2018 Hugo Recommendations: Best Editor, Campbell

Best Editor

Short Form

I suppose I am in a rut in this category, but I think that’s the nature of things. I will happily list the usual suspects – and I really do think they are the worthiest choices. These are, then Sheila Williams at Asimov’s, Jonathan Strahan with the Infinity series and other anthologies (including a Best of the Year series), plus stories for Tor.com), John Joseph Adams (Lightspeed, numerous anthologies, a Best of the Year series), C. C. Finlay at F&SF, Trevor Quachri at Analog, Andy Cox at Interzone and Black Static, Neil Clarke and Sean Wallace of Clarkesworld (with Neil is also editing a Best of the Year book, and Sean also co-editor of The Dark), Scott H. Andrews at Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Lynne and Michael Damian Thomas at Uncanny. 

And, of course, the two most decorated contemporary editors, Ellen Datlow and Gardner Dozois. Ellen, in addition to a couple of strong horror anthologies, and some acquisitions for Tor.com, returned to her post as Fiction Editor at Omni, with one very strong issue.  Gardner, besides his long-running Best of the Year series, and his work as reprint editor at Clarkesworld, edited an excellent original anthology, The Book of Swords. Each of the above is wholly worthy of a Hugo (and there are others worth consideration as well).

My choice is complicated by the fact that I consider almost every one of these people a friend, in many case of long standing. (There are one or two I haven’t met, but I’m sure I would get along with them as well!) In addition, I have professional relationships with John Joseph Adams (as I am Reprint Editor for Lightspeed) and Sean Wallace (publisher of my Best of the Year book).

So this year I’m doing something a bit different – and perhaps unfair! I’m going to choose the editors whose publications featured the most stories in my Best of the Year book. That leaves me with C. C. Finlay (four stories from F&SF), Sheila Williams (four from Asimov’s), John Joseph Adams (three from Lightspeed), Scott Andrews (three from BCS), and Lynne and Michael Damian Thomas (three from Uncanny). (I don’t know how to separate Lynne and Michael, and of course I don’t want to!) One of the things that means a lot to me in an editor is championing new writers, and all of these editors to a great job in this area, but one who stands out to me this year is C. C. Finlay, for such writers publishing their first or second stories as G. V. Anderson, R. S. Benedict, and J. R. Dawson. (I guess with Charlie using his initials, his writers feel they need to do the same! 😊)

Long Form

I am deciding on my nominees for Best Editor, Long Form on two criteria: first, involvement with some of the best novels of the year; and second, associations (especially as a leader) with new and exciting and perhaps different book lines. These criteria are obviously pretty subjective, and I have to add, my true knowledge of the real editing work done by book editors is pretty limited.

One name stands out. This is Joe Monti at Saga Press. First of all, Joe edited two of the clear cut, no fuzz, best novels of the year: Ka, by John Crowley; and The Moon and The Other, by John Kessel. Secondly, Joe is the lead editor at Saga, a fairly new imprint that has quickly made a mark, with first rate novels and anthologies. (They also produce very attractive books.)  Two more choices are there partly because of their role in establishing either a new imprint, or an imprint that I feel deserves special notice. But also, in each case they have been responsible for one of the best novels of the year. These are Gavin Grant* at Small Beer Press, and John Joseph Adams, who has his own line (at Mariner Books of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and, no, I don’t know how to untangle that string of names). Each is responsible for at least one of the year’s top novels: The River Bank, by Kij Johnson (Small Beer) and Bannerless, by Carrie Vaughn (Mariner). (I know for a fact that John has some more really impressive books coming out in 2018 – I’ve read at least one of them already!) Another strong book from Saga Press is The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter, by Theodora Goss. The editor is Navah Wolfe. And Tor Books puts out some of the best SF every year, and I think Liz Gorinsky deserves a nod (she was the editor for Annalee Newitz’ Autonomous among other books). (Once again, some extra credit might be given for publishing first-time novelists: as with Theodora Goss and Annalee Newitz.)

(*Of course Kelly Link is also a major player at Small Beer Press, and she probably deserves as much credit as Gavin.)

I will emphasize again that my knowledge of the real work of novel editors is limited, and there are many more editors worthy of notice, most of whom are probably all but invisible to the average nominator. I could mention at least Tim O’Connell at Knopf, who edited Daryl Gregory’s Spoonbenders, Jonathan Oliver at Solaris, who edited Yoon Ha Lee’s Raven Stratagem, and Phil Jourdan at Angry Robot, who edited Tim Pratt’s The Wrong Stars.

