The Nebula Awards

May 14-16, 2010Cocoa Beach Hilton, Cape Canaveral, Florida

Nominees and Winners

View past nominees and winners of the Nebula Award.

Novels

Virtual library of Nebula and Norton novels at Shelfari.

Pictures

View images from the 2007 Nebula Awards Ceremony.

Links

A list of links to other sites & blogs of interest.

What do you recommend?

Read any good books lately? Come tell us about it.

This is an open post, where we would like to invite everyone to come tell us about any good books and short stories you’ve read recently. A good movie you’ve seen. Your favourite television series. An exciting new writer you’ve discovered; best comic book/ graphic novel of the year; must read short fiction anthology or favourite magazine; your favourite anime and manga. A good blog that deserves to be read.

11 comments so far.

1. Charles Tan on 01st September 2008 at 6:43 am

Picture of Charles Tan

As far as short fiction goes, I really enjoyed the magazine/anthology Nemonymous: Cone Zero. I think the book strikes the right balance between “fun” and “literary”.

2. David de Beer on 01st September 2008 at 7:50 am

Picture of David de Beer

My picks:

1)Books:
The Truth - Terry Pratchet:
After a 5 year hiatus from Pratchett, this was a terrific book to start with again. Brilliantly funny, and it is about time Pratchett poked fun at publishing and journalism. Lots of cameos and in-jokes to older stories, but it shouldn’t detract from this book for people who haven’t read them which does mostly feature a new group of characters. And dwarves. Can’t have enough dwarves.

2) Shorts:

One of my favourite of the shorter stories this year has been Robin Wayne Bailey’s “The Children’s Crusade.”
Idealistic? wishful thinking? absolutely, but it’s the kind of wishful thinking I can get behind, and I’ll keep on saying this but that ending image is just one of the most vivid and haunting I’ve read in some time.

And I simply have to do a shout out for AC Wise’s Matthew:
http://chizine.com/matthew.htm
a story that’s just not gotten enough attention, imo. A woman has to deal not only with the dead rising, but with her own attraction to her best friend’s resurrected husband.
Very beautiful and touching. A gentler story, which makes for a nice turn of pace from more plot-heavy and action oriented shorter fictions.

3) Comics:
Crossing Midnight - Mike Carey (Vertigo).
Two twins. One born a minute before midnight, one a minute after. To appease their superstitious grandmother, their father accidentally promised them to the God of the shrine.
Carey flawlessly weaves Japanese folklore with modern urban realism.

4)TV:

Chuck—missed the first 3rd of this series, but at the end of season 1 (there had better be a season 2!), I’m as addicted to this as Boston Legal and I’m a HUGE Boston Legal fan.
This is in keeping with what’s a typical trend now—nerdy boy, utterly useless in a fight and forever the...dude in distress, with a kick-ass girl to keep on saving him and looking out for him. And of course they can’t be together, for professional reasons.
Excellent balance between humor and a bit more serious-toned, surprisingly absorbing plot once you get into it and of course a whole army of minor characters who often steal the show.
I really should ban television from my house. This kind of show is just too addictive for me.

3. Gustavo Bondoni on 01st September 2008 at 10:27 am

Picture of Gustavo Bondoni

The story that simply blew me away is actually a couple of years old:  “Zima Blue” by Alastair Reynolds. 

I finished it and just sat there, thinking wow wow wow wow, before sanity kicked in, and my thinking became “I wish I’d written that.”

Anyhow, this one sent me off to find more of his writing, and I have been enjoying it since.

4. David de Beer on 02nd September 2008 at 2:09 am

Picture of David de Beer

I had a similar experience with Alistair Reynolds a few months back. Different story, from the Hartwell&Kramer;Best of SF 12, but stunning.

Definitely want to read more of his work myself.

5. J. Andrews on 02nd September 2008 at 7:41 pm

Picture of J. Andrews

YA novel. Cory Doctorow’s _Little Brother_.

British television shows “Doctor Who”, “Torchwood”, and “Young Dracula”. And sort of pilot movie, since it’s to be a series soon, “Being Human”.

