{"id":14772,"date":"2022-10-17T21:14:36","date_gmt":"2022-10-17T21:14:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=14772"},"modified":"2023-12-31T18:28:19","modified_gmt":"2023-12-31T18:28:19","slug":"the-2022-nebula-award-short-story-finalists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=14772","title":{"rendered":"The 2022 Nebula Award Short Story Finalists"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Summary:
\nAnother mixed bag of stories from a supposedly major award, with three good or better stories and three that I would not expect to see here. The good work includes Proof by Induction <\/em>by Jos\u00e9 Pablo Iriarte (my favourite story sees a son visit his dead father in VR to finish a math proof and try to establish a relationship), Mr. Death <\/em>by Alix E. Harrow (which has a \u201cReaper\u201d from the Department of Death given a two year old boy as his next job), and Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather <\/em>by Sarah Pinsker (the winner of the Nebula Award sees an online group discuss a gruesome folk song, with one of their number later doing some field research).
\nI suspect the other three stories by Sam J. Miller, Suzan Palumbo, and John Wiswell are here because of their \u201clife issues\u201d content (growing up queer, immigration and sibling issues, and chronic pain management).<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

Editors, Jason Sizemore & Lesley Conner, Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas (x2), Jonathan Strahan, Sean Wallace & Clara Madrigano, David Steffen<\/p>\n

Fiction:
\nMr. Death<\/strong> <\/em>\u2022 short story by Alix E. Harrow \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>+
\nProof by Induction<\/strong> <\/em>\u2022 short story by Jos\u00e9 Pablo Iriarte \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nLet All the Children Boogie<\/strong><\/em> \u2022 short story by Sam J. Miller\u00a0\u2217<\/strong>
\nLaughter Among the Trees<\/strong><\/em> \u2022 short story by Suzan Palumbo \u2217<\/strong>
\nWhere Oaken Hearts Do Gather<\/strong> <\/em>\u2022 short story by Sarah Pinsker \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>+
\nFor Lack of a Bed<\/strong><\/em> \u2022 short story by John Wiswell \u2217<\/strong><\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

There are six finalists in the short story category, and the winner was Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather<\/strong> <\/em>by Sarah Pinsker.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

Mr Death\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>by Alix E. Harrow (Apex<\/em> #121, January 2021)1<\/sup> begins with Sam, the narrator, telling us that he has ferried \u201ctwo hundred and twenty-one souls across the river of death\u201d before he is given his next assignment:<\/p>\n

Name: Lawrence Harper
\nAddress: 186 Grist Mill Road, Lisle NY, 13797
\nTime: Sunday, July 14th 2020, 2:08AM, EST
\nCause: Cardiac arrest resulting from undiagnosed long QT syndrome
\nAge: 30 months
\n.<\/span>
\n<\/em>Jesus Christ on his sacred red bicycle. He\u2019s two.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sam goes to see Lawrence several hours before his death (a requirement that helps smooth the passing of the dead across the river to \u201crejoin the great everything\u201d) and, when he arrives in the boy\u2019s bedroom, watches him stir. Lawrence\u2019s father, alerted by the intercom, comes in and picks the boy up and takes him into the kitchen. Sam then watches the father hold and feed Lawrence, and notes the father does not know that this will be his last time together with his son. Later on in the garden, the boy (unusually) sees Sam, and the pair later play catch together.
\nThe rest of the story switches between this kind of affecting domestic detail (we see the boy with his mother when she gets home), backstory about the premature death of Sam\u2019s own young son, Ian, and an account of Sam\u2019s own death and recruitment as a \u201creaper\u201d.
\nEventually (spoiler), Lawrence\u2019s moment of passing arrives and, when his heart stops, Sam intervenes, putting a ghostly hand into the boy\u2019s chest and massaging it back to life.
\nSam subsequently has his tea leaves read by his Archangel supervisor, Raz (\u201cthe kind of sweet, middle-aged Black woman with whom you do not fuck\u201d) and is given another appointment to reap the boy. Once again Sam saves him, and once again Raz appears. This time she asks Sam what he would do if she punished him by leaving him on Earth, never to cross the river and rejoin the great everything, but to fade into nothingness. Sam says he would watch over Lawrence for as long as he could, and the story finishes with Raz telling him he no longer works for the Department of Death. Before she goes she hands him a card, which says, \u201cSam Grayson, Junior Guardian, Department of Life\u201d.
\nAlthough this story pretends, for most of its length, to be an edgy and dark piece, it is ultimately sentimental and feel-good\u2014and, to be honest, quite well done.\u00a0I couldn\u2019t help but think, however, that there are darker and more profound versions of the story where the boy dies. Two options spring to mind: the first, which would appeal to the religious, is that we see the joy of him rejoining the great everything; the second just sees him die, and has the narrator reflect on the need for stoicism to get us through this veil of tears. I doubt any current SF writer is going to be writing that kind of story any time soon.
\n\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>+ (Good to Very Good). 5,100 words. Story link<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

