ABSTRACT
Here is the standard line: in the early 1980s sf was drifting in the doldrums and nothing much new was happening. The dinosaurs and traditionalists were receiving Hugos and Nebulas for work that was often culturally passé and nowhere near their best, with multiple nominations for writers Arthur C. Clarke (The Fountains of Paradise (1979), 2010: Odyssey Two (1982)), Frederik Pohl (JEM: the making of a utopia (1979), Beyond the Blue Event Horizon (1980), “Fermi and Frost” (1985)), Isaac Asimov (Foundation’s Edge (1982), The Robots of Dawn (1983)), Robert A. Heinlein (Friday (1982)), Clifford Simak (“Grotto of the Dancing Deer” (1980), Project Pope (1981)), Gordon Dickson (“Lost Dorsai” (1980), “The Cloak and the Staff” (1980)), Larry Niven (Ringworld Engineers (1979)), and Anne McCaffrey (Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern (1983)).