6. Petréa Mitchell on 03rd September 2008 at 12:06 pm

Picture of Petréa Mitchell

<cite>The book of Joby</cite> by Mark J. Ferrari.

TV series: <cite>Noein</cite> and <cite>Mushi-Shi</cite>. The latter is in the process of being posted to YouTube by its US distributor, and the manga series it’s based on has been partially published in English. Both are worth checking out in partial form because they’re completely episodic.

Incidentally, the “Preview” button doesn’t seem to work, even with JavaScript switched on…

7. Bob on 04th September 2008 at 1:58 am

Picture of Bob

I haven’t read much from 2008 yet but the two books from 2007 that are elegible that I think are classics are BRASYL by Ian McDonald and SHELTER by Susan Palwick.

8. Paul Cornell on 06th September 2008 at 8:56 am

Picture of Paul Cornell

Two books in the timeframe that I greatly enjoyed, one by a friend of mine: MultiReal by David Louis Edelman, which is as real and crunchy as the first book in the trilogy, Infoquake, but now with added adventure. I think this business based the-Singularity-was-kind-of-meh future feels much more real that virtually anything else I feel in the genre, and the technology is new and yet kind of obvious too. This is The West Wing with nanobots, and now, did I mention, guns?  The other book is The Martian General’s daughter by Theodore Judson, which is large-scale military/epic history of the future stuff, again with an emphasis on who, in the end, is going to empty the bins. I commend them!

9. Larry on 06th September 2008 at 8:05 pm

Picture of Larry

Sadly, I’ll have to limit myself to novels alone, but here goes:

Ursula Le Guin, Lavinia - what she managed to accomplish here was amazing, considering how well-known Vergil’s Aeneid is.

Michael Cisco, The Traitor - two re-reads and there’s still layers of meaning to decipher in this feverish tale.

More later, once I look through my collection.

10. Sarah L Edwards on 14th September 2008 at 8:28 pm

Picture of Sarah L Edwards

Two eligible stories I’ve been terribly impressed with are David Moles’ “Finisterra” and Elizabeth Bear’s “Shoggoths in Bloom.” Both are beautifully written, though the Moles is more epic and the Bear is more intimate. Amazing stories.

11. Bob on 01st October 2008 at 12:46 am

Picture of Bob

One short story that I think has been horribly neglected is “IN THE FOREST OF THE QUEEN” by Gwyneth Jones (from ECLIPSE 1). A novella to be read is “THE TEAR” by Ian McDonald (in Galactic Empires ed by Gardner Dozois).  Other novellas would be “THE HOB CARPET” by Ian R. MacLeod (in Asimov’s June 2008) and “PINOCCHIO” by Walter Jon Williams (from The Starry Rift ed by Jonathan Strahan) Also two short stories from that same collection are “DISMANTLED INVENTION OF FATE” by Jeffrey Ford and “AN HONEST DAY’S WORK” by Margo Lanagan.  Another Novel - “THE DRAGON’S OF BABEL” by Michael Swanwick.

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The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

Anderson Lake is a company man, AgriGen's Calorie Man in Thailand. Under cover as a factory manager, Anderson combs Bangkok's street markets in search of foodstuffs thought to be extinct, hoping to reap the bounty of history's lost calories. There, he encounters Emiko...

Emiko is the Windup Girl, a strange and beautiful creature. One of the New People, Emiko is not human; instead, she is an engineered being, creche-grown and programmed to satisfy the decadent whims of a Kyoto businessman, but now abandoned to the streets of Bangkok. Regarded as soulless beings by some, devils by others, New People are slaves, soldiers, and toys of the rich in a chilling near future in which calorie companies rule the world, the oil age has passed, and the side effects of bio-engineered plagues run rampant across the globe.

What Happens when calories become currency? What happens when bio-terrorism becomes a tool for corporate profits, when said bio-terrorism's genetic drift forces mankind to the cusp of post-human evolution? In The Windup Girl, award-winning author Paolo Bacigalupi returns to the world of "The Calorie Man" ( Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award-winner, Hugo Award nominee, 2006) and "Yellow Card Man" (Hugo Award nominee, 2007) in order to address these poignant questions.