Campbell

Finally, the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. This is given to the best writer whose first professional publication in the SF or Fantasy field appeared in the past two years (2016 or 2017). Writertopia has a page, not guaranteed to be complete, with a list of eligible authors: http://www.writertopia.com/awards/campbell .

I went through that list and came up with the following writers who have done something that impressed me:

G. V. Anderson (who already has a World Fantasy Award!)

R. S. Benedict

J. R. Dawson

Giovanni  di Feo

Tonya Liburd

Benjamin C. Kinney

Finbarr O’Reilly

Vina Jie-Min Prasad

Rebecca Roanhorse

D. A. Xiaolin Spires

Interestingly, I don’t think any of these have published novels, and in fact I didn’t recognize a novelist among all the eligible writers listed. (Probably there were some, but I hadn’t seen their novels.) Typically novelists have an advantage. Maybe this year will be different.

Three of these writers have stories in my Best of the Year book this year: J. R. Dawson (“Marley and Marley), Giovanni di Feo (“Ugo”), and Vina Jie-Min Prasad (“Fandom for Robots”, not to mention “A Series of Steaks”). I will certainly happily nominate them. I will also add R. S. Benedict, whose “My English Name” is very impressive, and was definitely on my short list of stories to consider for my book this year, and G. V. Anderson, whose “I Am Not I” was also on my short list, and who should be remembered for other strong work, including last year’s World Fantasy Award winner for Short Fiction, “Das Steingeschöpf”.

My Recommendation Posts:
Best Novel, Series, YA
Best Editor, Campbell Award

Short Story
Novelette

Novella

Dramatic Presentation, Fan Writer, Fanzine
Other Hugos

The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, 2018 Edition

We have finally finalized the Table of Contents for my Best of the Year book for stories from 2017. I think it's an excellent book (of course I would!) (For those who might have seen some stories I recommended in my Hugo posts that don't show up here ... the book is always influenced by considerations like length, thematic balance, avoiding too many stories from the same source, and also contractual limitations. And as I've said many times, when it comes to the final several stories I choose to include, it's a matter of agonizing over the ones I can't quite fit that are really just as good.)

These are listed in alphabetical order of original place of publication.

The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2018 Edition, edited by Rich Horton. 

Contents:

“Time Travel is Only for the Poor” by S. L. Huang (Analog)
“Emergency Protocol” by Lettie Prell (Analog)
“Persephone of the Crows” by Karen Joy Fowler (Asimov’s)
“Cupido” by Rich Larson (Asimov’s)
“Winter Timeshare” by Ray Nayler (Asimov’s)
"Soulmates.com", by Will McIntosh (Asimov's)

“Red Bark and Ambergris” by Kate Marshall (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
“Whatever Knight Comes” by Ryan Row (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
“Don’t Press Charges and I Won’t Sue” by Charlie Jane Anders (Boston Review)
“The Significance of Significance” by Robert Reed (Clarkesworld)
“The Secret Life of Bots” by Suzanne Palmer (Clarkesworld)
“The Tale of the Alcubierre Horse” by Kathleen Ann Goonan (Extrasolar)
“Marley and Marley” by J. R. Dawson (F&SF)
“The Hermit of Houston” by Samuel R. Delany (F&SF)
“Rings” by Nina Kiriki Hoffman (F&SF)
“Starlight Express” by Michael Swanwick (F&SF)
“The Sacrifice of the Hanged Monkey” by Minsoo Kang (Fantastic)
“ZeroS” by Peter Watts (Infinity Wars)
“Ugo” by Giovanni de Feo (Lightspeed)
“Love Engine Optimization” by Matthew Kressel (Lightspeed)
“This is for You” by Bruce McAllister (Lightspeed)
“One Hour, Every Seven Years” by Alice Sola Kim (McSweeney’s)
“Montreal, 2014” by Madeline Ray (Mothership Zeta)
“Sidewalks” by Maureen McHugh (Omni)
“Shoggoths in Traffic” by Tobias S. Buckell (Patreon)
“The Fisherman and the Pig” by Kameron Hurley (Patreon)
“Utopia LOL?” by Jamie Wahls (Strange Horizons)
“An Account of the Land of Witches” by Sofia Samatar (Tender)
“Extracurricular Activities” by Yoon Ha Lee (Tor.com)
“The Martian Obelisk” by Linda Nagata (Tor.com)
“Hexagrammaton” by Hanus Seiner (Tor.com)
“Though She Be But Little” by C. S. E. Cooney (Uncanny)
“And Then There Were (N - One)” by Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny)
“Fandom for Robots” by Vina Jie-Min Prasad (Uncanny)

