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This is nonfiction commentary. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: To Say Nothing of the Dog, Passage, Doomsday Book, Remake, Inside Job, Bellwether, Blackout, Lincoln's Dreams. Source: Wikipedia. Free updates online. Not illustrated. Excerpt: To Say Nothing of the Dog: How We Found the Bishop's Bird Stump at Last is a 1997 comedic science fiction novel by Connie Willis. It takes place in the same universe of time-traveling historians she explored in her story Fire Watch and novel Doomsday Book. To Say Nothing of the Dog won both the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1999, and was nominated for the Nebula Award in 1998. The book's title is inspired by the subtitle of an 1889 classic work, as explained by the author in the dedication: "To Robert A. Heinlein, Who, in Have Space SuitWill Travel, first introduced me to Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat, To Say Nothing of the Dog." The story takes place in 2057 at Oxford University. A machine which makes time travel possible has been developed, but time travel itself is used primarily as a tool for historical research. Although millions were spent to develop time travel as a commercial venture, it turned out to have no profit potential. The natural laws of the "time continuum" prevent anything of significance from being brought from the past to the future, and also act to keep time travelers away from historically critical events, such as the Battle of Waterloo. Any attempt to break these laws result in the time machine malfunctioning: either it fails to work at all, or the time traveler goes to the wrong time or place. In extreme situations the continuum can correct paradoxes by changing the course of events in minor ways to keep the eventual outcome the same. The novel opens just as one time traveler appears to have violated the laws of the continuum by bringing a cat fr...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=1387687 ... Read more

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A crisis linking past and future strands Kivrin in a bygone age as her fellows try desperately to rescue her. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Sampling the Black Pest!
Ms. Willis has done a wonderful job with this book. Hugo and Nebula prizes were deservedly bestowed to this work.
Time travel is a classic sci-fi subject and there are different possible approaches. The author chooses to research in depth the time period involved and that is a big plus. The medieval environment is presented to the reader with accurate strokes.
Even if the story is a little slow to fully develop, after you pass the first hundred pages you are hooked and incapable to put down this book.

Ms. Willis draw a parallel between past and present (future actually as present is year 2050), confronting a deadly epidemic situation in two different time periods.
Characters are fully developed and show human depth. The reader is introduced to the intimate perceptions of many of them. Self sacrifice vs. selfishness; true deep religious belief vs. superficial self serving religious attitudes; human foolishness vs. humanitarian procedures are described in a gripping way.

The dark background is mitigated by an underlying sense of humor that softens even the most dreadful scenes.
Time travel is presented in a very coherent way, avoiding paradoxes and silly conflicts that spoil other novels.
This is a book that may be enjoyed by sci-fi and fantasy adepts as well as people interested in historical novels.
Reviewed by Max Yofre.
... Read more

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20 outstanding sf stories by women writers. ... Read more

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A perfect match-the all-time top Nebula Award winner edits this year's volume of the celebrated series honoring the Nebula Awards. The coveted Nebula Awards are the only SF awards bestowed annually by the writers' own demanding peers, the Science-fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Each Nebula Awards collection showcases the year's Nebula-winning fiction, top selections from the ballot-including work not collected in other best-of-the-year anthologies-and intriguing essays written expressly for each volume. Nebula Awards 33 features prizewinning fiction by Vonda N. McIntyre, Jerry Oltion, Nancy Kress, and Jane Yolen; the Rhysling Award winners for best SF poetry; classic stories by Grand Master Poul Anderson and Author Emeritus Nelson Bond; and original essays by Jack Williamson, Kim Stanley Robinson, Ellen Datlow, Sheila Williams, Cynthia Felice, Michael Cassutt, Geoffrey Landis, Beth Meacham, Wil McCarthy, and Christie Golden. This excellent compendium is, as was said of last year's volume, "a must-read for both serious and casual SF fans alike."Amazon.com Review
The annual NebulaAwards are given by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers ofAmerica to honor the best novel, novella, novelette, and short storyof the previous year.Nebula Awards 33 editor and six-timeNebula winner Connie Willis reveals her love of the Nebula collectiontradition:

"In those 33 eventful years, I've won NebulaAwards and lost them (or, as this year's toastmaster, Michael Cassutt,put it, I've been 'differently victorious'). And I've read another 31Nebula Awards collections and all the stories in them.... Andyou know what? I'm just as dazzled, just as awed and impressed, by theNebula Award stories as I was that first time."

Nebula Awards 33 features Jane Yolen's Best Short Story winner,Sister Emily's Lightship, a tale of poetic inspiration from thestars; The Flowers of Aulit Prison, Nancy Kress's winner forBest Novelette, which beautifully examines the persistence of memory;the Best Novella winner, Jerry Oltion's Abandon in Place, anextraordinary space-ghost story; and an excerpt from VondaN. McIntyre's lush historical fantasy The Moon and the Sun,which took Best Novel honors.

