Catherine Asaro - Nebula Awards Showcase 2013

Propped against the bookcase in Catherine Asaro’s home office is the framed diploma of her Harvard doctoral degree in chemical physics. Nearby, dangling from the doorknob, is a bag stuffed with the workout clothes she wears for dance classes when she pulls herself away from her writing. A former professional dancer, this California native has little time for the ballet barre these days. The author of more than twenty-five books, her work includes science fiction, fantasy, and near-future thrillers. She has twice won a Nebula® Award, once for the novel The Quantum Rose and again for the novella “The Spacetime Pool.” Among her many other distinctions, she is a multiple winner of the AnLab Readers’ Choice Award from Analog and a three-time recipient of the RT Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. Her most recent books are the anthology Aurora in Four Voices and the novel Lightning Strike, Book One , and Lightning Strike, Book Two .

When she isn’t writing, Catherine teaches in the Physics Department at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She has also coached secondary school students in math competitions, including the nationally ranked Howard Area Homeschoolers and Chesapeake ARML team. Her students have placed at the top levels in numerous competitions, such as the USA Math Olympiad and USA Math Talent Search. In addition, she is a member of SIGMA, a think tank of speculative writers that advises the government as to future trends affecting national security. She also served two terms as president of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

As a dancer and musician, Catherine has performed with troupes and in musicals on both coasts and in Ohio. She founded and served as artistic director for two groups at Harvard: the Mainly Jazz Dance Company and the Harvard University Ballet. After she graduated, her undergraduates took over Mainly Jazz and made it into a college club. She has released two music CDs and is working on her third. Her first CD, Diamond Star , is the soundtrack for her novel of the same name. She appears as a vocalist at cons, clubs, and other venues in the United States and abroad, including as the guest of honor at the Denmark and New Zealand National Science Fiction Conventions. Visit her at www.facebook.com/Catherine.Asaro.

“The Paper Menagerie,” copyright 2011 by Ken Liu, first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction , March/April 2011.

“The Ice Owl,” copyright 2011 by Carolyn Ives Gilman, first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction , November/December 2011.

“Ado,” copyright 1988 by Connie Willis, first published in Asimov’s Science Fiction , January 1988.

“The Migratory Pattern of Dancers,” copyright 2011 by Katherine Sparrow, first published in GigaNotoSaurus , July 2011.

“Peach-Creamed Honey,” copyright 2010 by Amal El-Mohtar, first published in The Honey Month , Summer 2010. Used by permission of Papaveria Press.

“The Axiom of Choice,” copyright 2011 by David W. Goldman, first published in The New Haven Review , Winter 2011.

“Club Story,” copyright 1993–2012 by John Clute, first published in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction: Third Edition (2011–), sf-encyclopedia.com.

“What We Found,” copyright 2011 by Geoff Ryman, first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction , September/October 2011.

Among Others , copyright 2011 by Jo Walton. Used by permission of Tor Books and Constable & Robinson Ltd.

“Movement,” copyright 2011 by Nancy Fulda, first published in Asimov’s Science Fiction , March 2011.

“Sauerkraut Station,” copyright 2011 by Ferrett Steinmetz, first published in GigaNotoSaurus , November 2011.

“The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees,” copyright 2011 by E. Lily Yu, first published in Clarkesworld Magazine , April 2011.

“Ray of Light,” copyright 2011 by Brad R. Torgersen, first published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact , December 2011.

The Freedom Maze , copyright 2011 by Delia Sherman. Used by permission of Big Mouth House.

“The Sea King’s Second Bride,” copyright 2011 by C. S. E. Cooney, first published in Goblin Fruit, Spring 2010.

“The Man Who Bridged the Mist,” copyright 2011 by Kij Johnson, first published in Asimov’s Science Fiction , October/November 2011.

Published 2013 by Pyr®, an imprint of Prometheus Books

Nebula Awards Showcase 2013. Copyright © 2013 by Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA, Inc.). All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Cover illustration © 2013 Julie Dillon

Cover design by Grace M. Conti-Zilsberger

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Nebula Awards showcase 2013 / edited by Catherine Asaro.

ISBN 978–1–61614–783-9 (pbk.)

ISBN 978–1–61614–784-6 (ebook)

Printed in the United States of America

1. Editor’s note: After I wrote this introduction, some of my early readers had questions about the Banach-Tarski paradox and the axiom of choice. I did a web search and found a number of sites that talk about the concepts. The one I liked best was an essay in the blog Good Math, Bad Math , written by Mark Chu-Carroll. If you’d like a look, see tinyurl.com/AxiomChoiceBlog.

2. For the video of the Mandelbrot fractal, see “Mandelbrot Zoom,” YouTube video, 1:18, posted on July 8, 2009, by “Kevin O’Toole,” www.youtube.com/watch?v=rajXu9E_Ry0(accessed March 11, 2013).