The Genocides; Thomas Disch; 1965

Another notch on the list of Nebula finalists.  I recall liking 334, but have no notes other than that it earned a place in the annals of bad editing:

On page 92 of the Gregg Press Science Fiction Series of Thomas Disch's 334, he talks about changing the value of c in a parabola

y = x^2 + c

in order to change the width of the parabola.

Oi.  I also read On Wings of Song some time ago, but don't recall much about it except that I didn't particularly like it.

The Genocides isn't bad.  He has a good premise and manages to tell most of the story from the POV of his characters without dropping into "god view" to explain what the heck is going on; unfortunately, his primary characters are so unlikable that I feel relief, rather than remorse, at the prospect of the end of the world.  We need someone to root for, even if they're doomed!**  Still, there are some good bits, and at under 150 pages, it's a relatively small gamble of your time.  This paragraph was my favorite (page 30 of the 2000 Vintage Books paperback edition):

They had lived these last three years in the safe-deposit vault in the basement of the First American National Bank.  Their precious store of scavenged cans and jars was still locked in the safe deposit boxes, and the canary was probably in his cage in the corner.  It had been a very cozy home, though there were few visitors and they had had to kill most of those.  Such luck couldn't last forever.

** I'm pretty sure I'm "supposed" to root for Orville, but I can't.