A Song For Lya

I believe I first read A Song for Lya about a year ago.

Subjectively speaking, it is the best short story (novella?) I've read in ages. I'm not even going to put the qualifier "science fiction" in there.

Objectively speaking, it may not deserve quite that much praise. But it deserves a heck of a lot. My aesthetic sensibilities may have some weaknesses -- including a inexplicable taste for science fiction, and a particular fondness for Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach -- but they aren't completely whacked. The story is excellently crafted, and it is powerful, and it is good. It also managed to win a Hugo award, and almost nabbed a Nebula, so I don't think I'm completely off my rocker here.

Quite honestly, every time I look at it, I think "there's no way this should have worked." It tackles way too many big themes in way too strange a setting. And yet it does work, and beautifully.

((Obligatory caveats: sf genre; some sexual content (that is darn well needed); quite long.))