Connie Willis' Novelette Aria

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The following was Connie Willis' introduction to her presentation of the Nebula Award for Best Novelette at last month's Nebula Awards Banquet in Seattle, Washington.

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When I told people I'd been asked to present this year's Nebula Award for Best Novelette, they said:

"Ooh, torture the nominees!"
and
"Ooh, torture Bush!"
and
"Ooh, torture Harlan!"
and
"Ooh, do one of those unplanned, off-the-cuff, completely extemporaneous riffs of yours!"

But I don't want to do any of those things -- well, maybe torture Harlan...

No. I want to talk about the novelette.

I've always loved the novelette. Over the years, nearly all my favorite stories have been novelettes:

"Flowers for Algernon"
"When It Changed"
"We Can Remember It For You Wholesale"
"Kirinyaga"
"The Darfstellar"
"Think Like a Dinosaur"
"Burning Chrome"

It seems to me the novelette is the perfect form for writing science fiction -- the perfect length. It's long enough to create a whole world, and short enough to deliver a punch in the gut.

It's like that girl said -- you know the one, she got in trouble -- no, not Janet Jackson -- the one with the blonde hair -- no, not Britney Spears -- GOLDILOCKS! It's like Goldilocks said -- "It's just right."

The novelette is the very essence of science fiction, the distillation, the --

I can't explain it. I'll have to show you.

Here -- in a nutshell -- are the Nebula-Award-winning novelettes of the last 37 years:

Chimpanzees
Computers
Candles
Cathedrals
Christopher Columbus
Charlemagne
Patsy Cline
Princess Gigunda
Grauman's Chinese
Charles Babbage
Albert Einstein
the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
Occam's Razor
Schrodinger's kitten
cats
dodoes
chickens
an elephant
an ichthyosaurus
watch dogs
guide dogs
tigers
tiger's eye
topaz
tourmaline
and time considered as a helix of precious stones.

Flowers
grass
a glass unicorn
ghosts
gods
stars
sisters
solutions
slow sculptures
shared realities
robots
Rachel
Mr. Ralph
Mrs. Hook
Mr. Bones
Mr. Jeepers
Mr. Dunworthy
Dan Quayle
the Dodgers
Digit
Dennis
Wendy Darla
Little Miss
Mist
Mistherd
the Queen of Air and Darkness
the emperor's only son.

He will be travelling incognito. You will call him Lord.

the All-Controller
the Big Gambler
the Change
the Living End
the Before Time
the Tower of Babylon
the vault of heaven

and Hell, which for most of its inhabitants, is not all that different from

Earth
World
The world and all the places in it:
London
Berlin
Seville
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
(I think I saw a real estate agent.)
Georgia
Auckland
auntrings
Aulit Prison
analytical engines
adoption
auntrings
Artifacts, Art, Life-Forms and Misc: Wo and Shade, Importers
Specializing in
Screwflies
sorcery
solitude
cells
cancer
boo-boos
healers
heteromorphs
hurricanes
Hollywood
player pianos
paintings
proximal femoral focus deficiency
pizza
blackberries
eggs
genetic engineering
ghosts
Gan
gonna roll the bones
the Boneyard
the Blitz
the Budayeen
the Burroughs
the Bicentennial Man
Blood Child

Blood music
orchestras
tuning forks
Tarzan
T-Gatoi
Three women--one is dead; one is alive; one is both and neither, and will never live and never die, being immortal in SUM.
Snake
Singers
sandkings
San Diego Lightfoot Sue
Sagan City, Mars
You can't run for president from Mars.
a Martian child
Mars is no place for children.
a Martian wish

Mount Freedom Medical Center
murder
missionaries
model-slash-actresses
outlings
healers
janitors
deserters
daddies
bodyguards
baitmen
bricklayers
bonsai
trees
the Tree
the quickening
the doors of his face, the lamps of his mouth
the Josephson Junction
the Rialto
the Grand Tour
the Great White Way

Then she was falling into the sky.
Into the stars
Into the night
Nighttown
Nassers
Neil Fisk
nests
normal family life
Notes on the History of the World
Nebulas
nutshell
Novelette.

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A key will be posted next week. The Locus Index to SF Awards includes this list of the Nebula winning novelettes.

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