Always (short story)

Last updated
"Always"
Author Karen Joy Fowler
Language English
Genre(s) Science fiction
Published in Asimov's Science Fiction
Publication type Short story
Publisher Dell Magazines
Publication dateApril/May 2007

"Always" is a science fiction short story by American writer Karen Joy Fowler. Originally published in Asimov's Science Fiction , it won the 2007 Nebula Award for Best Short Story.

Contents

Synopsis

"Always" is set in a commune led by Brother Porter in the city of Always, where inhabitants are immortal. His rules are that men and women must sleep in separate buildings, regardless of marital status, and that women must service him sexually. Men are expected to remain celibate. Inhabitants are not forbidden from visiting the outside world or enjoying its benefits, however a lack of interest is encouraged by Brother Porter. No concrete proof is given for the existence of the immortality and Brother Porter demands that his word be accepted on faith, as he also implies that it only works for believers.

The story is narrated by a young woman who arrives with her boyfriend as a teenager, but chooses to remain when he leaves because of his dissatisfaction over the commune rules. Always is occasionally visited by curious tourists, but this tapers off over time, to the consternation of Brother Porter. The narrator describes how Brother Porter evicts people for various reasons; two men are evicted for homosexuality while a married couple must leave because they are suspected to be journalists. As the woman spends more time in the commune her mind begins to dull due to the repetition and growing disinterest in the outside world.

Brother Porter is eventually murdered by one of the inhabitants, Frankie, who poisoned his Hawaiian Punch. She did not believe that it would kill him and she could use this as proof that she was more devout than the others. During the trial lawyers describe the commune as a mentally unstable cult and the narrator realizes that she is unable to determine whether she has been with the commune for about twenty years or less than five. Frankie is found not guilty by reason of insanity and two days later, another commune member murders four people; the courts sentence him to life in prison. The narrator later claims to have survived being shot in the heart due to immortality. The remaining members leave the commune or die off, leaving only the narrator behind. Her former boyfriend comes to take her away, however she chooses to remain in Always because she still believes in the immortality and is completely disinterested in the outside world.

Release

"Always" was first published in the April/May 2007 issue of Asimov's Science Fiction. It was then republished in several "best of" volumes collecting science fiction stories from that year such as Year's Best SF 13 and Science Fiction: The Best of the Year, 2008 Edition. [1] [2] Fowler later included the story in her collection What I Didn't See and Other Stories, which was first published in 2010 by Small Beer Press. [3]

Awards

Related Research Articles

Pat Cadigan American science fiction author

Pat Cadigan is an American science fiction author, whose work is most often identified with the cyberpunk movement. Her novels and short stories all share a common theme of exploring the relationship between the human mind and technology.

Gardner Dozois

Gardner Raymond Dozois was an American science fiction author and editor. He was the founding editor of The Year's Best Science Fiction anthologies (1984–2018) and was editor of Asimov's Science Fiction magazine (1984–2004), garnering multiple Hugo and Locus Awards for those works almost every year. He also won the Nebula Award for Best Short Story twice. He was inducted to the Science Fiction Hall of Fame on June 25, 2011.

<i>The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction</i> American magazine

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction is a U.S. fantasy and science fiction magazine first published in 1949 by Fantasy House, a subsidiary of Lawrence Spivak's Mercury Press. Editors Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas had approached Spivak in the mid-1940s about creating a fantasy companion to Spivak's existing mystery title, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. The first issue was titled The Magazine of Fantasy, but the decision was quickly made to include science fiction as well as fantasy, and the title was changed correspondingly with the second issue. F&SF was quite different in presentation from the existing science fiction magazines of the day, most of which were in pulp format: it had no interior illustrations, no letter column, and text in a single column format, which in the opinion of science fiction historian Mike Ashley "set F&SF apart, giving it the air and authority of a superior magazine".

John Kessel

John Kessel is an American author of science fiction and fantasy. He is a prolific short story writer, and the author of four solo novels, Good News From Outer Space (1989), Corrupting Dr. Nice (1997), The Moon and the Other (2017), and Pride and Prometheus (2018), and one novel, Freedom Beach (1985) in collaboration with his friend James Patrick Kelly. Kessel is married to author Therese Anne Fowler.

Nancy Kress

Nancy Anne Kress is an American science fiction writer. She began writing in 1976 but has achieved her greatest notice since the publication of her Hugo- and Nebula-winning 1991 novella Beggars in Spain, which became a novel in 1993. She also won the Nebula Award for Best Novella in 2013 for After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall, and in 2015 for Yesterday's Kin.