About the Author

Paolo Bacigalupi’s writing has appeared in High Country News, Salon.com, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. It has been anthologized in various “Year’s Best” collections of short science fiction and fantasy, nominated for a Nebula and four Hugo awards, and has won the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for best sf short story of the year.

The Love We Share Without Knowing by Christopher Barzak

In this haunting, richly woven novel of modern life in Japan, the author of the acclaimed debut One for Sorrow explores the ties that bind humanity across the deepest divides. Here is a Murakamiesque jewel box of intertwined narratives in which the lives of several strangers are gently linked through love, loss, and fate.

On a train filled with quietly sleeping passengers, a young man’s life is forever altered when he is miraculously seen by a blind man. In a quiet town an American teacher who has lost her Japanese lover to death begins to lose her own self. On a remote road amid fallow rice fields, four young friends carefully take their own lives—and in that moment they become almost as one. In a small village a disaffected American teenager stranded in a strange land discovers compassion after an encounter with an enigmatic red fox, and in Tokyo a girl named Love learns the deepest lessons about its true meaning from a coma patient lost in dreams of an affair gone wrong.

From the neon colors of Tokyo, with its game centers and karaoke bars, to the bamboo groves and hidden shrines of the countryside, these souls and others mingle, revealing a profound tale of connection—uncovering the love we share without knowing.

Exquisitely perceptive and deeply affecting, Barzak’s artful storytelling deftly illuminates the inner lives of those attempting to find—or lose—themselves in an often incomprehensible world.

About the Author

Christopher Barzak grew up in rural Ohio, went to university in a decaying post-industrial city in Ohio, and has lived in a Southern California beach town, the capital of Michigan, and in the suburbs of Tokyo, Japan, where he taught English in rural junior high and elementary schools. His stories have appeared in a many venues, including Nerve.com, The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, Strange Horizons, Salon Fantastique, Interfictions, Asimov’s, and Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. His first novel, One for Sorrow, was published by Bantam Books in Fall of 2007, and won the Crawford Award that same year. He is the co-editor (with Delia Sherman) of Interfictions 2, and has done Japanese-English translation on Kant: For Eternal Peace, a peace theory book published in Japan for Japanese teens. Currently he lives in Youngstown, Ohio, where he teaches writing at Youngstown State University.

Flesh and Fire by Laura Anne Gilman

Once, all power in the Vin Lands was held by the prince-mages, who alone could craft spellwines, and selfishly used them to increase their own wealth and influence. But their abuse of power caused a demigod to break the Vine, shattering the power of the mages. Now, fourteen centuries later, it is the humble Vinearts who hold the secret of crafting spells from wines, the source of magic, and they are prohibited from holding power.

But now rumors come of a new darkness rising in the vineyards. Strange, terrifying creatures, sudden plagues, and mysterious disappearances threaten the land. Only one Vineart senses the danger, and he has only one weapon to use against it: a young slave. His name is Jerzy, and his origins are unknown, even to him. Yet his uncanny sense of the Vinearts' craft offers a hint of greater magics within -- magics that his Master, the Vineart Malech, must cultivate and grow. But time is running out. If Malech cannot teach his new apprentice the secrets of the spellwines, and if Jerzy cannot master his own untapped powers, the Vin Lands shall surely be destroyed.

In Flesh and Fire, first in a spellbinding new trilogy, Laura Anne Gilman conjures a story as powerful as magic itself, as intoxicating as the finest of wines, and as timeless as the greatest legends ever told.

About the Author

Born in the late 1960’s in suburban New Jersey, Laura Anne endured only moderate trauma - and some good times - before escaping to Skidmore College. After graduation, given the choice between grad school and employment, the lure of a paycheck took her to NYC and a career in publishing, while working nights and weekends to get her writing career started. In 2004, she and corporate America decided they needed a break from each other. Her first original novel contract in-hand, Laura Anne became a full-time freelancer, and never looked back. She is the author of the Cosa Nostradamus books for Luna (the “Retrievers” and “Paranormal Scene Investigations” series), a YA trilogy for HarperCollins, and the forthcoming Vineart War books from Pocket, while continuing to write and sell short fiction. She also writes paranormal romances for Nocturne as Anna Leonard. Laura Anne is also an amateur chef, oenophile, and cat-servant. She lives in New York City, where she also runs d.y.m.k. productions.

