"Aldiss, Brian W - Afterward - This Year in SF 1966" - читать интересную книгу автора (Aldiss Brian W)

early age; his great trilogy, which begins with Out of the
Silent Planet, has, in its almost obsessive attention to detail,
the hallmarks of this sort of water-tight refuge from the real
world, plus ironic references to that real world, which charac-
terise Carroll's, the Brontes', and many Victorian painters'
fantasy-worlds. The essays included here shed some light on
Lewis's methods of creation, and on his breadth of under-
standing of myth-creating, as well as reminding us that he was
a friend of Tolkien's. There is also the interview he gave on
science fiction which was first published in SF Horizons; two
short stories first published in F&SF; and two stories, one
incomplete, published for the first time.
These are only a few of this year's books: and we are
conscious of omitting many novels which have merit (while
meritorious regular anthologies like Damon Knight's Orbit,
Berkley; Wollheim and Carr's World's Best Science Fiction,
Ace; and Judith Merril's far-ranging Year's Best SF, Dela-
corte, must flourish on their self-continuing reputations). We
have found ourselves with no space/time, to deal with, for
instance, new writer Samuel "Chip" Delany's BABEL-17
(Ace) or Jimmy Ballard's The Crystal World (Farrar, Straus),
which hag already attracted much attention elsewhere. And
we have avoided a swarm of novels on the well-tramped
theme of alien-invasion of Earth, or the well-tramped decks
of mighty starships.
Clearly, the science fiction novel is in a lusty state, but what
of the short story and the novelette in SF this year? As our
duty, and partial pleasure, the undersigned have read a great
number of stories to fulfill our editorial obligations. With our
towering imaginations, we have no difficulty in imagining
these yearly Nebula anthologies and the yearly Nebula Award
still being handed out in A.D. 2000,
This places us under considerable pressure to discharge
honorably our responsibilities as editors. Last year saw the
first Awards and the first Anthology. The President of the
controlling body. Science Fiction Writers of America, contrib-
uted the Introduction, and was concerned with introducing
the whole scheme to the public. As the direct result of his,
Damon Knight's, hard work, SFWA, the Nebula Awards, and
the Nebula Anthology, are an established part of the literary
scene. But we still have a precedent to establish here. A
precedent of responsibility.
SFWA was established to further the interests of science
fiction writers everywhere. We do not see how those interests
can ultimately be furthered without the interests of the reader
being also cared for. We feel that, in certain vital respects, the
reader is being neglected.
And this is where our responsibilities come in. As readers
as well as writers, we see our loyalties chopped two ways. As
editors, we see the twin temptations which will beset all