Nebula Awards 2014
The Nebula Awards were announced over the weekend:
Novel
Winner: Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
Nominees:
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Karen Joy Fowler (Marian Wood)
The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman (Morrow; Headline Review)
Fire with Fire, Charles E. Gannon (Baen)
Hild, Nicola Griffith (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
The Red: First Light, Linda Nagata (Mythic Island)
A Stranger in Olondria, Sofia Samatar (Small Beer)
The Golem and the Jinni, Helene Wecker (Harper)
Novella
Winner: ‘‘The Weight of the Sunrise,’’ Vylar Kaftan (Asimov’s 2/13)
Nominees:
‘‘Wakulla Springs,’’ Andy Duncan & Ellen Klages (Tor.com 10/2/13)
‘‘Annabel Lee,’’ Nancy Kress (New Under the Sun)
‘‘Burning Girls,’’ Veronica Schanoes (Tor.com 6/19/13)
‘‘Trial of the Century,’’ Lawrence M. Schoen (www.lawrencemschoen.com; World Jumping)
Six-Gun Snow White, Catherynne M. Valente (Subterranean)
Novelette
Winner: ‘‘The Waiting Stars,’’ Aliette de Bodard (The Other Half of the Sky)
Nominees:
‘‘Paranormal Romance,’’ Christopher Barzak (Lightspeed 6/13)
‘‘They Shall Salt the Earth with Seeds of Glass,’’ Alaya Dawn Johnson (Asimov’s 1/13)
‘‘Pearl Rehabilitative Colony for Ungrateful Daughters,’’ Henry Lien (Asimov’s 12/13)
‘‘The Litigation Master and the Monkey King,’’ Ken Liu (Lightspeed 8/13)
‘‘In Joy, Knowing the Abyss Behind,’’ Sarah Pinsker (Strange Horizons 7/1 – 7/8/13)
Short Story
Winner: ‘‘If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love,’’ Rachel Swirsky (Apex 3/13)
Nominees:
‘‘The Sounds of Old Earth,’’ Matthew Kressel (Lightspeed 1/13)
‘‘Selkie Stories Are for Losers,’’ Sofia Samatar (Strange Horizons 1/7/13)
‘‘Selected Program Notes from the Retrospective Exhibition of Theresa Rosenberg Latimer,’’ Kenneth Schneyer (Clockwork Phoenix 4)
‘‘Alive, Alive Oh,’’ Sylvia Spruck Wrigley (Lightspeed 6/13)
Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation
Winner: Gravity
Nominees:
Doctor Who: ‘‘The Day of the Doctor’’
Europa Report
Her
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
Pacific Rim
Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy Book
Winner: Sister Mine, Nalo Hopkinson (Grand Central)
Nominees:
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, Holly Black (Little, Brown; Indigo)
When We Wake, Karen Healey (Allen & Unwin; Little, Brown)
The Summer Prince, Alaya Dawn Johnson (Levine)
Hero, Alethea Kontis (Harcourt)
September Girls, Bennett Madison (Harper Teen)
A Corner of White, Jaclyn Moriarty (Levine)
My comment: one of the most unexpected (and frankly embarrassing) things in my writing career is how little time I have to read now that I write. Back before STAR WARS moved Science Fiction into the mainstream, I had read most or some of every major author in the field, and much of the minor authors.
Here, I can boast only five authors whose names I recognize: Gaiman, Gannon, Nagata, Kress, and Black. Of those five, there is exactly one author who is on the special short list of authors whose work I will buy sight unseen, just on the strength of her name, Linda Nagata.
(Even more embarrassing, I have seen three of the six nominated SF movies and shows, and most embarrassing of all, one of them was Pacific Rim, but not Gravity. I make no pretense to an erudite refinement of taste.)
Congratulations to all the winners!
Has anyone read this winning stories? Or am I the only one whose thumb is no longer on the pulse of modern scientifiction?