A Forgotten SF Novel: Time Bomb, by Wilson Tucker

A Forgotten SF Novel: Time Bomb, by Wilson Tucker

a review by Rich Horton

I call this novel "forgotten", and I believe it is, largely, but its author is not forgotten in SF circles, particularly fan circles. Arthur Wilson Tucker was born in 1914, and was brought up in Bloomington, IL, where he lived most of his life. His primary career was as an electrician and projectionist. He was an active fan since the early '30s, known to everyone as Bob Tucker.  He published the legendary fanzine Le Zombie beginning in 1938, as well as The Bloomington Newsletter, and The Neo-Fan's Guide. He won the Best Fanwriter Hugo in 1970, a retrospective John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 1976, and a couple of Retro-Hugos as well. He was particularly famous for the ritual of "smoothing" -- a group of people would gather round, pass around a bottle of Jim Beam, take a sip, raise their hands, and when all were done, say "smooooth" and swoop their hands down. I was "smoooothed" at my first convention, ConQuesT in Kansas City in 1998 or so -- that was the one time I met Bob Tucker. He died in 2006, shortly after his wife of 52 years, Fern, had died.

Tucker was also a professional writer, of both mysteries and SF, usually as by Wilson Tucker. His first novel, a mystery set in fannish circles called The Chinese Doll, appeared in 1946, and his last, the well-regarded SF novel Ice and Iron, in 1974. His best-remembered novels are The Lincoln Hunters (1958), The Long Loud Silence (1952), The Year of the Quiet Sun (1970) and Ice and Iron (1974, expanded 1975). I've read The Lincoln Hunters, Wild Talent, and Ice and Iron. He was said to be determinedly retired from writing after Resurrection Days appeared in 1981. (He apparently sold a novel outline to Harlan Ellison for The Last Dangerous Visions after much prodding, so there may be one unpublished work awaiting, though Tucker also apparently said that that was one story he wouldn't be eager to have unearthed.)

Tucker is also famous for having coined the term "Space Opera" (quite a disparaging term in his hands), and for the practice called "Tuckerization": using names of friends for fictional characters.

(Cover by Richard Powers)

His novels were noted for their generally rather bleak tone, a refusal to flinch from the worst implications of his ideas and of the world he saw around him. (This perhaps in contrast to his personal amiability.) This applies to Time Bomb, indeed, though perhaps not wholly effectively -- the novel is somewhat clumsily executed, and uneasily tied to an earlier novel, The Time Masters.

I read the 1957 paperback reprint from Avon, retitled Tomorrow Plus X. The original novel was published in 1955 by Rinehart and Company, who were Tucker's publishers, for both mystery and SF, from his first novel at least throughout the '50s.

The opening chapter, in several brief sections, introduces a comedian spoofing time travel, an Illinois State police Lieutenant called to the site of a mysterious bombing, a rally for a popular populist politician, an old man working on a device of some sort, an urbane couple watching the comedian with distaste, and a telepath. The connections seem unclear at first. We are soon following Lieutenant Danforth as he continues to investigate the bombing, which is the sixth in a strange series that seemed aimed at associates of the populist politician Ben, the leader of the "Sons of America" movement. (Ben was surely modeled on Joe McCarthy at the time of writing, but yes, he does remind the contemporary reader uneasily of Donald Trump.)

Danforth is soon fired, for the crime of not having solved the bombings. But the department's telepath, a very influential man, arranges for him to keep working on the case surreptitiously. Danforth has fixed on the notion of bombs travelling through time as the means. He is pointed in the direction of a couple who just moved into the area, Gilbert and Shirley Nash. He goes to meet them -- they are a strange couple, and they had an odd history at their previous job, working at Oak Ridge (evidently this was the subject of The Time Masters). Soon it is revealed that Gilbert Nash is actually Gilgamesh, and he's 10,000 years old. Shirley is apparently also slow to age, though she's only a few decades old at this time. Danforth falls in love (hopelessly) with Shirley.

A fortuitous finding of a failed bomb in a nearby field gives Danforth the break he needs, and some good old fashioned detective work leads him to the criminal. Who seems glad to be found. But of course his secret involves time travel -- and he claims to know the future ... What will Lt. Danforth do with this knowledge?

The book is really kind of a mess. Gilbert and Shirley Nash seem wholly unnecessary characters. The explanation of how the "time bomb" worked never made much sense to me. And the conclusion, meant to be heroic (which it is, I suppose) also seemed strained. Tucker did much better in books like Ice and Iron and The Year of the Quiet Sun. (An interview from 1975 conducted by Dave Truesdale and Paul MacGuire III for Tangent mentions a novel about Gilgamesh that he was a couple of chapters into then: he must have abandoned that. I wonder if that was intended to be a third Gilbert and Shirley Nash story?)