Re: Nebula Finalists 1990

On 2024-07-01, William Hyde <wthyde1953@gmail.com> wrote:

James Nicoll wrote:

In article <v5uq9e$168of$1@dont-email.me>,
Michael F. Stemper <michael.stemper@gmail.com> wrote:

On 01/07/2024 09.33, James Nicoll wrote:

1990! Commercial internet took the first baby steps towards the
online utopia we now enjoy, Thatcher demonstrated to fellow Tories
who truly enjoyed the Mandate of Heaven, and the world's supply of
Germanies abruptly fell by half.
>
Which 1990 Nebula Finalist Novels Have You Read?
The Healer's War by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
Good News from Outer Space by John Kessel
Ivory by Mike Resnick
Prentice Alvin by Orson Scott Card
Sister Light, Sister Dark by Jane Yolen
The Boat of a Million Years by Poul Anderson
>
All but the Yolen. Can't say I really enjoyed the Anderson.

>
The Card and the Anderson. I didn't much care for it, either, and I
think that I'm probably more of an Anderson fan-boy than you are.
>

Welllll, there's a set of SF authors with whose flaws I am intimately
familiar because I read and reread and reread so much of their stuff
because their virtues outweighed their flaws. Poul Anderson might be
the example whose works I own the most of, because he was so prolific.
A quick glance at ISFDB suggests I have read (and in most cases own)
the following:
 
i
Novels
 
     Vault of the Ages (1952)
     The Broken Sword (1954)
     Brain Wave (1954) also appeared as:
     No World of Their Own (1955) AKA The Long Way Home (1975)
     Star Ways (1956) AKA The Peregrine (1978)
     The Enemy Stars (1958)
     War of the Wing-Men (1958) AKA The Man Who Counts (1978)
     Virgin Planet (1959)
     We Claim These Stars! (1959)
     The High Crusade (1960)
     Three Hearts and Three Lions (1961)
     Orbit Unlimited (1961)
     After Doomsday (1962)
     Let the Spacemen Beware! (1963) AKA The Night Face (1978)
     Shield (1963) also appeared as:
     Three Worlds to Conquer (1964)
     The Corridors of Time (1965)
     The Star Fox (1965)
     Ensign Flandry (1966)
     World Without Stars (1967)
     Satan's World (1969)
     The Rebel Worlds (1969)
     Tau Zero (1970)
     A Circus of Hells (1970)
     Operation Chaos (1971)
     The Dancer from Atlantis (1971)
     The Byworlder (1971)
     There Will Be Time (1972)
     The People of the Wind (1973)
     Hrolf Kraki's Saga (1973)
     Inheritors of Earth (1974) with Gordon Eklund
     The Day of Their Return (1974)
     A Midsummer Tempest (1974)
     Fire Time (1974)
     Star Prince Charlie (1975) with Gordon R. Dickson
     A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows (1975)
     The Winter of the World (1976)
     Mirkheim (1977)
     The Avatar (1978)
     The Merman's Children (1979)
     A Stone in Heaven (1979)
     The Demon of Scattery (1979) with Mildred Downey Broxon
     The Golden Horn (1980)
     The Road of the Sea Horse (1980)
     The Sign of the Raven (1980)
     The Devil's Game (1980)
     Orion Shall Rise (1983)
     The Game of Empire (1985)
     The Boat of a Million Years (1989)
     Harvest of Stars (1993)
     The Stars Are Also Fire (1994)
     Harvest the Fire (1995)
     Starfarers (1998)
     Operation Luna (1999)
     Genesis (2000)
     For Love and Glory (2003)
 
Collections
 
     Earthman's Burden (1957) with Gordon R. Dickson
     Guardians of Time (1960 )AKA The Guardians of Time (1981)
     Twilight World (1961)
     Strangers from Earth (1961)
     Un-Man and Other Novellas (1962)
     Time and Stars (1964)
     Trader to the Stars (1964)
     Agent of the Terran Empire (1965)
     Flandry of Terra (1965)
     The Trouble Twisters (1966)
     The Horn of Time (1968)
     Seven Conquests: An Adventure in Science Fiction (1969)
     Beyond the Beyond (1969)
     Tales of the Flying Mountains (1970)
     The Queen of Air and Darkness and Other Stories (1973)
     The Many Worlds of Poul Anderson (1974)AKA The Book of Poul Anderson (1975)
     Homeward and Beyond (1975)
     Homebrew (1976)
     The Best of Poul Anderson (1976)
     The Earth Book of Stormgate (1978)
     The Psycho-Technic League (1981)
     Winners (1981)
     Fantasy (1981)
     Explorations (1981)
     The Dark Between the Stars (1981)
     Cold Victory (1982)
     Starship (1982)
     Maurai & Kith (1982)
     The Gods Laughed (1982)
     New America (1982)
     The Long Night (1983)
     Conflict (1983)
     Hoka! (1983) with Gordon R. Dickson
     Time Patrolman (1983)
     Past Times (1984)
     Dialogue with Darkness (1985)
     Going for Infinity (2002)
     The Van Rijn Method (2008)
     David Falkayn: Star Trader (2009)
 
Plus the Cleopatra shared world anthology.
 
In fact, one of my first proposals for tor dot com was for me to do
with Anderson what Tarr was doing for Norton.

>
My first thought was that I would reply to this to the effect: "Hah, you
don't have ..." as my own Anderson collection is extensive.
>
But you do.
>
And I have never read, it seems, "The demon of scattery", or even heard
of it.
William Hyde

Yes, a very impressive list. I have lots of Anderson but there are numerous
books I've never heard of (though I do have _The Demon of Scattery_.)

Of the 56 novels listed, I have 37. Ones I have that James didn't list
(though I know he's read at least a couple), most are short so perhaps
not novels:
_The Makeshift Rocket_ (published in UK, stand-alone but short)
_Mayday Orbit_ (Ace double, James listed other Ace doubles but not this one)
_No Truce With Kings_ (Tor double; I'm sure James has read)
_The Saturn Game_ (Tor double)
_The Shield of Time_ (I would call this a novel (as it calls itself), others
            might call it a fixup novel/collection of original shorter works)

And there's several multiple author books I file under Anderson as the first
alphabetic author and I don't know who else to file it under!
_Five Fates_ (5 novellas)
_The Day the Sun Stood Still_ (3 novellas)
_Murasaki_ (a novel in 6 parts)

I'm missing a much higher percentage of the collections, as I would expect.
I have 15 of the 39 listed. Not listed by James:
_The Unicorn Trade_ (with Karen Anderson, so perhaps not officially a
                     collection? The vast majority is by Poul)

Poul Anderson is very consistently high quality, often almost Favorite
quality, but not many make it all the way for me. _Operation Chaos_,
_Three Hearts and Three Lions_, and _Five Fates_ (as a whole, not Anderson
in particular) are the only three current Favorites.

_Brain Wave_ and _Tau Zero_ have been on the Favorite bookcase in the
past but got removed in the era where the number of Favorites was
constrained by the size of the bookcase.  Nowadays, all new Favorites
are ebooks so nothing is getting removed.

Chris