Read an Excerpt
From the Introduction by Jane Yolen
So here are some of my quick thoughts about what did win the 2016 Nebula, some of which you have ahead of you in this book.
First—because the award is closest to my heart—the winner of the Andre Norton award is an Andre Norton-type book with a kick! A book that harkens back to those old, worn-out paperback sf-fantasy novels but manages to haul them into the future, and pummels the prose into brilliant shape with a touch of steampunk as well: Arabella of Mars by David D. Levine, which should also be a winner for sweetest dedication ever.
Charlie Jane Anders’s novel All the Birds in the Sky is a powerful blend of science fiction and fantasy plus lovely writing. The cast of characters are so well delineated that the novel can also serve as a writing lesson for those of you wanting to try that same doubled genre.
The Novella winner, Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire, is a lyrical, shimmering, surprising novella that brings us back to our childhood reading and forward into murder, magic, mayhem and deep-soul fantasy.
The Novelette winner, ‘‘The Long Fall Up’’ by William Ledbetter, is true science fiction with an emphasis on the science. Ledbetter, a thirty-year veteran of the aerospace industry is a strong writer, and he’s not faking the science. The politics of birth and the place of women and pregnant women in space is a story that leaves a deep impression.
Amal El-Mohtar’s winning short story is the crown jewel in the anthology. As a folklorist manqué, I love how she plays with elements from folk tales. Her story is “Seasons of Glass and Iron” (from The Starlit Wood anthology). It’s a melding of several fairy tales. First, she has used the Norwegian “The Princess on the Glass Hill” to delineate one of the two main characters and problems. The second character seems to be from “East of the Sun & West of the Moon” combined with the Romanian story “The Sleeping Prince,” and perhaps “The Black Bull of Norroway,” all difficult and intriguing tales that I know and love. But Amal re-animates and re-imagines them through a feminist telescope, bringing the far-away and once upon a time into a newer, sharper focus.
Odd winners? You betcha, but in the best possible way.
—Jane Yolen
