, authors were writing about race and gender and the world from the start. And especially now, the idea that <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">science fiction<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is not also <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">social fiction<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> rings hollow. At least to my ears.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>3) what kind of SF it is (style, major themes)<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I found the overall, unifying theme to be sheer diversity. None of the stories are really like another, except perhaps \u201cCloud-Sculptors\u201d and \u201cAye, and Gomorrah.\u201d The style ranged widely as did each story\u2019s themes\u2014though, through and through, there seemed to be an emphasis on the male. There were themes of expression, exploration, danger\/self-destruction\/risk, intelligence\/satirical, cynical humor, and genuine, engaging storylines, if that can be a theme.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>4) what is great about it (if anything) or what is not\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I like the collection for its diversity\u2014it expanded my conception of what counts as a \u201cSF\u201d story, but confused me for the same reason. I questioned why people\u2014Zelazny, the panel of judges, the authors themselves\u2014considered these stories to be SF because each successive story strayed further from what I would categorize as SF. In my mind, \u201cCloud-Sculptors\u201d and \u201cAye, and Gomorrah\u201d were the only two stories that struck me as explicitly SF, though the latter I won\u2019t discuss thoroughly here to devote more space and consideration to stories novel to the rest of the class. Technology played an instrumental, sort of incidental, role in \u201cPretty Maggie\u201d and \u201cMirror of Ice\u201d in that the killer slot machine and the bobsled of death both bore key human protagonists\u2014but they weren\u2019t the focus or focal points in and of themselves. \u201cGonna Roll the Bones\u201d was where the shift really clicked\u2014I didn\u2019t identify anything that characterized the story as SF, and even less so in \u201cBehold the Man\u201d and \u201cWeyr Search.\u201d The former read more like a short story that was classically modern, full of atheism, cynicism, and self-aware irony. The latter read like the first chapter to a high-fantasy multi-volume book series that it is (Dragonflight is the series\u2019 title.)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I also appreciated the order of the stories. I noticed that the \u201cCloud-Sculptors\u201d was delightful in its reveling and full embrace of classic SF themes\u2014Gerry-rigged technology for the production of fanciful cloud art, a motley crew of disillusioned inhabitants of a brightly dystopia environment, and a rich, horrible woman to serve as the well-cast though vaguely-motivated antagonist. While the first was utterly thrilling, \u201cPretty Maggie\u201d was mysterious, slow to grip but once it had its hold on you, you wanted to see the story to the end. \u201cMirror of Ice\u201d sped the pace up, breathless until the final line. Things slowed down a bit with \u201cAye, and Gomorrah\u201d given the jerking up-and-down lifestyle of the spacers and the drawn out interaction in Turkey towards the end. \u201cGonna Roll the Bones\u201d felt like a Halloween special that interjects on your favorite late-night cable channel\u2014a breath of something new, though decidedly different than all the stories that preceded it. And then came \u201cBehold the Man.\u201d This story was long; it was hard to get through for me and I found I had to read it in chunks. The ending was guessable, but nonetheless enjoyable to finally see with your own eyes. It was a little cheesy in how almost played-out it was. I understood, then and there, a little more about Zelazny\u2019s choice of order\u2014I don\u2019t think many readers would\u2019ve stayed with the book if it opened with this story. Likewise, if it opened with \u201cWeyr Search,\u201d I think many people would close the book and check the cover in confusion, to verify that indeed they\u2019d purchases a <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">science fiction<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> anthology and not a fantasy one. The final story was also enjoyable, very engrossing, and picked up pace as you read it\u2014and, at least for me, compelled me to check out the entire series. It has all the elements that make fantasy so enjoyable and does it with a classic flair and style.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">That leads me to another through-line that captivated me\u2014though not necessarily for the right reasons. Women. The role of women in each story (again, save \u201cAye, and Gomorrah\u201d) is as objectionable as it is classic: she is either rich and evil for no reason and for no aim; seductive, greedy, and siren-singing a man to his demise; absent; an enabling sufferer of domestic violence; a pretty\/\u201cenjoyable\u201d body and not much else; a sardonic, cynical, atheist, hard-boiled know-it-all; or a powerful independent woman\u2026 whose power is almost entirely contingent on characters stronger than her\u2014and still written with enough clutching, clinging, and masculine-eye to the body to raise an eyebrow. I was disappointed at this pattern, but also unusually forgiving given the environment these stories were born from. It was also interesting to see that all but the final author were male.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed the selection. Still, I am curious as to why they all qualified in some crucial way(s) as science fiction when, to me, only about four could be considered that, two generously and two indisputably.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>5) do you recommend it?<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes. The book will broaden your definition of science fiction through challenging it, and ultimately, hopefully, will help you hone your eye to what counts as science fiction, and good science fiction at that.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>6) make sure to include the full bibliography, original print date, and an image of the book cover<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bibliography: Zelazny, Roger, ed. <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Nebula Award Stories: Number Three.<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> New York: Pocket Books, 1968.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The editor, Roger Zelazny, is using his real name and is also an award-winning (Hugos and Nebulas) American SF author. To my knowledge the anthology itself didn\u2019t win awards, though some of its constituent stories did.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Nora Sullivan Horner<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Post by Nora Sullivan Horner) 1) what made you choose the book you did I wanted an anthology of short stories for the same reason that Professor Saiber has chosen to almost exclusively assign short stories: to get exposure to as many samples of SF writing as possible. The first page reads: \u201cThis selection of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wsf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/world-science-fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/world-science-fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/world-science-fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/world-science-fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/world-science-fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/world-science-fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3669\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/world-science-fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/world-science-fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/world-science-fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}