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The Nebula Awards
APRIL 2009 Los Angeles, U.S.A.
[18]Nominees and Winners
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View past nominees and winners of the Nebula Award.
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A list of links to other sites & blogs of interest.
Gene Wolfe Interview
Interviewed by David de Beer on December 30 2008
Tell me a little in brief about "Memorare" your Nebula nominated work. Why
did you write it and what do you hope readers will take from it?
It seems to me that I hear some story ideas better than I see them. In
the southwest, particularly, memorials are erected at roadsides. I grew
up in Texas, and I could hear the prairie wind and smell the dust. I was
the lonely soul in the empty tomb, and I transferred the whole thing to
space, the loneliest place (not) on earth. I wanted readers to feel the
isolation and lonely majesty of it. I wanted them to realize, too, that
God, the saints, and love can be found even there.
When you say that you hear stories better than you see them - could you
clarify that a bit?
In a way I hear the characters talking, but not at the beginning. At the
beginning I hear the sounds of their voices: Severian's deep, smooth,
slightly melancholy tones; Master Gurloes's hard, harsh, implacable
vowels, his throat clearing and occasional spitting. In [26]An Evil
Guest, Bill Reis's voice, deep and slightly rough, often a loud whisper,
persuasive and slightly sinister. Or Cassie Casey's enormous range: now
cheerful and energetic, now the pleading of a small girl 每 the stubborn
child, the aching sincerity.
What are more important are what might be called sound effects. In
[27]Pirate Freedom the creaking of the timbers, the slap of the waves
against the hull, the mewing of the gulls, the voices of the men on the
topsail yard: "Dirty weather ... dirty weather." The dull boom of the
sternchaser in the cabin under the quarterdeck, where Sabina shouts,
"That's the way, my braves! Mas! Mas!" while she twirls a slow-match.
The Commercial vs the Artistic in writing - is there a genuine difference
between these two philosophies or are they artifical attributes? Are they
in opposition, and if so, can they meet?
The difference seems to me very genuine. The error is to think them
antithetical. The purely commercial writer writes for the editor. The
purely artistic writer writes for himself or herself. I write for the
reader. As long as the editor buys it, I don't much care what he thinks
of it. If it's a good solid story, that's enough for me. But if the
reader doesn't like it, it's a failure.
Insofar as you're aware thereof, which themes and ideas dominate the
writing of Gene Wolfe? What do you think readers take from your work they
get nowhere else?
My great theme is memory. I'm rarely aware of that as I write, but I
realize it as I read. Another theme is reality. A good many writers are
writing propaganda. I don't do that. I know that not all politicians are
crooked. I know that some soldiers are brutal criminals, but also that
most are not even close to that. I have been accused of writing only good
and bad women, but that is because those are the only kinds I've ever met.
There is nothing in my work that readers will find nowhere else, although
I wish there were. I try to serve good, honest writing. I make the hot
stuff hot and the cold stuff cold 每 or try to. A great many other
writers are doing the same thing.
Will you still be read in a 100 years? Does it matter? Should writers
write for the present or the future?
Will I still be read in a hundred years? I hope so. Does it matter? To
me, yes 每 but I write for the present, not for the future. Books
written for the future are not likely to get there. There are lonely men
and lonely women in small towns all over the world. I want them to read
me, now, and feel a little better.
The short story vs the novella vs the novel - what makes you decide to
write an idea in one form over the other?
I don't decide. The idea tells me. There are book ideas and short story
ideas. And novelette and novella ideas. A short story can be padded out,
and a novel cut down, but both are forced alterations to attain some
preconceived length. If I know I need a novella, I look around for a
novella-length idea, or whatever.
[28]Your wikipedia entry claims you might be related to Thomas Wolfe -
truth or fiction?
Although I can't prove it, I think it's true. We Wolfes came out of
northwestern North Carolina about 1780 and settled in southeastern Ohio.
(My father took me to an old family graveyard out in the country once; the
earliest stone we could find bore that date.) Thomas Wolfe was from
Asheville. That area is not thickly populated even now. In 1900 每 the
year that both he and my father were born 每 it would have been very
thinly peopled indeed.
In passing... I got a fan letter from that part of the state once, and
wrote back to the fan saying that my family had left it toward the end of
the Eighteenth Century. He wrote, "I know all about it, and my family
would like great-grandfather's horse back."
