Gardner Dozois - The Years Best Science Fiction, Vol. 20

There were lots of horror movies, I’m sure, but I didn’t go see any of them, so you’re on your own there.

Coming up next year: More Sequels! (What a surprise!) 2004 or late 2003 should see the final Lord of the Rings movie, a new Harry Potter movie, two new Matrix movies, a new X-Men movie, maybe a new Spider-Man movie, and so forth. Maybe even a couple of stand-alone movies! (Or maybe not.)

In closing, it’s interesting to realize that all but two or three of the list of the twenty highest-grossing movies of all time are science fiction or fantasy films! No wonder the studios can swallow a bomb like The Adventures of Pluto Nash and not give up on making genre films!

It wasn’t a very good year for SF and fantasy on television either. Although Stargate SGI is doing better than ever in the ratings, the Sci-Fi Channel canceled Farscape (which hadn’t significantly built its audience) in spite of anguished howls of protest from its devoted fan base and a hastily organized write-in and e-mail campaign petitioning the Sci-Fi Channel execs to keep it alive. (They canceled Farscape, one of the few relatively intelligent SF shows on the air, and immediately announced plans to re-run Battlestar Galactica, one of the dumbest and most pallidly horrid SF series of all time, and what’s more, a show that almost no one liked the first time around; at least Farscape had people who actually wanted to watch it, before the plug was pulled, while I’ve talked to no one who feels anything other than sadness, distaste, and vague dread that Battlestar Galactica is coming back. Go figure. Those wacky Suits!)

The new Star Trek series, Enterprise, now in its sophomore year, is not doing badly, but it is doing worse in the ratings than any of the other Star Trek series did, and its future may also be in doubt. With the indifferent performance of the new Star Trek theatrical movie, Star Trek: Nemesis, and Enterprise’s relatively mediocre numbers, it suddenly looks as if the whole franchise may be in danger, and we might be faced with the prospect of-horror of horrors!-a world without Star Trek!! If this dire possibility actually comes to pass, fans can console themselves with the Trek novels, I suppose, which show no sign of stopping (in fact, they’re selling better than ever), with Trek computer games (ditto), and with the fact that re-runs of the various Trek shows will probably be in syndication for years-if not decades-to come. Which raises the odd possibility that the various Star Trek spin-off products may continue to sell vigorously long after there’s no longer an original franchise show running anywhere on television.

Firefly, the much-hyped and much anticipated new “space western” from Buffy, the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon, debuted this year, but even the hardest-core Buffy fans hated it, it failed to either carry the Buffy audience or find alternative audiences of its own, the ratings were disastrous, and it was cancelled by mid-season, in spite of all of Whedon’s clout and all the pressure he could bring to bear on network execs to save it. Meanwhile, the end is finally in sight for Buffy, the Vampire Slayer itself, after two years of disappointing episodes and decreasing ratings, with the announcement that Sarah Michelle Geller, who portrays Buffy, is leaving the show at the end of the current seventh season for greener pastures in the film world. There are rumors about another possible Buffy spin-off series, but as I type these words, nobody knows what such a series would be, who would be in it, or, most important, if there’s going to even be one in the first place. It’s also unknown as I type this whether or not the network is going to renew the original Buffy spin-off series, Angel, for another season-too bad if they don’t, Angel has been pretty good this year, better, in fact, than its parent series has been (Angel’s writing seeming to improve in quality as Buffy’s relentlessly declined). Again, it’s interesting to see how quickly these TV franchise empires can fall apart-at the beginning of the year, Whedon’s production company was at the top of the television food-chain, with three shows running at once; by the end of 2003, it’s possible that they’ll have none. (Although Buffy and Angel novels and other franchise products may continue on long after both shows are gone, too, in the same way that the Star Trek products might).

Charmed and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, similar if considerably more lightweight supernatural-themed shows, still seem to be pretty successful, Smallville remains a genuine smash, and The Dead Zone seems to be doing okay, but several new shows such as Birds of Prey and Haunted came and went almost before you could notice them, and The New Twilight Zone is a pale imitation even of the previous remake of the show, let alone the original series.

South Park and The Simpsons, if you consider them to be genre shows, are still around, but I no longer pay much attention to them. The more genre-specific Futurama is gone.

Taken was a big hit in the ratings, and covered very similar ground as Signs, but I don’t approve of shows that pander to and encourage the already too-prevalent UFO-abductee mania, and so I didn’t watch it. Dinotopia failed to find an audience, in spite of some very nice dinosaur effects. And The History Channel produced a very disappointing “history” of science fiction, one that ignored most of the real history of the form to concentrate instead on the history of sci-fi movies, and which left many hours of recorded interviews with actual SF writers on the cutting-room floor. (Let’s hope they do a better job with their other “historical” documentaries!)

Coming up next year, a new version of Mr. Ed, proving that the television execs are every bit as creative as the Hollywood moguls who brought us a remake of Lost in Space and who are in the process of bringing us a big-budget remake of Bewitched.

The 60th World Science Fiction Convention, ConJose, was held in San Jose, California, from August 30-September 3, 2002, and drew an estimated attendance of 5,500. The 2002 Hugo Awards, presented at ConJose, were: Best Novel, American Gods, by Neil Caiman; Best Novella, “Fast Times at Fairmont High,” by Vernor Vinge; Best Novelette, “Hell is the Absence of God,” by Ted Chiang; Best Short Story, “The Dog Said Bow-Wow,” by Michael Swanwick; Best Related Book, The Art of Chesley Bonestell, by Ron Miller and Frederick C. Durant III, with Melvin H. Schuetz; Best Professional Editor, Ellen Datlow; Best Professional Artist, Michael Whelan; Best Dramatic Presentation, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings; Best Semiprozine, Locus, edited by Charles N. Brown; Best Fanzine, Ansible, edited by David Langford; Best Fan Writer, David Langford; Best Fan Artist, Teddy Harvia; plus the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer to Jo Walton; and the Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award to R. A. Lafferty.

The 2001 Nebula Awards, presented at a banquet at the Westin Crown Center in Kansas City, Missouri, on April 27, 2002, were: Best Novel, The Quantum Rose, by Catherine Asaro; Best Novella, “The Ultimate Earth,” by Jack Williamson; Best Novelette, “Louise’s Ghost,” by Kelly Link; Best Short Story, “The Cure for Everything,” by Severna Park; Best Script, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, by James Schamus, Kuo Jun Tsai, and Hui-Ling Wang; plus a special Lifetime Achievement Award to Betty Ballantine.

The World Fantasy Awards, presented at the Twenty-Eighth Annual World Fantasy Convention at the Hilton Towers in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on November 3, 2002, were: Best Novel, The Other Wind, by Ursula K. Le Guin; Best Novella, “The Bird Catcher,” by S. P. Somtow; Best Short Fiction, “Queen for a Day,” Albert E. Cowdrey; Best Collection, Skin Folk, by Nalo Hopkinson; Best Anthology, The Museum of Horrors, edited by Dennis Etchison; Best Artist, Allen Koszowski; Special Award (Professional), to Stephen Jones and Jo Fletcher (tie); Special Award (Non-Professional), to Raymond Russell and Rosalie Parker; plus the Life Achievement Award to George Scithers and Forrest J. Ackerman.