James Nicoll Reviews

George R. R. Martin’s 1977 New Voices: The Campbell Award Nominees is the first in a series of anthologies that assemble stories by Campbell Award (now the Astounding) nominees. That it was the first is made clearer on the Jove/Harcourt Brace Jovanovich¹ mass market paperback, whose title was changed to New Voices I: The Campbell Award Nominees.

But first, context.

Despite his best efforts towards the end of his career, John W. Campbell, Jr. died sufficiently respected within the SF field that there were not one but two awards named in his honour. One was the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel and it is irrelevant to this review except for the connection to Campbell. The other award was the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. This anthology collects stories by the finalists of the latter.

For clarity, if I need to reference the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, it will be as the Campbell Memorial. When I reference the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, it will simply the Campbell. 

No doubt Martin himself would be the first to point out that the idea of anthologizing award nominees was not original to Martin. Asimov had already edited the Hugo Winner anthologies by this point. The whole idea of the Nebulas was to create an award whose finalists’ stories could be anthologized and sold to drum up money for SFWA. A Campbell nominee anthology was part of an established tradition.

Martin did think up an original twist on an established concept. Rather than anthologizing sample stories from the nominees published in the relevant year, he commissioned new works from the finalists. Among other benefits, this meant a nominee whose published works in the relevant year were all novel-length wasn’t excluded², as long as they could whip up a story for the anthology.

Unfortunately, this innovation appears to have ultimately doomed the anthology series. Note that the first year the Campbell was given was 1973. This anthology was first published four years later, in 1977. The lag between the year commemorated by each anthology and the publication date kept growing. Volumes II through IV appeared five years after the award year, and Volume V was seven years after the fact. Volume VI was assembled but never published³. A back of the envelope calculation suggests that had the anthology series continued, the most recent volume would have covered 2005’s finalists.

The problems with lag-times may have been inherent in the concept. First, the finalists have to be nominated. Then, Martin had to convince them to write a short story. Then, the author had to deliver their story. The usual editorial blood-rites would take some time, the book prepared for printing, and then, and only then could the book appear. By the time avid readers first saw each volume, the authors would be less bold new voices than established pros.

The first cohort of finalists were (in order of final ranking) Jerry Pournelle, George Alec Effinger, Ruth Berman, George R. R. Martin, Robert Thurston, and Lisa Tuttle. Pournelle took first place, Effinger second. At the time of writing, the only survivors of the first cohort are Martin, Berman, and Tuttle.

Judging by the series’ peregrinations from publisher to publisher over its short history, I suspect it was not a moneymaker. Too bad, because the anthologies were worth reading. Even limiting myself to this single volume, the finalists show an impressive range: serious SF, whimsy, horror, and proto-MilSF.

New Voices (with or without the I): The Campbell Award Nominees is out of print.

On to the stories themselves!

Each piece is accompanied by a short biography, courtesy of Martin.

Introduction (New Voices in Science Fiction) • (1977) • essay by Ben Bova

In which Bova, who replaced Campbell as Analog editor, provides context for the Campbell Award and this anthology.

The Family Monkey • (1977) • novella by Lisa Tuttle

A shipwrecked alien spends several generations living with a family of often abrasive Texans with whom the alien can barely communicate. Closer ties courtesy of intermittent telepathy brings the alien little comfort and leaves its closest human companions traumatized.

“Kingmakers” • (1977) • short story by Robert Thurston

A time-travelling researcher, Ludvik, interviews Thomason, the man who transformed American politics. As time travel improves, the researcher is able to interview Thomason at successively younger ages… which does not work out entirely to Ludvik’s advantage.

It’s fine to have a no spoilers policy in matters like this, but simply by interviewing Thomason at all, Ludvik reveals to Thomason that Thomason is a Man of Destiny. Was this research project properly thought out?

The Stone City • [Thousand Worlds] • (1977) • novelette by George R. R. Martin

Holt’s determination to spend his life wandering the stars seemingly ended on Grayrest. To leave, Holt needed a berth on a starship. It amused the alien Dan’Lai to deny Holt passage. Desperation leads to theft, then murder, then hopeless flight into ancient ruins… where Holt stumbles over an ancient secret.