Speaking of respected - from praised to winning awards, does that have an
effect? Does it add more pressure, a perceived standard of brilliance
you're expected to live up to?How do you handle the praise and the fame
and the awards and still remain true to your writing, to yourself?
Of course I like to win. It's fun, and I enjoy it. But it's not
important.
You're known for creating unreliable narrators in your work - would you
care to expound on the reasons why?
All real narrators are unreliable. That is a great strength: it is
realistic. Another is that one can hint at things left hidden. A third
is that you can reveal in Chapter 19 something that was hidden in Chapter
9. Please don't ask for examples.
What is the story you've written you're proudest of, and why?
By "story" I assume you mean a short story, novelette, or novella.
Something under novel length, in other words. "Empires of Foliage and
Flower," perhaps, because it shows so plainly the brevity, tragedy, and
comedy of life. But if you don't like that answer, I have others. There
are a good many stories that I'm very fond of.
How (if at all) has science fiction&fantasy evolved/ changed in the time
that you've been working in the field? Does it still have value in the
present milieu? Relevance to the future?
How has sf changed? The giants are gone. When I started writing,
Heinlein, Asimov, Bradbury, and Clarke were all producing. You have to
have lived in both periods to understand what an enormous difference they
made. Fantasy has lost Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. The Harry Potter books
are good, but they are YA. Neil Gaiman is our best fantasist and is
giving us wonderful books and stories. Another giant has arrived, which
may be why fantasy feels so much healthier now.
Both science fiction and fantasy have value, for the present and for the
future. It's important that they be there 每 and that they be good, and
thus read by as many as possible. The interesting point is that fantasy
is very, very old and SF a stripling. The oldest known fiction is
fantasy, I believe. The first great fantasy, GILGAMESH, comes to us from
the dawn of civilization. Fantasy assures us (quite truthfully) that the
universe is inconceivably wide and wild. Once I wrote a poem about a man
who lived on an island whose population believed it to be the only place.
He walks around the island, and from a lonely beach sees another island.
Fantasy is that walk. "Things could be different," says fantasy. "They
could be very, very different just over that hill. Have hope."
SF assures (quite truthfully) that they will be. "They may be better,"
says SF, "or they may be worse. But they will not be like this."
[29]Gene Wolfe
[30]Gene Wolfe is a prolific and critically acclaimed author of [31]The
Book of the New Sun, [32]An Evil Guest and [33]The Knight. He was awarded
the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 1996. Michael Swanwick
described him as [34]the greatest writer in the English Language alive
today.
[35]DAVID DE BEER`s short fiction has been published in or is forthcoming
from venues such as Chizine, Alienskin and Courting Morpheus. He currently
resides in Johannesburg, South Africa.
2 comments so far.
1. davenix on 01st January 2009 at 3:34 pm
[36]Picture of davenix
I love that you removed my comments and I love that you do so with the
weak logic that I am just being a troll. Are you always overly sensitive
or just a no-nuts censor? What book was I refering to you ask? That awful
Evil Guest that is up for the nebula award you douchnozzle, but of course
you do know that.
If the LPH reference was lost on you, then you obviously didnt even bother
reading the cover much less the awful book.
I look forward to this comment be removed.
Happy new year Big Brother...god forbid anyone post a critical opinion of
something you praised only to get an interview.
-d
2. [37]David de Beer on 01st January 2009 at 4:15 pm
[38]Picture of David de Beer
Your comments weren't removed, they were temporarily closed. Uncivil
behavior gets that response. And yes, your behavior is definitely
troll-like.
but this one I'll leave because you continue to make such a monumentous
arse of yourself.
This interview has nothing to do with Evil Guest.
This interview came about as a result of Gene Wolfe being on the Nebula
nominee list for his shorter work, Memorare. The interview is
about Gene Wolfe, the author--as all the interviews to date have been
about the authors--not a specific book that offended your malfunctional
excuse for a brain.