The City & The City by China Miéville

When a murdered woman is found in the city of Beszel, somewhere at the edge of Europe, it looks to be a routine case for Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Extreme Crime Squad. But as he investigates, the evidence points to conspiracies far stranger and more deadly than anything he could have imagined.

Borlú must travel from the decaying Beszel to the only metropolis on Earth as strange as his own. This is a border crossing like no other, a journey as psychic as it is physical, a shift in perception, a seeing of the unseen. His destination is Beszel’s equal, rival, and intimate neighbor, the rich and vibrant city of Ul Qoma. With Ul Qoman detective Qussim Dhatt, and struggling with his own transition, Borlú is enmeshed in a sordid underworld of rabid nationalists intent on destroying their neighboring city, and unificationists who dream of dissolving the two into one. As the detectives uncover the dead woman’s secrets, they begin to suspect a truth that could cost them and those they care about more than their lives.

What stands against them are murderous powers in Beszel and in Ul Qoma: and, most terrifying of all, that which lies between these two cities.

Casting shades of Kafka and Philip K. Dick, Raymond Chandler and 1984, The City & the City is a murder mystery taken to dazzling metaphysical and artistic heights.

About the Author

China Miéville is the author of King Rat; Perdido Street Station, winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the British Fantasy Award; The Scar, winner of the Locus Award and the British Fantasy Award; Iron Council, winner of the Locus Award and the Arthur C. Clarke Award; Looking for Jake, a collection of short stories; and Un Lun Dun, his New York Times bestselling book for younger readers. He lives and works in London.

Boneshaker by Cherie Priest

In the early days of the Civil War, rumors of gold in the frozen Klondike brought hordes of newcomers to the Pacific Northwest. Anxious to compete, Russian prospectors commissioned inventor Leviticus Blue to create a great machine that could mine through Alaska’s ice. Thus was Dr. Blue’s Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engine born.

But on its first test run the Boneshaker went terribly awry, destroying several blocks of downtown Seattle and unearthing a subterranean vein of blight gas that turned anyone who breathed it into the living dead.

Now it is sixteen years later, and a wall has been built to enclose the devastated and toxic city. Just beyond it lives Blue’s widow, Briar Wilkes. Life is hard with a ruined reputation and a teenaged boy to support, but she and Ezekiel are managing. Until Ezekiel undertakes a secret crusade to rewrite history.

His quest will take him under the wall and into a city teeming with ravenous undead, air pirates, criminal overlords, and heavily armed refugees. And only Briar can bring him out alive.

About the Author

Cherie Priest made her debut with the Eden Moore series of Southern Gothic ghost stories that began with Four and Twenty Blackbirds. She lives in Seattle, Washington, and keeps a popular blog at cmpriest.livejournal.com.

Finch by Jeff VanderMeer

Tasked with solving an impossible double murder, detective John Finch searches for the truth among the rubble of the once-mighty city of Ambergris. Under the rule of the mysterious gray caps, Ambergris is falling into anarchy. The remnants of a rebel force are demoralized and dispersed, their leader, the Lady in Blue, not seen for months. Partials—human traitors transformed by the gray caps—walk the streets brutalizing the city’s inhabitants. Finch’s partner Wyte, stricken with a fungal disease, is literally disintegrating. And strange forces are marshaling themselves against detective Finch even as he pursues his one clue: the elusive spymaster Ethan Bliss. How much time does Finch have before time itself runs out?

About the Author

Award-winning writer Jeff VanderMeer's final novel in his Ambergris Cycle, Finch, has just been published in the US, and will appear in the UK from Atlantic's Corvus imprint. His writer guide Booklife and associated Booklifenow website focus on sustainable creativity. With his wife, he recently edited the charity anthology Last Drink Bird Head. His short fiction has appeared in Conjunctions, Library of America's American Fantastic Tales, and several year's best anthologies. He writes nonfiction for The Washington Post Book World, Omnivoracious, The New York Times Book Review, the B&N Review, and many others. Murder by Death recently completed a CD soundtrack based on Finch./.