Proof by Induction<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by Jos\u00e9 Pablo Iriarte (Uncanny<\/em> #40, May-June 2021)2<\/sup> opens with Paulie arriving at the hospital to discover his father has died. Standing next to his father\u2019s wife is the chaplain, who offers Paulie the chance to enter his father\u2019s \u201cCoda\u201d, a computer simulacrum of his father\u2019s consciousness made just before his death:<\/p>\n

Gone was the endotracheal tube. The room was eerily silent, with none of the sounds he\u2019d associated with the hospital from his visits over the past week.
\nHe met his father\u2019s eyes. \u201cHey.\u201d
\nHis father smiled ruefully. \u201cHey.\u201d
\n\u201cAre you\u2014\u201d
\n\u201cDead?\u201d His father gestured toward the inactive monitors.
\n\u201cApparently so.\u201d
\n\u201cDoes it hurt?\u201d Are you afraid, he wanted to ask, but he knew better than to talk to his father about emotions.
\n\u201cNothing hurts,\u201d he said, picking at a scab on his leg. \u201cI guess they have a way of turning that off.\u201d
\n\u201cDid the doctors mess up? Should I ask for an autopsy?\u201d
\nHis father shook his head. \u201cNah. I\u2019m seventy-one, diabetic, and with a bad heart. You\u2019re not going to win any lawsuits here.\u201d
\nIt occurred to Paulie that Codas could be programmed to give whatever answer benefitted the hospital.
\nPaulie stared out the window, over the parking lot, to the eerily empty expressway. \u201cI really believed we were close on that Perelman proof.\u201d
\n\u201cMaybe nobody\u2019s meant to find it.\u201d
\nEasy for him to say. He\u2019d already been beyond questions of tenure and publication; now all of that was even more meaningless for him.
\nFor Paulie, though, Perelman would have been the home run his tenure dossier needed. He turned back toward the bed. \u201cOkay. Well.\u201d He put a hand on the chair he\u2019d sat in last night while his father complained about his breathing. He should say something. Something like I love you\u00b8 he supposed. But his father had never gone in for the mushy stuff in life, so why start now?
\n\u201cGoodbye, then,\u201d he finished instead.
\n\u201cBye, Paulie,\u201d said his father. \u201cThank you for visiting.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Paulie subsequently arranges to take a copy of the Coda home with him, and the rest of the story mostly consists of scenes where Paulie visits his father\u2019s Coda to work on the theorem (although we also see something of Paulie\u2019s own family life and relationship with his daughter, and the peer pressure he experiences at his university job).
\nThe two men\u2019s attempts to solve the theory become increasingly complicated by the fact that Paulie\u2019s father has no memory of what has happened during previous visits, which means that Paulie has to explain everything they have done each time he enters the Coda. We also see further evidence of the emotional distance between the men, and Paulie\u2019s attempts to make some sort of connection with his father, such as the occasion he mentions his daughter\u2019s forthcoming dance recital:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just. . .it reminds me of my piano recitals.\u201d
\nHis father leaned on his bed railing. \u201cIs that what this is really about, Paulie? Are you here to tell me I was a shitty father? I know. I already acknowledged that, after the divorce.\u201d
\nPaulie dropped into the chair by the bed. \u201cNo,\u201d he said at last. \u201cSorry. I keep thinking of what other people use the Coda technology for, and I keep waiting to hear you talk about something besides math or life insurance. I keep hoping you\u2019ll have something profound to say.\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2019m not the mushy type.\u201d
\n\u201cYou could fake it.\u201d
\n\u201cYou\u2019re the smartest person I ever met. You would see through any faking.\u201d
\nPaulie blinked. A compliment.
\n\u201cI wouldn\u2019t have blamed you if you didn\u2019t want anything to do with me,\u201d his father went on, \u201cafter not being there for you as a kid. But then you made me a part of your life and we got along okay. You treated me like a colleague, so I tried to treat you the same. Now you\u2019re mad at me for not acting more like a father? I didn\u2019t think you wanted that from me.\u201d
\nPaulie waited to see if he would say anything else. That was about as close to \u201cmushy\u201d as he\u2019d come since the night twenty years ago when he\u2019d apologized for abandoning him.
\nAfter a quiet eternity, he got up from the chair. \u201cOkay, well, I think I have enough to work on for now. I\u2019ll come back when I have some progress.\u201d
\n\u201cBye, Paulie. Thank you for visiting.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Eventually (spoiler) they go on to solve the theorem, and Paulie comes to accept that his father is never going to say the things that he wants him to say.
\nNormally I\u2019m not remotely interested in \u201cDaddy\u201d or other problematical relationship stories, but this one works quite well\u2014probably because Iriarte handles this in a fairly muted way and not as the usual whiny adolescent psychodrama. I\u2019d also note that the description of the mathematical processes undertaken to solve the theorem are an equal focus of the story, and are quite gripping\u2014a significant feat considering that I had no idea about what was being discussed.
\nThis story has an odd combination of ideas and themes, but I liked it a lot.
\n\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u00a0(Very good). 6,250 words. Story link<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