It says so in the very first question:
Tell me a little in brief about ※Memorare§ your Nebula nominated work.
which you would have known had you possessed the capacity to read.
if An Evil Guest is up for the Nebula award then you must be precognitive,
since the Preliminary Ballot, never mind the Final Ballot, hasn't even
been announced yet. Further, the book was only released Sept 2008 and can
therefore still be considered for the next Nebula but as of the last tally
is not on the Preliminary Qualifiers:
[39]http://www.nebulaawards.com/index.php/guest_blogs/nebula_report_preliminary_qualifiers_dec_08/
see that above link? it lists all the novels which have qualified for
consideration for the Preliminary Ballot barring only the last month's
count. They are the Preliminary Qualifiers thus far. Once the final tally
is done the Preliminary Ballot will be drawn, and from that ballot the
Final Ballot will be drawn and THOSE are the works that will be up for a
Nebula.
see any book called An Evil Guest there anywhere?
Happy new year Big Brother
aww, are we not going to be friends then? how about a hug? I'll give you a
free cookie!
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* 2007 Nebula Award Novel Nominees
[52]The Yiddish Policemen's Union (winner) by Michael Chabon
Ragamuffin by Tobias Buckell
The New Moon's Arms by Nalo Hopkinson
Odyssey by Jack McDevitt
The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman
The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon
For sixty years, Jewish refugees and their descendants have prospered in
the Federal District of Sitka, a "temporary" safe haven created in the
wake of revelations of the Holocaust and the shocking 1948 collapse of the
fledgling state of Israel. Proud, grateful, and longing to be American,
the Jews of the Sitka District have created their own little world in the
Alaskan panhandle, a vibrant, gritty, soulful, and complex frontier city
that moves to the music of Yiddish. For sixty years they have been left
alone, neglected and half-forgotten in a backwater of history. Now the
District is set to revert to Alaskan control, and their dream is coming to
an end: once again the tides of history threaten to sweep them up and
carry them off into the unknown.
About the Author
Michael Chabon is the bestselling author of The Amazing Adventures of
Kavalier & Clay, which won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. He lives
in Berkeley, California, with his wife, the novelist Ayelet Waldman, and
their children.
Ragamuffin by Tobias Buckell
The Benevolent Satrapy rule an empire of forty-eight worlds, linked by
thousands of wormholes strung throughout the galaxy. Human beings, while
technically ※free,§ mostly skulk around the fringes of the Satrapy,
struggling to get by. The secretive alien Satraps tightly restrict the
technological development of the species under their control. Entire
worlds have been placed under interdiction, cut off from the rest of the
universe.
Descended from the islanders of lost Earth, the Ragamuffins are pirates
and smugglers, plying the lonely spaceways around a dead wormhole. For
years, the Satraps have tolerated the Raga, but no longer. Now they have
embarked on a campaign of extermination, determined to wipe out the unruly
humans once and for all.
About the Author
A professional blogger and SF/F author originally born in Grenada, Tobias
currently lives in Ohio with his wife, Emily. Tobias began reading at a
young age and started submitting and writing multiple short stories while
in high school. He attended the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy
workshop in 1999. He sold his first story shortly afterwards, and has
since gone on to sell over 30 more. He has written and sold three novels.
The New Moon's Arms by Nalo Hopkinson
When an abandoned toddler appears on the shore of her Caribbean island
home, Chastity Theresa Lambkin, aka "Calamity," becomes a foster mother in
her 50s. Years previously, a one time, teenage experiment with a best
friend unsure of his sexuality resulted in daughter Ifeoma. As Calamity,
who narrates, now freely admits, Ifeoma bore the brunt of Calamity's
immaturity, and their relationship still suffers for it. As Calamity
relates all of this, things that have been missing for years inexplicably
reappear, including an entire cashew tree orchard from Calamity's
childhood that shows up in her backyard overnight. It could be island
magic, or something much more prosaic. The rescued little boy's origins do
have some genuinely magical elements (Calamity names him "Agway" after his
foreign-sounding laughter), and Hopkinson's take on "sea people" and how
they came to be adds depth and enchantment.
About the Author
Nalo Hopkinson a writer who has so far published a collection of short
stories, four novels and an anthology or two. She has lived in Toronto,
Canada since 1977, but spent most of her first 16 years in the Caribbean,
where she was born.
Odyssey by Jack McDevitt
The world has discovered, despite all the promises held out by the
champions of interstellar travel, that it offers few prospects for
economic advantage. Public funding and private contributions for the
Academy have been drying up. Even sightings of mysterious lights in the
sky, once called UFO's, now known as moonriders, draw only skepticism. In
an effort to recapture some of the glamor of earlier years, the Academy
plans a well-publicized mission ostensibly to seek the truth about the
moonriders. The mission will visit tour spots where they've been seen,
while simultaneously 〞 the real purpose of the flight 〞 giving the
general public a chance to get a good look at famous locations in the
solar neighborhood.