A terrific selection of "differentlyvictorious" pieces rounds out this outstanding collection, along withthe essays, author profiles (of Nelson Bond and Poul Anderson), andRhysling Award winners (for science fiction poetry) we've come toexpect in the Nebula series. The Nebula nominees represent some of thebest science fiction and fantasy published each year, and NebulaAwards 33 is full of high-caliber writing, great ideas, andfascinating insight into the minds and hearts of the nominatedauthors. --Therese Littleton ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Always Entertaining, Often Mind Blowing
It really doesn't matter which volume of the Nebula Awards you pick up, you know that you're going to discover some great SF stories.That is certainly true of NEBULA AWARDS 33.Sure, you might find one or two that you don't care for, but those stories are probably the exception to the rule.Out of the works selected for inclusion in this volume, I found six of them to be outstanding, with a couple of them blowing me away.
The SF stories that I enjoy the most teach me about myself and the world around me.These stories did that and more.

James Patrick Kelly's "Itsy Bitsy Spider" is a touching, thought-provoking look at our relationships with our children and our parents."The Flowers of Aulit Prison" by Nancy Kress is immediately readable, enjoyable, and yet full of depth.With a title like "Three Hearings on the Existence of Snakes in the Human Bloodstream," you know you're NOT in store for a boring read!A masterful look at the battle between science and religion.Michael Swanwick's "The Dead" is a wonderfully disturbing look at the corporate world.And what can you say about Karen Joy Fowler's "The Elizabeth Complex," except that it's brilliant?(Man, this woman can write!)

To end the volume, Willis hits a home run by picking Grand Master Poul Anderson's "The Martyr," a story that I just can't stop thinking about.

270 pages

Good summary of the year
Another collection of this long-running series that presents the award-winning fiction for the previous year. I'll comment on the individual stories:

Jane Yolen, "Sister Emily's Lightship" -- I've never been a Yolen fan. While I find her prose professional enough, I've never read anything by her that would make me jump up and rush out to force someone to read it. This story is no exception. The premise of Emily Dickinson meeting an alien is too...precious, and Yolen's sole contribution to that premise in this story is to emphasize some of the ethereal and otherworldly quality of Dickinson's poetry, and that doesn't come until the end. Yeah, she did her Dickinson research, but so what? Other than the alien, there is no reason for this story to be science fiction (see "Abbess Phone Home" in the Turkey City Lexicon).

James Patrick Kelly, "Itsy Bitsy Spider" -- Uses technology of the future to portray a true human characteristic.

Vonda McIntyre, excerpt from The Moon and the Sun -- As someone who has not read this Nebula-winning novel, the excerpt presented here does exactly what it is supposed to do--whet your appetite for more. I had no idea what the subject of the book was before I read this, now I do, and have had a taste of how it is told. I'm not going to rush out and get it, but I'm much more interested now than I was before.

Nancy Kress, "The Flowers of Aulit Prison" -- An excellent story with its basis in that most Phil Dickian question, "What is reality?" This is the kind of SF that I look for, where aliens help us understand, through them as a metaphor, a fundamental idea of life. That it has a plot, an unique setting, and fascinating characters makes it an award winner. I'm not giving anything away with this one, but just point you to it and say, "go read."

Gregory Feeley, "The Crab Lice" -- I disliked the beginning of this story so much that I didn't even finish it. There was nothing for me to grab onto to orient myself in the story, and life is just too short.

Nelson Bond, "The Bookshop" -- A nice little classic story, where every writer's fantasy comes true, but at a price, of course. You could do a collection of these ultimate library tales (Borges comes to mind).

James Alan Gardner, "Three Hearings on the Existence of Snakes in the Bloodstream" -- A great story, with some unique twists to alternate history (so much better than the Feeley).

Michael Swanwick, "The Dead" -- An audacious story, and right up my alley. I liked it well enough, but there was something missing--I'm not sure what, maybe more of an explanation for the Donald character and his background. The anger that it stems from is good.

Karen Joy Fowler, "The Elizabeth Complex" -- This could have been as bad as the Yolen, yet it works to some extent because of its experimental nature. I wouldn't want a steady diet of these things, but once was interesting.

Jerry Oltion, "Abandon in Place" -- Wow, I liked this story a lot, even though it is so ridiculous that it is laughable. One must come at this as if reading a fairy tale--there is nothing plausible here. The science is bogus, the characters are straight wish-fulfillment from Heinlein days. But the mythology is strong, and if one has any remorse for the space program whatsoever, there's a good chance that it will tug the correct strings.

