"The Persistence of Vision", by John Varley won both the Hugo and Nebula for Best Novella, awarded in 1979 for work of 1978. (The 1979 Worldcon was the first one in Brighton.) The second paragraph of the third section is:It was substantial enough that I felt it would be unwise to crawl over it. I had crossed many wire fences in my travels and not ( Read more... )

It may be ten years or so since I read this, and I had forgotten how good it is. Set at the Versailles court of Louis XIV, it is the story of Marie-Josèphe de la Croix and a captive sea monster, destined for slaughter for royal entertainment, and how her realisation of the captive's personhood revolutionises Marie-Josèphe's world, all in lush yet ( Read more... )