Kate Wilhelm American science fiction writer

Kate Wilhelm was an American author. She wrote novels and stories in the science fiction, mystery, and suspense genres, including the Hugo Award–winning Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang, and she established the Clarion Workshop with her husband Damon Knight and writer Robin Scott Wilson.

Kij Johnson American writer

Kij Johnson is an American writer of fantasy. She is a faculty member at the University of Kansas.

"The Undiscovered" is an alternate history short story by William Sanders that won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History. "The Undiscovered" was originally published in the March 1997 issue of Asimov's and, in addition to its Sidewise Award nomination, was nominated for the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, and the Theodore Sturgeon Award. The story was subsequently reprinted in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Fifteenth Annual Collection, The Best Alternate History Stories of the 20th Century, and Best of the Best: 20 Years of the Year's Best Science Fiction.

Karen Joy Fowler

Karen Joy Fowler is an American author of science fiction, fantasy, and literary fiction. Her work often centers on the nineteenth century, the lives of women, and alienation.

Think Like a Dinosaur

"Think Like a Dinosaur" is a science fiction novelette written by James Patrick Kelly, originally published in the June 1995 issue of Asimov's Science Fiction magazine.

Janet Kagan was an American author. Her works include two science fiction novels and two science fiction collections, plus numerous science fiction and fantasy short stories that appeared in publications such as Analog Science Fiction and Fact and Asimov's Science Fiction. Her story "The Nutcracker Coup" was nominated for both the Hugo Award for Best Novelette and the Nebula Award for Best Novelette, winning the Hugo.

Phyllis Eisenstein American writer

Phyllis Eisenstein was an American author of science fiction and fantasy short stories and novels whose work was nominated for both the Hugo Award and Nebula Award.

Judith Moffett

Judith Moffett is an American author and academic. She has published poetry, nonfiction, science fiction, and translations of Swedish literature. She has been awarded grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities and presented a paper on the translation of poetry at a 1998 Nobel Symposium.

Mary Robinette Kowal

Mary Robinette Kowal is an American author and puppeteer.

The Empress of Mars

"The Empress of Mars" is a science fiction novella published in 2003 by Kage Baker. It won the 2004 Theodore Sturgeon Award and was nominated for the 2004 Hugo Award for Best Novella as well as the 2004 Nebula Award for Best Novella. The novella was expanded into a novel published in 2009.

<i>The Best Science Fiction of the Year 13</i>

The Best Science Fiction of the Year #13 is an anthology of science fiction short stories edited by Terry Carr, the thirteenth volume in a series of sixteen. It was first published in paperback by Baen Books in July 1984, and in hardcover and trade paperback by Gollancz in December of the same year.

<i>Terry Carrs Best Science Fiction of the Year 15</i>

Terry Carr's Best Science Fiction of the Year #15 is an anthology of science fiction short stories edited by Terry Carr, the fifteenth volume in a series of sixteen. It was first published in paperback by Tor Books in August 1986 and in hardcover and paperback by Gollancz in October of the same year, under the alternate title Best SF of the Year #15.

<i>Nebula Award Stories Eight</i>

Nebula Award Stories Eight is an anthology of science fiction short works edited by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in hardcover in November 1973, in the United States by Harper & Row and in the United Kingdom by Gollancz. The British edition bore the variant title Nebula Award Stories 8. Paperback editions followed from Berkley Medallion in the U.S. in September 1975, and Panther in the U.K. in the same year; both paperback editions adopted the British version of the title. The book has also been published in German.

<i>Nebula Awards 27</i>

Nebula Awards 27 is an anthology of science fiction short works edited by James Morrow, the second of three successive volumes under his editorship. It was first published in hardcover and trade paperback by Harcourt Brace in April 1993.

Sarah Pinsker is an American science fiction and fantasy author. A nine-time finalist for the Nebula Award, Pinsker's debut novel A Song for a New Day won the 2019 Nebula for Best Novel while her story "Our Lady of the Open Road" won 2016 award for Best Novelette. Her fiction has also won the Philip K. Dick Award, the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award and been a finalist for the Hugo, World Fantasy, and Tiptree Awards.

References

  1. David G. Hartwell; Kathryn Cramer, eds. (2008). Year's best SF 13. New York: Eos. ISBN   978-0-7394-9656-5. OCLC   294967188.
  2. Rich Horton, ed. (2008). Science fiction : the best of the year (2008 ed.). [Germantown, Md].: Prime. ISBN   978-0-8095-7250-2. OCLC   173499348.
  3. Fowler, Karen Joy (2010). What I didn't see : and other stories (1st ed.). Easthampton, MA: Small Beer Press. ISBN   1-931520-68-2. OCLC   601132580.
  4. "Locus Index to SF Awards". Archived from the original on 2010-04-16. Retrieved 2010-10-11.