Poul Anderson, "The Martyr" -- A classic from the latest grand master, a nice little mystery about why those infuriating aliens continue to treat us differently.

All in all, this is a worthy volume to grab, especially if you don't want to dedicate the time to reading the Dozois' Year's Best or the magazines themselves.

very disappointing
a collection of SCI-FI short stories , poems ext.. edited by the authorconny willis.

tee writings are from many genres of SCI-FI and bydifferentwriters, some are new and some are SCI-FI master from the oldgeneration.

most of the stories are very weak, and some are verypeculiar

the best things about the book, is that ther reader can alwaysskip to the next story, and mabee to find something for is taste.

i thinkthis book is realy for SCI FI fanatic fans only, especially for those whoare familiar with the NEBULA award organisation, and for conny willis'sfans and friends (i'm not one of them)

Disappointing
History repeats itself:Two years ago I read Nebula Awards 31.The only story that engaged me was by Grand Master AE Van Vogt - a story written over 50 years ago.I don't remember much else about that volume.

NebulaAwards 33 concludes with a story by Grand Master Poul Anderson writtenabout 40 years ago.It's easily the best thing in the book.If I were toguess what this means about contemporary short science fiction, I would saythe genre is not only short on new ideas, but it has lost the joy of thenarrative.Indeed, little happens in many of these stories.And, as theearlier reviewer noted, many really aren't sf. Jane Yolen's award-winningstory about Emily Dickinson and a spaceship is silly and unnecessary. Gregory Feeley's story is interesting, but there's no narrative.JohnHoward Gardner's story has perhaps the best science fictional idea.Itdeals with certain snake-like analogues in human blood which have areligious significance that affected society.But, it's just someconversational set-pieces with no narrative.Nancy Kress's piece startsgood, gets better, and then just ends.(Is there a novel in the works?) The one story with spaceships is actually a ghost story.

Science fictionand fantasy writers are perhaps entitled to pat themselves on the back fromtime to time - after all few others do.But editor Connie Willis's gushyendorsements do nobody any good.Rather than let the reader judge thestories, she keeps telling us how good they are.(No analysis isprovided.)She makes the absurd claim that this volume is as good as thefirst volume, which contained much-anthologized classic works by Aldiss,Ellison and Zelazny.

Willis mourns her inability to include all thenominees while including nine (!) gushy pages on Poul Anderson and aboutone apiece on each story.The volume concludes with a totally unnecessary(and, except for a piece by Kim Stanley Robinson, facile) collection ofpieces about 1997.But who cares about 1997 in the middle of 1999?Itincludes about 10 pages ripped out from the award winning novel.(Why dothis?The novel will probably have greater circulation than thiscollection.)Maybe K.D. Wentworth wouldn't have the ignominy of being theonly short-story nominee left out had all this unnecessary material beentossed.

Disappointing, only a nodding acquaintance to SF
A marked disappointment, considering the traditions of the Nebula books. It is possible that they are good stories but a large majority is not SF (in my book). The stories do (in general) improve as the reader progressesthrough the book,however even the best is only mediocre. The longintroductions are just a waste of space (:-), and to add insult toinjury,it contains an excerpt from a novel, and a whole spiel (some 10pages) about a Nebula man of the year (or similar). Buy it if you must, mycopy is going to be binned. ... Read more

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Chapters: Hunter S. Thompson, James A. Michener, Connie Willis, Richard Lamm, Marilyn Ferguson, Frank Waters, Paco Ahlgren, John Fante, T.r. Reid, Bert Stiles, Philip Yancey, James Q. Wilson, Lenora Mattingly Weber, Coke Newell, Linda Hogan, Dan Beachy-Quick, Suzi Q. Smith, Bruce Ducker, Mary Crow, John Dunning, Kent Haruf, Andy Adams, Carol Berg, Ben Lindsey, T. Neil Davis, Mabel Barbee Lee, Thom Hatch, John Taintor Foote, Michael K. White, Clifford J. Laube, Linda Seger, Laura Misch, Matthew Allen, Ann Cummins, Stephen White. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 162. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 Hunter Stockton Thompson (July 18, 1937 February 20, 2005) was an American journalist and author, most famous for his roman à clef Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. He is credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of reporting where reporters involve themselves in the action to such a degree that they become central figures of their stories. He was also known for his use of psychedelics, alcohol, firearms, and his iconoclastic contempt for authoritarianism. Hunter Stockton Thompson was born in Louisville, Kentucky, the first of three sons to Jack Robert Thompson (1893 - July 3, 1952), an insurance adjuster and a World War I veteran, and Virginia Davidson Ray (19081998), a reference librarian. His parents met after being introduced by a mutual friend from Jack's fraternity in 1934, and married in 1935. The Thompson family resided in the Cherokee Triangle neighborhood of the Highlands in Louisville. Jack Thompson died of myasthenia gravis, a neuromuscular disease, on July 3, 1952, when Hunter was 14 years old, leaving three sonsHunter, Davison, and James (February 2, 1949 March 25, 1993)to be brought up by the...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=14328 ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An entertaining collection!
I enjoyed this collection of stories; there is something for everyone.The writing styles are varied enough to keep you interested. The themes are similiar to other books and stories, but I liked it anyway. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Not Free SF Reader
A shot at a shared-world Berserker anthology, with some notable SF writers taking a crack at a range of different types of stories involving these badlife hating metal monsters.The pick of this lot is the first Donalson tale.

