Annal:1977 John W. Campbell Award

The Alteration

Kingsley Amis

• 1977 Campbell 1st
• Score: 10.27

The year is 1976 and we are alive in an all-Catholic world. The Reformation never took place because Martin Luther made a deal with Rome and became Pope Martin I. The “alteration” proposed to Hubert Anvil, brilliant 10-year-old boy soprano, is that most feared by all males. Pope John XXIV wishes Hubert to preserve the purity of his voice to glorify the Church on a permanent basis; Hubert wishes to share his talent but he has some disquieting thoughts about Pope John’s proposal.

Man Plus

Frederik Pohl

• 1976 Nebula winner
• 1977 Campbell 2nd
• 1977 Hugo-Novel nominee
• Score: 24.26

Ill luck made Roger Torraway the subject of the Man Plus Programe, but it was deliberate biological engineering which turned him into a monster—a machine perfectly adapted to survive on Mars. For according to computer predictions, Mars is humankind’s only alternative to extinction. But beneath his monstrous exterior, Torraway still carries a man’s capacity for suffering.

Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang

Kate Wilhelm

• 1977 Hugo-Novel winner
• 1977 Campbell 3rd
• 1976 Nebula nominee
• Score: 22.27

Before becoming one of today’s most intriguing and innovative mystery writers, Kate Wilhelm was a leading writer of science fiction, acclaimed for classics like The Infinity Box and The Clewiston Test.

Now one of her most famous novels returns to print, the spellbinding story of an isolated post-holocaust community determined to preserve itself, through a perilous experiment in cloning. Sweeping, dramatic, rich with humanity, and rigorous in its science, Where Later the Sweet Birds Sang is widely regarded as a high point of both humanistic and “hard” SF, and won SF’s Hugo Award and Locus Award on its first publication. It is as compelling today as it was then.