I’m not nitpicking or anything here. I seriously don’t see anything in the story that would indicate that it should be classed as Science Fiction, even on quite a broad understanding of the genre.
The closest I can figure is that it has something to do with the fact that most of the characters (including the narrator) think they’re immortal. But there’s nothing to indicate that there’s any possibility of truth to this belief.
I’d think any work of science fiction either:
A. Makes a point to show what is possible using plausible technologies, or
B. Involves plot elements that rely on phenomena that are not, as far as we know, possible.
I’m fully open to other proposed conditions on Science Fiction–I don’t take the above to be definitive, rather it’s just an expression of my own expectation.* So my question can be thought of as twofold. Does the story somehow fulfill the above condition without my realizing it? And if not, am I expecting the wrong thing from Science Fiction? (Or from the Nebula Award people?)
*To be clear, I don’t mean the condition as sufficient, just necessary.
Are you talking about the Steven Spielberg movie with Richard Dreyfuss, Holly Hunter, John Goodman, and the pretty-boy pilot guy whose name I never bothered learning?
'Cos that was a remake of a WWII-era movie called “A Guy Named Joe”.
Or is there another Always that you’re talking about?
The top hit when I Google “nebula award always” leads to the page for the 2009 Nebula Awards, where the Nebula Award for Best Short Story is listed as “Always” by Karen Joy Fowler. I haven’t read the story myself, so I can render no opinion as to the appropriateness of the award.
Any story written within the proper time period can be nominated for a Nebula Award. If a story gets 10 nominations, it is placed onto a preliminary ballot. The members vote. The top five stories and ties comprise the final ballot. However, a Nebula Jury can add one additional story. Traditionally this story is from a small market that wouldn’t have been seen by enough people to have a fair chance to get the numbers needed.*
Note that nowhere in this process is there any rule or judgment stating limits or evaluating a story as to its fit into the category of f&sf. And it is fantasy and science fiction. Those are overlapping genres whose outliers are very far apart. But the name of the organization is the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, after all. No real boundaries are placed on either genre. Literally any story in English can be on the ballot.
And a significant block of the voters feel that any story that captures the intention or notion or historical feel of f&sf or a metacommetary on any of those is a worthy addition to the ballot.
As for Always, Karen is revered. She’s been writing critically-acclaimed literary fiction that is also f&sf for most of her career. Her grocery list could win, and it would probably be well enough written to deserve the award.
*This process will be changed next year, but it was in place for the current year’s voting.
Okay, that clears it up for me, especially the “metacommentary” clause.
Thanks!
(And to everyone else, sorry I didn’t provide a link. I actually meant to but ended up forgetting to once I finished the post. On the other hand, I did figure that anyone who could address the question of the OP would probably know what story I was talking about.
Though I am satisfied by an answer given above, here I do have to ask: How can it be fantasy? Nothing fantastic happens. I thought that even in Magic Realism there are events that seem best explained via the fantastic. But that’s not true of this story.
I’d accept that it’s sort of “fantasy” by courtesy, in a sort of “meta” fashion. But your characterization of it as “definitely genre” makes it look to me as though you think it’s pretty straightforwardly fantasy, not just “meta-fantasy” or something like that.
The story hints that the narrator, at least, did find immortality. Whatever Brother Porter was selling – and he probably was a fraud – she achieved it.
I guess given the events in the rest of the story, this didn’t convince me, or even make an impression. I remember the line now that you remind me of it, but at the time, I simply took it as another example of her deluding herself.
But I guess you could read the story as leaving open the possibility that she’d really achieved mortality. It’s barely possible. I guess. But that would hardly contribute to the story, it seems to me. It seems to me that by the end what’s important is what she believes, not what’s actually happening.
That’s true, but the line is pretty clear: she was shot right through the heart. There’s no reason to believe she’s lying about that; she seems a reliable narrator.
It doesn’t say anything else though. Was she shot through the heart, and then taken to the hospital? It’s like a Lady and the Tiger scenario; did she get shot and survive because of her immortality, or did she get shot and survive because of medical care, or is she totally delusional, or does the “easy” answer mean she’s lying to Wilt in the first place?
I agree. It’s not sci-fi. It’s not even necessarily fantasy or magic realism. It’s in what you make of it, and the story is not clear enough to be sure.
The line didn’t convince me either, to be honest, and I am going with the self-delusional story or perhaps the lie. Which makes it an interesting look at human beans but not remotely sci-fi or fantasy.
Ah, that explains it, then. As defined by Joseph Campbell, science fiction is that which is published by science fiction publishers. Asimov’s Science Fiction is clearly a science fiction publisher, so therefore “Always” is clearly a science fiction story.
:dubious: Eh? As I recall it, the whole story revolves around lies she tells herself to justify loyalty first to a boyfriend then to a movement. (Or something like that–it’s been a week and I’ve read a lot of other stories since then but anyway, I definitely didn’t have the impression that I should believe a lot of the things she said.)
The Nebula awards have had this kind of break right from the start. The second year the awards were handed out, in 1966, Richard McKenna’s “The Secret Place” has the same kind of fantasy element as “Always” does; it could be there if you take the narrator at face value or it could be part of a schizophrenic break and you don’t get any answers.
It happens fairly regularly in the Nebulas. Haldeman’s “Graves” (1993) and Bruce Holland Rogers “Thirteen Ways to Water” (1998) are both about strange happenings during Vietnam which could be supernatural but there’s no real reason beyond broad implication in the story to think that.
I think that I’m going to go with this explanation. I read “Always” and personally, I thought it was full of meh. I would have stopped reading it if I hadn’t been interested in this thread, as it (the story, not the thread) did not grab or keep my attention. I think that it just barely qualifies as SF/fantasy in subject matter, and I’m surprised that ASF published it, whether or not the author is much beloved. Perhaps they just needed some filler that month.
I haven’t followed the Nebula voting, so I’m unaware of the other contenders, but I can’t help but feel that “Always” was not the best SF/fantasy short story for the year in question. This does a disservice to those people who did write deserving short stories in that year, and it does a disservice to Fowler. She will have her award tainted by the notion that she received it because of her other writings, and not because this particular story really deserved it.