This is a collection of the 1968 Nebula short story award winners and nominees. The editor is the award winning writer Poul Anderson who writes an excellent introduction. It's obvious he has a good understanding of the state of SF writing and the people who make it happen. Furthermore he really cares. That said I only enjoyed about half of the stories in this collection.

Mother of the world by Willis E. McNelly --- good story
The Dance of the Changer and the Three by Terry Carr --- odd alien encounter
The Planners by Kate Wilhelm --- I want to like her stories but don't.
Sword Game by H. H. Hollis --- fun story
The Listeners by James E. Gunn --- depressing story
DragonRider by Anne McCaffrey --- I'd been looking forward to this and decided I like Tolken a lot more. Not really SF.

Good list and comments about important SF people who died in 1968. ( )

I read a paperback edition of a December 1969 hardback edition. This features three of the 1968 Nebula Awards winners plus three runners-up in the Novella, Novelette and Short Story categories. The novel winner, Alexei Panshin's "Rite of Passage" I read in October 2012. It is a book in itself and not included.

This book is a time machine back to 1968-1969. In addition to the stories there is long introduction by Poul Anderson that acknowledges the new wave has been upon them but rambles a bit and includes a rather controversial defense of the old guard. Anderson took some flak for it and apparently later apologized that he had gone too far with his remark that science fiction was more interested in things other "than in the neuroses of some sniveling fagot."

There is a very lengthy foreword by college English professor Willis E. McNelly "The Science Fiction Novel of 1968" that discusses the major novels of the year including the winner by Panshin, which underwhelmed him compared to others he thought more deserving, but is also a detailed commentary on the state of the genre and writers. At the end of the collection is a lengthy "In Memorium" section where important writers and editors who had passed on in the preceding year+ are remembered by a wide variety of people.

The stories here are mixed; I expected better. The contents are as follows (adapted from ISFDB):

vii • Introduction • essay by Poul Anderson
• xiii • Foreword: The Science Fiction Novel in 1968 • essay by Willis E. McNelly
• 1 • Mother to the World • (1968) • novelette by Richard Wilson (Hugo nominee and Nebula winner)
• 38 • The Dance of the Changer and the Three • (1968) • shortstory by Terry Carr (Hugo and Nebula nominee)
• 53 • The Planners • (1968) • shortstory by Kate Wilhelm (Nebula winner)
• 68 • Sword Game • (1968) • shortstory by H. H. Hollis (Nebula nominee)
• 77 • The Listeners • (1968) • novelette by James E. Gunn (Nebula nominee)
• 105 • Dragonrider • (1967) • novella by Anne McCaffrey (Hugo nominee and Nebula winner)
• 219 • In Memoriam essay by Poul Anderson
• 219 • In Memoriam - Anthony Boucher • (1969) • essay by J. Francis McComas
• 220 • In Memoriam - Rosel George Brown • (1969) • essay by Daniel F. Galouye
• 221 • In Memoriam - Bernard I. Kahn • (1969) • essay by by John W. Campbell
• 221 • In Memoriam - Groff Conklin • (1969) • essay by Isaac Asimov
• 222 • In Memoriam - Anna Kavan • (1969) • essay by Brian W. Aldiss
• 223 • In Memoriam - Gerald Kersh • (1969) • essay by Harlan Ellison
• 224 • In Memoriam - Edison Marshall • (1969) • essay by Alva Rogers
• 224 • In Memoriam - Frank Owen • (1969) • essay by Emil Petaja
• 225 • In Memoriam - Mervyn Peake • (1969) • essay by Michael Moorcock
• 225 • In Memoriam - Stuart Palmer • (1969) • essay by Karen Anderson
• 226 • In Memoriam - Arthur Sellings • (1969) • essay by John Carnell (as by Ted Carnell)
• 227 • In Memoriam - A. A. Wyn • (1969) • essay by Donald A. Wollheim
• 227 • In Memoriam - Harl Vincent • (1969) • essay by Forrest J. Ackerman

The first story here, Richard Wilson's "Mother to the World" ended up being one of the better, and maybe best story in this collection. One of those last man and woman on earth stories, but an interesting one. Terry Carr's "The Dance of the Changer and the Three" is very good at giving us some alien aliens. Gunn's "The Listeners" is also pretty good at capturing a small moment of a SETI project. "The Planners," the short story by Kate Wilhelm unimpressed me. Moody new wave type - it didn't seem the least bit special. Hollis's "Sword Game" was trying very hard to be hip and relevant to the 60's. It does have a clever construct, but ugh, It has not aged well. McCaffrey's Dragonrider takes up fully half the book. It and the novella "Weyr Search" would be joined together to create the novel "Dragonflight" the first in the long running Dragonriders of Pern series. This is a mixture of fantasy and science fiction. I can't say that I enjoyed it like I knew I did when I first read this forty or so years ago, but it was OK. A good example for me of the memory of something being better than the actual upon revisiting. ( )