Martin was part of the first cohort of Campbell finalists⁴. If he wanted a complete selection of finalists, he could hardly exclude himself.

I’ve claimed that Martin’s Thousand Worlds stories are SF written with a horror sensibility. Holt’s fate seemed to fit that when I read this story almost half a century. Now, however, I can see many positive aspects to Holt’s fate.

“To Ceremark” • (1977) • short story by Ruth Berman

University student Hatch is drawn into an otherworldly dynastic struggle.

Not sure if this is the least of the stories, but it was the least engaging. I note that it was never reprinted in English, save in subsequent editions of this anthology.

“Mom’s Differentials” • (1977) • short story by George Alec Effinger

Les Gruen returns to his apartment to discover that his wife has decamped for California, leaving discarded belongings and a Dear John letter in her wake. Les’ painful struggle to cope eventually succeeds… but does not win accolades.

Les’ coping mechanism⁵ is idiosyncratic and potentially inconvenient for his neighbours, but at least it doesn’t involve severed heads in the freezer, angry tweets⁶, or extremist politics. One cannot help but notice that there are no SFnal elements in this story.

Silent Leges • [Falkenberg’s Legion] • (1977) • novella by Jerry Pournelle

Naïve middle-class university student Mark’s reward for chasing a pretty Communist is arrest, conviction, and exile from Earth. Indentured on forbidding Tanith, Mark struggles to learn the facts of life fast enough that his ignorance will not kill him.

It’s not quite true that Pournelle’s women tended to be either Space Heiresses or Space Whores. For example, this story has both a Hot Commie Chick and a sex slave (different people). Granted, the Hot Commie Chick is an heiress of sorts, which is why she doesn’t get exiled with Mark. Darn those heiress Hot Commie Chicks. Darn them to heck!

This shares with The Mercenary Pournelle’s CoDominium setting, in which the US and the SU buy a century of peace⁷ by dividing the Earth between them. A detail I overlooked in other CD stories is that lack of civil liberties aside, CoDominium Earth wasn’t that bad a place to live. Not that that stopped people from bitching interminably, or from flipping the table over.

Tanith, on the other hand, is basically DeSantis’ Florida. Maybe a bit more liberal and less muggy than Florida but otherwise the parallels with Florida are striking.

1: Jove/Harcourt Brace Jovanovich was, if I recall correctly, an evolution of Pyramid books. Not really a top tier publisher… but sometimes the little guys will take risks major publishers won’t.

2: Which wouldn’t have been an issue with any finalists in 1973. It is easy to find later finalists like Sandra Meisel, Alexis Gilliland, or Robert Stallman, who weren’t really short fiction writers.

Commissioning a short piece from Stallman would have encountered a different problem. Stallman died in December 1980, the year before he was a Campbell finalist.

3: Although GRRM still has lots of time before New Voices VI is as overdue as Final Dangerous Visions.

4: The two Campbell Awards trundled along happily until 2019, when Jeannette Ng used her Campbell Award win to remind people how comprehensively reprehensible John W. Campbell, Jr., was. Whereas being a virulently racist crank was perfectly acceptable in 1971, when Campbell died (and is again, alas), Ng made her comments in a very narrow window when polite society feigned a tepid degree of decency. Thus, the Campbell Memorial Award fell over dead (at least so far) and the Campbell was renamed the Astounding.

5: Effinger’s Wikipedia entry is unclear as to whether this story was written before or after Effinger’s divorce from his first wife. If after, I’ve read far, far, far more bitter divorce stories.

6: Which would have been literal tweets in 1977. Probably would have worked best if Les huffed helium first.

7: But only a century. USA delenda, along with most of the human population of Earth. Interestingly enough, The Mote in God’s Eye (same setting, about a thousand years later) suggests that chimpanzees survived, so perhaps WWIII wasn’t bad for wildlife.