I will always stand by the fact that, if you want to get a good taste of science fiction for any year, read the annual collection of Nebula Award Stories. You will never go completely wrong with these collections. With that in mind, this must not have been that great a year. Don’t get me wrong – this has some nice content. But it didn’t hold the punch that collections in this series have contained.

There are stories you may remember from other sources. For Example, Clifford D. Simak’s “Grotto of the Dancing Dear” in which an anthropologist finds truly anthropomorphized drawings of animals. (This is a reminder of just how good Simak was at writing short stories.) Also “The Ugly Chickens” by Howard Waldrop which follows an ornithologist as he finds what happened to the last of the dodos. There were also a couple of nice discoveries. “The Unicorn Tapestry” by Suzy McKee Charnas in which a psychiatrist takes on a new patient who thinks he is a vampire. (I am not a follower of the genre, so this story may be old hat. However, I found the psychiatrist’s personal discovery throughout their time together to be engrossing. Unfortunately, the end felt a little cliché.) Also Charles L. Grant’s “Secret of the Heart” which, even though it felt it owed a little too much to “It’s a Good Life” by Jerome Bixby, still took an interesting turn on the little child (this time a girl) with more power than maturity.

In addition, the extra essays – the discussions of the state of books, and fans, and movies, and other aspects of science fiction – didn’t feel the same. Interesting, but not the same passion that came from similar essays in the other Nebula collections. In his introduction, Pournelle talks about the ebb and flow of science fiction. And this all comes together to make it feel like a year when it was ebbing. ( )