About the Author
Jack McDevitt is a former English teacher, naval officer, Philadelphia
taxi driver, customs officer, and motivational trainer. With the
nominations of Infinity Beach, Ancient Shores, ※Time Travelers Never
Die,§ Moonfall, ※Good Intentions§ (cowritten with Stanley Schmidt),
※Nothing Ever Happens in Rock City,§ Chindi, Omega, and Polaris,,
"Henry James, This One's for You," and Seeker, his work has been on the
final Nebula ballot ten of the last eleven years.
The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman
Since H. G. Wells' heyday, the time travel scenario has undergone so much
variation that it's easy to envision the river of ideas finally running
dry. But here the ever-inventive Haldeman offers a new twist: a device
that travels in one direction only, to the future. Lowly MIT research
assistant Matt Fuller toils away in a physics lab until one day he makes
an odd discovery. A sensitive quantum calibrator keeps disappearing and
reappearing moments later when he hits the reset button. With a little
tinkering, Matt realizes that the device functions as a crude,
forward-traveling time machine.
About the Author
Born in Oklahoma 9 June 1943. Grew up in Puerto Rico, New Orleans,
Washington, D. C., and Alaska. Currently lives in Gainesville, Florida and
Cambridge, Massachusetts with his wife Gay Haldeman. As of August, 2008,
they will have been married 43 years.
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Writers of America
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http://www.michaelswanwick.com/auth/squalidansw.html
35. DAVID DE BEER
http://david-debeer.com/
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He interrupted her. Close at hand is a stable where two beautiful ponies are kept. They are snowy white, and are consecrated to the goddess Ku-wanon, the deity of mercy, who is the presiding genius of the temple. They are in the care of a young girl, and it is considered a pious duty to feed them. Pease and beans are for sale outside, and many devotees contribute a few cash for the benefit of the sacred animals. If the poor beasts should eat a quarter of what is offered to them, or, rather, of what is paid for, they would soon die of overfeeding. It is shrewdly suspected that the grain is sold many times over, in consequence of a collusion between the dealers and the keeper of the horses. At all events, the health of the animals is regarded, and it would never do to give them all that is presented. On their return from the garden they stopped at a place where eggs are hatched by artificial heat. They are placed over brick ovens or furnaces, where a gentle heat is kept up, and a man is constantly on watch to see that the fire neither burns too rapidly nor too slowly. A great heat would kill the vitality of the egg by baking it, while if the temperature falls below a certain point, the hatching process does not go on. When the little chicks appear, they are placed under the care of an artificial mother, which consists of a bed of soft down and feathers, with a cover three or four inches above it. This cover has strips of down hanging from it, and touching the bed below, and the chickens nestle there quite safe from outside cold. The Chinese have practised this artificial hatching and rearing for thousands of years, and relieved the hens of a great deal of the monotony of life. He would not have it in the scabbard, and when I laid it naked in his hand he kissed the hilt. Charlotte sent Gholson for Ned Ferry. Glancing from the window, I noticed that for some better convenience our scouts had left the grove, and the prisoners had been marched in and huddled close to the veranda-steps, under their heavy marching-guard of Louisianians. One of the blue-coats called up to me softly: "Dying--really?" He turned to his fellows--"Boys, Captain's dying." Assuming an air of having forgotten all about Dick＊s rhyme, he went to his place in the seat behind Jeff and the instant his safety belt was snapped Jeff signaled to a farmer who had come over to investigate and satisfy himself that the airplane had legitimate business there; the farmer kicked the stones used as chocks from under the landing tires and Jeff opened up the throttle. ※Yes,§ Dick supplemented Larry＊s new point. ※Another thing, Sandy, that doesn＊t explain why he＊d take three boys and fly a ship he could never use on water〞with an amphibian right here.§ Should you leave me too, O my faithless ladie? And years of remorse and despair been your fate, That night was a purging. From thenceforward Reuben was to press on straight to his goal, with no more slackenings or diversions. "Is that you, Robin?" said a soft voice; and a female face was seen peeping half way down the stairs. HoMEl蜤屙蹤嶺堯
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