Ripples in the Dirac Sea

Last updated

"Ripples in the Dirac Sea" is a science fiction short story by American writer Geoffrey Landis. It was first published in Asimov's Science Fiction in October 1988.

Contents

Synopsis

The inventor of time travel cannot escape dying in a hotel fire, no matter how many millions of times he tries or how many lives he lives between the nanoseconds.

Reception

"Ripples in the Dirac Sea" won the Nebula Award for Best Short Story of 1988, [1] and was a finalist for the 1989 Hugo Award for Best Short Story. [2] In the Washington Post , Tim Sullivan called it "excellent", [3] similarly, at Strange Horizons , Paul Kincaid declared that its presence in an anthology was "a harbinger of the very good things to come". [4]

Related Research Articles

Geoffrey A. Landis American aerospace engineer (born 1955)

Geoffrey Alan Landis is an American aerospace engineer and author, working for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on planetary exploration, interstellar propulsion, solar power and photovoltaics. He holds nine patents, primarily in the field of improvements to solar cells and photovoltaic devices and has given presentations and commentary on the possibilities for interstellar travel and construction of bases on the Moon, Mars, and Venus.

Jeff VanderMeer American writer

Jeff VanderMeer is an American author, editor, and literary critic. Initially associated with the New Weird literary genre, VanderMeer crossed over into mainstream success with his bestselling Southern Reach Trilogy. The trilogy's first novel, Annihilation, won the Nebula and Shirley Jackson Awards, and was adapted into a Hollywood film by director Alex Garland. Among VanderMeer's other novels are Shriek: An Afterword and Borne. He has also edited with his wife Ann VanderMeer such influential and award-winning anthologies as The New Weird, The Weird, and The Big Book of Science Fiction.

Robert Silverberg American speculative fiction writer and editor

Robert Silverberg is an American author and editor, best known for writing science fiction. He is a multiple winner of both Hugo and Nebula Awards, a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame, and a Grand Master of SF. He has attended every Hugo Awards ceremony since the inaugural event in 1953.

Ted Chiang American science fiction writer

Ted Chiang is an American science fiction writer. His work has won four Nebula awards, four Hugo awards, the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and four Locus awards. His short story "Story of Your Life" was the basis of the film Arrival (2016). He was an artist in residence at the University of Notre Dame in 2020/2021.

John Kessel American author

John Joseph Vincent 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.

Ellen Klages American writer

Ellen Klages is an American science, science fiction and historical fiction writer who lives in San Francisco. Her novelette "Basement Magic" won the 2005 Nebula Award for Best Novelette. She had previously been nominated for Hugo, Nebula, and Campbell awards. Her first (non-genre) novel, The Green Glass Sea, was published by Viking Children's Books in 2006. It won the 2007 Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction. Portable Childhoods, a collection of her short fiction published by Tachyon Publications, was named a 2008 World Fantasy Award Finalist. White Sands, Red Menace, the sequel to The Green Glass Sea, was published in Fall 2008. In 2010 her short story "Singing on a Star" was nominated for a World Fantasy Award. In 2018 her novella Passing Strange was nominated for the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature.

Benjamin Rosenbaum is an American science fiction, fantasy, and literary fiction writer and computer programmer, whose stories have been finalists for the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, the Theodore Sturgeon Award, the BSFA award, and the World Fantasy Award.

Strange Horizons is an online speculative fiction magazine. It also features speculative poetry and nonfiction in every issue, including reviews, essays, interviews, and roundtables.

Tim Pratt is an American science fiction and fantasy writer and poet. He won a Hugo Award in 2007 for his short story "Impossible Dreams". He has written over 20 books, including the Marla Mason series and several Pathfinder Tales novels. His writing has earned him nominations for Nebula, Mythopoeic, World Fantasy, and Bram Stoker awards and been published in numerous markets, including Asimov's Science Fiction, Realms of Fantasy, Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show, and Strange Horizons.

Margo Lanagan Australian writer

Margo Lanagan is an Australian writer of short stories and young adult fiction.

<i>Clarkesworld Magazine</i> American online fantasy and science fiction magazine

Clarkesworld Magazine is an American online fantasy and science fiction magazine. It released its first issue October 1, 2006 and has maintained a regular monthly schedule since, publishing fiction by authors such as Elizabeth Bear, Kij Johnson, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Sarah Monette, Catherynne Valente, Jeff VanderMeer and Peter Watts.

Cat Rambo Science fiction writer and editor from the United States

Cat Rambo is an American science fiction and fantasy writer and editor. Rambo uses they/them pronouns. Rambo was co-editor of Fantasy Magazine from 2007 to 2011, which earned them a 2012 World Fantasy Special Award: Non-Professional nomination. They collaborated with Jeff VanderMeer on The Surgeon's Tale and Other Stories, published in 2007.

Mary Robinette Kowal American author and puppeteer (born 1969)

Mary Robinette Kowal is an American author and puppeteer.

<i>The 1989 Annual Worlds Best SF</i>

The 1989 Annual World's Best SF is an anthology of science fiction short stories edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Arthur W. Saha, the eighteenth volume in a series of nineteen. It was first published in paperback by DAW Books in June 1989, followed by a hardcover edition issued in September of the same year by the same publisher as a selection of the Science Fiction Book Club. For the hardcover edition the original cover art by Jim Burns was replaced by a new cover painting by Richard M. Powers.

Saladin Ahmed is an Eisner Award winning American comic book and science fiction and fantasy writer. His 2012 book Throne of the Crescent Moon was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel and won the Locus Award for Best First Novel. He has also been a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award, the Nebula Award for Best Novel and the Nebula Award for Best Short Story. Ahmed's fiction has been published in anthologies and magazines including Strange Horizons, Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show, Clockwork Phoenix 2 and Beneath Ceaseless Skies. He is also the writer of Black Bolt, Exiles and Miles Morales: Spider-Man from Marvel Comics.

Rachel Swirsky is an American literary, speculative fiction and fantasy writer, poet, and editor living in Oregon. She was the founding editor of the PodCastle podcast and served as editor from 2008 to 2010. She served as vice president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2013.

Ann Leckie American science-fiction author

Ann Leckie is an American author of science fiction and fantasy. Her 2013 debut novel Ancillary Justice, in part about artificial consciousness and gender-blindness, won the 2014 Hugo Award for "Best Novel", as well as the Nebula Award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and the BSFA Award. The sequels, Ancillary Sword and Ancillary Mercy, each won the Locus Award and were nominated for the Nebula Award. Provenance, published in 2017, is also set in the Imperial Radch universe. Leckie's first fantasy novel, The Raven Tower, was published in February 2019.

"Singing My Sister Down" is a 2004 fantasy short story by Australian writer Margo Lanagan.

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.

Alix E. Harrow is a Hugo Award-winning American science fiction and fantasy writer. Her short fiction has been nominated for the Nebula Award, World Fantasy Award, and Locus Award, and in 2019 she won a Hugo Award for her story "A Witch's Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies". She has published under the name Alix Heintzman.

References

  1. 1989 Nebula Awards, at Science Fiction Writers of America; retrieved October 18, 2018
  2. 1989 Hugo Awards, at TheHugoAwards.org; retrieved October 18, 2018
  3. SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY, by Tim Sullivan, in the Washington Post ; published November 30, 1997; retrieved October 18, 2018
  4. The Time Traveler's Almanac, edited by Ann VanderMeer and Jeff VanderMeer, reviewed by Paul Kincaid, at Strange Horizons ; published August 4, 2014; retrieved October 18, 2018