Each story has a linking piece preceding it by the editor, who is of course the author of all the other Berserker material.

Berserker Base : What Makes Us Human - Stephen R. Donaldson
Berserker Base : With Friends Like These - Connie Willis
Berserker Base : Itself Surprised - Roger Zelazny
Berserker Base : Deathwomb - Poul Anderson
Berserker Base : Pilots of the Twilight - Edward Bryant
Berserker Base : A Teardrop Falls - Larry Niven


Berserker freeze out

4 out of 5


Marriages hassles and Berserker around.

3 out of 5


Busted berserker bit deal.

3.5 out of 5


Berserker planet trade deal.

3 out of 5


Runagate PereSnik't 'Reen boojum.

3 out of 5


Berserker fortress upload takeover return revenge.

3.5 out of 5




3.5 out of 5

Read More Than One Novel by One.
I can call this novel a link among the science fiction novel's. It is full of fantastic events and very interesting. You can travel through the worlds from one galaxy to another, and take part in a war between the human kind and robots, one of the human dreams'. After Reading This book I ask this question again from myself: Is that true, Can robots disturb human's bright technology?

A rare find
If you love the Berserker stories, then this is a very rare find.Especially if you love stories by Roger Zelazny or Larry Niven ... Read more

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En esta impresionante y excepcional antologia se recogen historias entrañables que muestran una excepcional sensibilidad, una conmovedora ternura pero tambien la capacidad satirica y critica de la excepcional autora de El libro del dia del Juicio Final, con el que obtuvo los premio Hugo, Nebula y Locus, galardones que tambien han obtenido varias de las excepcionales historias aqui seleccionadas. / ""Variety is the soul of pleasure,"" and variety is what this comprehensive new collection of Connie Willis is all about. The stories cover the entire spectrum, from sad to sparkling to terrifying, from classics to hard-to-find treasures with everything in between -- orangutans, Egypt, earthworms, roast goose, college professors, mothers-in-law, aliens, secret codes, Secret Santas, tube stations, choir practice, the post office, the green light on Daisy's dock, weddings, divorces, death, and assorted plagues, from scarlet fever to ""It's a Wonderful Life."" And a dog. Famous for her ""sure-hand plotting, unforgettable characters, and top-notch writing,"" Willis has been called, ""the most relentlessly delightful science fiction writer alive,"" and there are numerous examples here. Among them, Willis's most famous stories -- the Hugo- and Nebula-Award-winning ""Fire Watch"" and ""Even the Queen"" and ""The Last of the Winnebagos"" -- along with undiscovered gems like Willis's heartfelt homage to Jack Williamson, ""Nonstop to Portales."" Her magical Christmas stories are here, too, from ""Newsletter"" to ""Just Like the Ones We Used to Know..."" which last year was made into the TV movie, Snow Wonder, starring Mary Tyler Moore. We've collected stories from throughout Willis's career, from early ones like ""Cash Crop"" and ""Daisy, in the Sun,"" right up to her newest stories, including the wonderful ""The Winds of Marble Arch."" There's literally something for everyone here. If you're a diehard Willis fan, you'll be delighted with hard-to-find treasures like the until-now uncollected, ""The Soul Selects Her Own Society..."" If you've never read Connie Willis, this is your chance to discover ""A Letter from the Clearys"" and, well, ""Chance."" To say nothing of, ""At the Rialto,"" the funniest story ever written about quantum physicists. And Willis's chilling, ""All My Darling Daughters."" And mucho more: there are too many great stories here to list and pleasures galore. ... Read more

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Collecting Modern First Editions. ... Read more

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Galileo Magazine Of Science & Fiction: Back Issue: Number Nine, July 1978. ... Read more

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Word count: 3625. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

why couldn't it be longer great story
this story set in connie willis's backyard of colorado is wonderfully told but i wish it was longer(or had a sequel hint if authuor is reading) the harried newspaper reporters stoies of 'nutto's are hysterical and the elturco mishaps are good "as gold" four doughnuts ... Read more