Let All the Children Boogie<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by Sam J. Miller (Tor.com, January\u2013February 2021) starts with the narrator Laurie remembering the time she first heard Iggy Pop\u2019s\u00a0The Passenger<\/em>\u00a0on the radio and how, at the end of the track, there was an interruption, \u201cstaticky words, saying what might have been\u00a0\u2018Are you out there?\u2019<\/em>\u201d
\nThen, next day in a local thrift shop, Laurie hears someone singing the song:<\/p>\n

The singer must have sensed me staring, because they turned to look in my direction. Shorter than me, hair buzzed to the scalp except for a spiked stripe down the center.
\n\u201cThe Graveyard Shift,\u201d I said, trembling. \u201cYou were listening last night?\u201d
\n\u201cYeah,\u201d they said, and their smile was summer, was weekends, was Ms. Jackson\u2019s raspy-sweet voice. The whole place smelled like mothballs, and the scent had never been so wonderful. \u201cYou too?\u201d
\nMy mind had no need for pronouns. Or words at all for that matter. This person filled me up from the very first moment.
\nI said: \u201cWhat a great song, right? I never heard it before.
\nDo you have it?\u201d
\n\u201cNo,\u201d they said, \u201cbut I was gonna drive down to Woodstock this weekend to see if I could find it there. Wanna come?\u201d
\nJust like that.\u00a0Wanna come?<\/em>\u00a0Everything I did was a long and agonizing decision, and every human on the planet terrified me, and this person had invited me on a private day trip on a moment\u2019s impulse. What epic intimacy to offer a total stranger\u2014hours in a car together, a journey to a strange and distant town. What if I was a psychopath, or a die-hard Christian evangelist bent on saving their soul? The only thing more surprising to me than this easy offer was how swiftly and happily my mouth made the words:\u00a0That sounds amazing.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This passage pretty much limns the the story, which is that of one odd sock finding another and becoming a pair. The next day they set off together on a trip to a record store and, during their journey, they hear another interruption on the radio after David Bowie\u2019s\u00a0Life on Mars<\/em>\u00a0(the comments include mention of an airplane crash\u2014which occurs later that day\u2014and a \u201cspiderwebbing\u201d epidemic).
\nThe rest of the tale sees the pair spend their time (in between further, increasingly meaningful, radio messages) navigating the mostly self-inflicted emotional dramas of teenage life in 1991 (during which Laurie seems perpetually on the verge of a nervous breakdown). These tempests-in-teapots include, among other situations, dealing with both sets of parents\u2014and when Fell first meets Laurie\u2019s parents, Laurie tells them that Fell is also a \u201cshe\u201d to placate any potential concerns about what might happen to their daughter upstairs. Laurie then feels sick at having done so, as \u201cIt was a negation of who Fell was\u201d. I assume from this that Fell is a biological woman who has chosen to be a trans man (but, as I find this stuff of little interest, and can\u2019t be bothered trying to confirm my impressions, I could be wrong). Later, we also get a look at Fell\u2019s dysfunctional family set up, which essentially consists of an alcoholic and hostile mother who apparently uses the wrong pronouns for her child (something I didn\u2019t think you could do in 1991).
