SFWA Announces the 2013 Nebula Award Nominations
Happy day! The Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) announced the nominees for the 2013 Nebula Awards today.
So many novels! Last year, there were only six nominated; this year there are eight. Yowsah. Does that mean there were 33% more awesome novels published this year? Probably. That’s the most logical explanation.
Remember to vote! These awards count on your input to pick the winner. Ha-ha — except they don’t, of course. Only active members of SFWA can vote. Which they do, when they’re not loudly denying there’s harassment of women writers or spending all their time actually harassing women writers. Let’s hope the spectacle of the awards puts all the recent ugliness behind us — at least until the inevitable next blow up.
This year’s nominees are:
Novel
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Karen Joy Fowler (Marian Wood)
The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman (Morrow)
Fire with Fire, Charles E. Gannon (Baen)
Hild, Nicola Griffith (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie (Orbit)
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
“Wakulla Springs” by Andy Duncan & Ellen Klages (Tor.com, 10/2/13)
“The Weight of the Sunrise” by Vylar Kaftan (Asimov’s SF, February 2013)
“Annabel Lee” by Nancy Kress (New Under the Sun)
“Burning Girls” by Veronica Schanoes (Tor.com, June 2013)
“Trial of the Century” by Lawrence M. Schoen (lawrencemschoen.com, 8/13; World Jumping)
Six-Gun Snow White by Catherynne M. Valente (Subterranean)
Novelette
“Paranormal Romance” by Christopher Barzak (Lightspeed, June 2013)
“The Waiting Stars” by Aliette de Bodard (The Other Half of the Sky)
“They Shall Salt the Earth with Seeds of Glass” by Alaya Dawn Johnson (Asimov’s SF, January 2013)
“Pearl Rehabilitative Colony for Ungrateful Daughters” by Henry Lien (Asimov’s SF, December 2013)
“The Litigation Master and the Monkey King” by Ken Liu (Lightspeed, August 2013)
“In Joy, Knowing the Abyss Behind” by Sarah Pinsker (Strange Horizons, 7/1 – 7/8/13)
Short Story
“The Sounds of Old Earth” by Matthew Kressel (Lightspeed, January 2013)
“Selkie Stories Are for Losers” by Sofia Samatar (Strange Horizons, 1/7/13)
“Selected Program Notes from the Retrospective Exhibition of Theresa Rosenberg Latimer” by Kenneth Schneyer (Clockwork Phoenix 4)
“If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love” by Rachel Swirsky (Apex, March 2013)
“Alive, Alive Oh” by Sylvia Spruck Wrigley (Lightspeed, June 2013)
The Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation
Doctor Who: “The Day of the Doctor”
Europa Report
Gravity
Her
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
Pacific Rim
The Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy Book
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black (Little, Brown; Indigo)
When We Wake by Karen Healey (Allen & Unwin; Little, Brown)
Sister Mine by Nalo Hopkinson (Grand Central)
The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson (Levine)
Hero by Alethea Kontis (Harcourt)
September Girls by Bennett Madison (Harper Teen)
A Corner of White by Jaclyn Moriarty (Levine)
Congratulations to all the nominees! We hope you all win.
Once again, an extremely impressive showing by online short fiction markets this year — especially Lightspeed with an impressive four nominations, but also Tor.com and Strange Horizons, both with two, and Subterranean and Apex, with one apiece. Clarkesworld, which dominated the ballot in 2012, was shut out this time.
Asimov’s SF had a solid year (3 noms), but the other three big print magazines — F&SF, Analog, and Interzone — were left in the cold.
The tireless John DeNardo has compiled a complete list of nominees with cover scans (and links to all the nominees available online) at SF Signal.
The winners will be announced at the Nebula Awards Weekend, May 15-18, 2014 at the San Jose Marriott in San Jose CA.
See last year’s Nebula nominations here, and the winners here.
Thank you for all the updates about SFWA’s goings on, and for being One of the Good Guys about it all.
The first thing anybody who’s been following the late unpleasantness is going to say when looking at this ballot is, Wow, that’s a lot of women. And then there will be lots of disagreement about what that means about the organization.
The old coots who have conspicuous issues with women may be the most visible members of SFWA right now, but they’re not the whole show. Kowal was in the line of fire in the first place because she was a SFWA member — and, moreover, a SFWA officer elected by the membership.
I haven’t informed myself about the Nebula nomination process, but after doing a few turns as a volunteer Bean Counter for Broad Universe, I know a ballot with this many women on it doesn’t happen by itself. Somebody — or many somebodies — among the membership had to make a conscientious effort to bring this about.
For me, the face of SFWA is Victoria Strauss’s face, because she’s who saved my professional bacon when my well-intentioned publisher was headed for bankruptcy. A faction of clueless coots who don’t even hold office in the organization cannot take that fact away from Strauss, from me, or from SFWA. Not everybody in SFWA is equally helpful, but no other group is, collectively, more helpful with the real problems SFWA addresses.
In short, the editor-ogling old guard does not get to intimidate me into giving up my best advocate. SFWA is mine, too. And I will outlast them.
> Thank you for all the updates about SFWA’s goings on, and for being One of the Good Guys about it all.
I just call ’em like I see ’em.
> For me, the face of SFWA is Victoria Strauss’s face, because she’s who saved my professional bacon when my
> well-intentioned publisher was headed for bankruptcy.
Victoria (and her partner at WRITER BEWARE, Ann Crispin) have provided an absolutely invaluable service over the years. If WRITER BEWARE were the only thing SFWA had accomplished over the past 45+ years, it would still be a worthwhile organization.
> In short, the editor-ogling old guard does not get to intimidate me into giving up my best advocate. SFWA is mine, too. And I will outlast them.
I’m certain you will, Sarah.
Avery: “Wow, that’s a lot of women. And then there will be lots of disagreement about what that means about the organization.”
I never quite understand comments such as these. Perhaps I’m naive but I want to say that this fact “means” nothing more than that these books represent the best in genre right now, regardless of the sex, gender, politics, religion or whatever of the authors.
James, all the works nominated look intriguing and delicious. All the names I know are names I associate with excellent fiction. It’s probably a perfectly reasonable ballot, taken on the merits of the works.
That said, I predict that various parties will float variations on the following interpretations (presented in hyperbolic terms, because there will also be hyperbole):
A) Lots of women got nominated, therefore sexism is now securely a thing of the past forever, so nobody can call anybody else on bad behavior anymore. Plus, there probably never was a problem in the first place.
B) There were so many women on the ballot only because of PC logrolling by a conspiracy of feminists and their dupes.
C) This woman-heavy ballot is a reaction to the recent controversy, and therefore precisely not a reflection of the quality of the works or the state of the genres.
I would love to be mistaken in my prediction. I always like it when the world exceeds my more cynical expectations.
[…] Keep an eye out for it — and don’t forget to have a look at the 2013 Nebula Award Nominations, announced earlier this […]
Sarah, there will always be comments like A, B, and C. So what! The lasting qualities of good art, regardless of sex, politics or religion of the artists, will always have the last word.
Unfortunately, “the last word” usually takes some time though. I think the naysayers’ days are numbered. Let’s not give them any more attention than they deserve.
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[…] The nominations for the 2013 Nebula Award were announced in February, and we reported on last year’s winners here. […]