\nEventually (spoiler), the content of the messages (\u201cI don\u2019t know if this the right . . . place. Time\u201d; \u201cTo tell you the future can be more magnificent, and more terrifying, than what you have in your head right now\u201d; \u201cTwo soldiers trapped behind enemy lines\u201d, etc.) leads the pair to triangulate the signal to a nearby record shop (the massed Air Force trucks nearby seem unable to do so)\u2014but there is no-one there. Fell concludes that an earlier hypothesis\u2014about the affirmatory messages coming from their future selves\u2014is correct.
\nThis story will probably only work for those interested in safe, non-threatening (the only drama here occurs in Laurie\u2019s head), and emotional YA material about insecure teenagers. The SFnal idea is weak and not really developed in any meaningful way (the series of transmissions from the future are concluded by the \u201canswer\u201d being given by Fell). It is essentially a mainstream story about growing up.3<\/sup>
\nI\u2019d also note in passing that the gender pronoun handwringing that goes on in this feels wildly ahistorical.
\n\u2217<\/strong> (Mediocre). 7,000 words. Story link<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

Laughter Among the Trees<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by Suzan Palumbo (The Dark<\/em> #69, February 2021)\u00a0opens with Ana driving to a park in Canada, during which she recalls (a) her arrival in the country as the child of West Indian immigrants, (b) her early days in school, and (c) the birth of her sister Sab. Ana then recalls a childhood family camping trip where her younger sister disappeared during the night (Sab left the tent\u2014against Ana\u2019s wishes\u2014with Greg, a boy she had been playing with earlier that day). Sab was never seen again, nor was the boy\u2014and there was no evidence he had ever been at the campsite.
\nThe story then moves forward in time to when Ana has grown up, her father has died, and her mother is in a care home. During one of Ana\u2019s visits to see her mother, the old woman talks about the disappearance of Sab and shows Ana a picture of a boy that looks like Greg\u2014it materialises that Greg was a cousin of Ana\u2019s mother who drowned back in the West Indies in 1962 when Ana\u2019s mother wanted to go swimming in a flooded river. She tells Ana, \u201c\u2018dis go haunt you here.\u2019 You can\u2019t outrun the past, Ana, even if it\u2019s dead and drowned in another country.\u201d
\nThe story closes with Ana going back to the camp site. Then (spoiler), on the second night, a ghostly Sab appears and tells Ana to follow her. They go to a cave, where Ana finds Sab\u2019s remains and later lies down beside her bones. The story closes with Ana feeling a dense cold, and something gripping her throat.
\nThis is reasonably well told, but it seems to be more an autobiographical slice-of-life than a ghost story (the immigrant background, the family accounts, and the dysfunctional relationship with her sister, etc.). I\u2019d also add that the internal logic of the haunting doesn\u2019t really convince: I can see why Greg would kill the mother or Sab for revenge, but why would Sab lead Ana to the same fate given it was her own childhood stupidity and wilfulness that got her killed?
\nFinally, there are one or two sentences or word choices that could do with being changed, e.g. the very clunky first sentence:<\/p>\n

The highway to the campground cuts through the granite Laurentian Plateau like a desiccated wound.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What\u2019s a \u201cLaurentian Plateau\u201d? Do wounds become \u201cdessicated\u201d? Why distract your reader with this kind of thing? Wouldn\u2019t, \u201cThe highway to the campground cuts through the plateau like an old wound\u201d be a simpler and more apt beginning (the story is in large part about an old wound)?
\n\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong> (Average). 5,950 words. Story link<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny<\/em>\u00a0#39, March-April 2022) opens with an online discussion of a song:<\/p>\n

\u2192This song, included among the famous ballads documented by Francis James Child, is an allegorical tale of a tryst between two lovers and its aftermath. \u2013Dynamum<\/em>\u00a0(2 upvotes, 1 downvote)
\n.<\/span><\/em>
\n>That\u2019s awfully reductive, and I\u2019m not sure what allegory you\u2019re seeing. There\u2019s a murder and a hanging and something monstrous in the woods. Sets it apart from the average lovers\u2019 tryst. \u2013BarrowBoy
\n.<\/span>
\n<\/em>>Fine. I just thought somebody should summarize it here a little, since \u201cabout the song\u201d means more than just how many verses it has. Most people come here to discuss how to interpret a song, not where to find it in the Child Ballads\u2019 table of contents. \u2013Dynamum
\n.<\/span>
\n<\/em>\u2192Dr. Mark Rydell\u2019s 2002 article \u201cA Forensic Analysis of \u2018Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather\u2019\u201d, published in Folklore, explored the major differences and commonalities and their implications. In\u00a0The Rose and the Briar<\/em>, Wendy Lesser writes about how if a trad song leaves gaps in its story, it\u2019s because the audience was expected to know what information filled those gaps. The audience that knew this song is gone, and took the gap information with them. Rydell attempted to fill in the blanks. \u2013HolyGreil<\/em>\u00a0(1 upvote)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This passage pretty much limns the rest of the story in that: (a) it shows several people on a forum discussing the song\u00a0Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather<\/em>\u00a0stanza by stanza\u2014during which we learn it is about a man meeting a woman in the woods and having his heart is excised and used to grow an oak tree; (b) it illustrates the usual online friction between participants (most notably in this case between BarrowBoy and Dynamum above, with the former constantly downvoting the latter); and (c) we first hear of HolyGriel\u2019s account of Rydell\u2019s academic work, which leads a documentary maker called Henry Martyn to investigate further. Martyn later discovers that Rydell visited the location referred to in the song, a village called Gall in England, and (spoiler) he subsequently disappeared. Then, towards the end of the story, Martyn also travels to the village to do research for his documentary. There, he meets a very helpful (and knowledgeable) young woman called Jenny. . . .
\nThis is very well done (the online comments and exchanges are pitch perfect), but the story has an ending you can see coming from miles away. An entertaining piece but not a multi-award winning one.4<\/sup>
\n\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>+ (Good to Very Good). 6,700 words. Story link.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

For Lack of a Bed<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by John Wiswell (Diabolical Plots<\/em>\u00a0#74, 16th<\/sup>\u00a0April 2021) opens with No\u00e9mi trying to relieve her constant pain by sleeping on the floor. While she distracts herself with social media, her friend Tariq texts with the offer of a sofa. But there is a catch though\u2014apparently someone died on it. But, as the sofa is clean, No\u00e9mi accepts the offer, and Tariq, who is actually standing outside her door, brings it in. No\u00e9mi subsequently sleeps well.
\nNo\u00e9mi is then woken late the next morning by Lili, her boss at the pet shop where she works; Lili (who is a succubus) tells No\u00e9mi that there has been trouble with the mogwai overnight and to head in to work (we later find that the shop also stocks gryphons and basilisks, etc.)
\nThe story\u2019s only real complication comes later that day when Noemi is woken again (she fell asleep after the call) by someone knocking on her door. It is Lili, it is six-thirty at night, and, after checking that No\u00e9mi is okay, Lili points at the sofa:<\/p>\n

Lili looked like she\u2019d bitten into an extremely ripe lime. \u201cWhen did you invite her?\u201d
\n\u201cHer? Are you gendering my furniture?\u201d
\nLili pointed a sangria red fingernail at the sofa. \u201cThat\u2019s not furniture. That\u2019s a succubus.\u201d
\nNo\u00e9mi tilted her head. Giving it a few seconds didn\u2019t make it make any more sense. \u201cI know you\u2019re the expert, but I\u2019m pretty sure succubi don\u2019t have armrests.\u201d
\n\u201cCome on. You know my mom is a used bookstore, right?\u201d
\n\u201cI thought she owned a used bookstore.\u201d
\n\u201cThe sex economy sucks. With all the hook-up apps and free porn out there, a succubus starves. My mom turned into a bookstore so people would take bits of her home and hold them in bed. It\u2019s why I work at the pet store and cuddle the hell hound puppies before we open.\u201d
\nNo\u00e9mi asked, \u201cIs that why they never bite you?\u201d
\n\u201cWhat do you think? Everybody else gets puppy bites, except me. I get fuzzy, affectionate joy-energy. Gets me through the day, like a cruelty-free smoothie.\u201d Lili blew a frizzy strand of gold from her face.
\n\u201cBut this sofa has devolved really far into this form. I know succubi that went out like her\u2014she\u2019s just a pit of hunger shaped to look enticing. No mind. Just murder. Where\u2019d you even find her?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The rest of the story (spoiler) sees No\u00e9mi, Tariq and Lili burn the sofa outside the apartment block. We subsequently learn that No\u00e9mi is till sleeping well because she kept one of the cushions.
\nThis is a slight tale with an odd setting (e.g. a fantasy world where a succubus can become a sofa or a bookstore) and I don\u2019t think it really works. I\u2019d also add that the fact that it ended up as a Nebula finalist is baffling and seems to indicate a group of voters who are over-enamoured with frothy, feel-good pieces (or perhaps suffer from chronic pain themselves).
\n\u2217<\/strong> (Mediocre). 2,750 words. Story link<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u2022\u2022<\/p>\n

I may as well repeat what I wrote about the Hugo Award short story finalists\u2014this is a game of two halves, with three better than good stories (the Harrow, Iriarte, and the Pinsker), and three that, in my opinion, should not be here. These latter all seem to deal with what I suppose you could call \u201clife issues\u201d (growing up queer, immigration and sibling issues, and chronic pain).
\nAnd, once again, the finalists skew to online sources.\u00a0 \u25cf<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

1. Mr Death <\/em>by Alix E. Harrow was also a Hugo finalist and runner-up in the short story category of the Locus Poll.<\/p>\n

2. Proof by Induction<\/em> by Jos\u00e9 Pablo Iriarte was also a Hugo finalist and placed fourth in the short story category of the Locus Poll. It was a finalist for the Theodore Sturgeon Award.<\/p>\n

3. Let All the Children Boogie<\/em> by Sam J. Miller also placed sixth in the Locus Poll.<\/p>\n

4. Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather<\/em> by Sarah Pinsker also won the Hugo and Locus Awards for 2021, and is a finalist for this year\u2019s World Fantasy Award. This a well executed piece but it doesn\u2019t have the substance of a multi-award winner.\u00a0 \u25cf<\/p>\n\"rss\"<\/a>\"rss\"<\/a><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Summary: Another mixed bag of stories from a supposedly major award, with three good or better stories and three that I would not expect to see here. The good work includes Proof by Induction by Jos\u00e9 Pablo Iriarte (my favourite story sees a son visit his dead father in VR to finish a math proof […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nebula-awards"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pcj7-3Qg","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14772"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14894,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14772\/revisions\/14894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}