The 2008 Nebula Awards Ballot
Posted on February 22, 2008 Posted by John Scalzi 25 Comments
Hey, look: It’s a big year for Caribbean-themed science fiction!
THE 2008 NEBULA AWARDS BALLOT
Novels
Odyssey – McDevitt, Jack (Ace, Nov06)
The Accidental Time Machine – Haldeman, Joe (Ace, Aug07)
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union – Chabon, Michael (HarperCollins, May07)
The New Moon’s Arms – Hopkinson, Nalo (Warner Books, Feb07)
Ragamuffin – Buckell, Tobias (Tor, Jun07)
Novellas
“Kiosk” – Sterling, Bruce (F&SF, Jan07)
“Memorare” – Wolfe, Gene (F&SF, Apr07)
“Awakening” – Berman, Judith (Black Gate 10, Spr07)
“Stars Seen Through Stone” – Shepard, Lucius (F&SF, Jul07)
“The Helper and His Hero” – Hughes, Matt (F&SF, Feb07 & Mar07)
“Fountain of Age” – Kress, Nancy (Asimov’s, Jul07)
Novelettes
“The Fiddler of Bayou Teche” – Sherman, Delia (Coyote Road, Trickster Tales, Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, Ed., Viking Juvenile, Jul07)
“Pol Pot’s Beautiful Daughter” – Ryman, Geoff (F&SF, Nov06)
“The Evolution of Trickster Stories Among the Dogs Of North Park After the Change” – Johnson, Kij (Coyote Road, Trickster Tales, Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, Ed., Viking Juvenile, Jul07)
“Safeguard” – Kress, Nancy (Asimov’s, Jan07)
“The Children’s Crusade” – Bailey, Robin Wayne (Heroes in Training, Martin H. Greenberg and Jim C. Hines, Ed., DAW, Sep07)
“The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” – Chiang, Ted (F&SF, Sep07)
“Child, Maiden, Mother, Crone” – Bramlett, Terry (Jim Baen’s Universe 7, June 2007)
Short Stories
“Unique Chicken Goes In Reverse” – Duncan, Andy (Eclipse 1: New Science Fiction And Fantasy, Jonathan Strahan, Ed., Night Shade Books, Oct07)
“Titanium Mike Saves the Day” – Levine, David D. (F&SF, Apr07)
“Captive Girl” – Pelland, Jennifer (Helix: A Speculative Fiction Quarterly, WS & LWE, Ed., Oct06 (Fall06 issue — #2))
“Always” – Fowler, Karen Joy (Asimov’s, May07 (Apr/May07 issue))
“Pride” – Turzillo, Mary (Fast Forward 1, Pyr, February 2007)
“The Story of Love” – Nazarian, Vera (Salt of the Air, Prime Books, Sep06)
Scripts
Children of Men – Cuaron, Alfonso & Sexton, Timothy J. and Arata, David and Fergus, Mark & Ostby, Hawk (Universal Studios, Dec06)
The Prestige – Nolan, Christopher and Nolan, Jonathon (Newmarket Films, Oct06 (Oct 20, 2006 — based on the novel by Christopher Priest))
Pan’s Labyrinth – del Toro, Guillermo (Time/Warner, Jan07)
V for Vendetta – Wachowski, Larry & Wachowski, Andy (Warner Films, Mar06 (released 3/17/2006 — Written by the Wachowski Brothers, based on the graphic novel illustrated by David Lloyd and published by Vertigo/DC Comics))
“World Enough and Time” – Zicree, Marc Scott and Reeves, Michael (Star Trek: New Voyages, http://www.startreknewvoyages.com, Aug07 (Aired 8/23/07))
“Blink” – Moffat, Steven (Doctor Who, BBC/The Sci-Fi Channel, Sep07 (Aired on SciFi Channel 14Sep07))
Andre Norton Award
The True Meaning of Smek Day – Rex, Adam (Hyperion, Oct07)
The Lion Hunter – Wein, Elizabeth (Viking Juvenile, Jun07 (The Mark of Solomon, Book 1))
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Rowling, J. K. (Scholastic Press, Jul07)
The Shadow Speaker – Okorafor-Mbachu, Nnedi (Jump At The Sun, Sep07)
Into the Wild – Durst, Sarah Beth (Penguin Razorbill, Jun07)
Vintage: A Ghost Story – Berman, Steve (Haworth Positronic Press, Mar07)
Flora Segunda: Being the Magickal Mishaps of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass-Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), a House with Eleven Thousand Rooms, and a Red Dog – Wilce, Ysabeau S. (Harcourt, Jan07)
Way to go, Toby! And everyone else, too!
Comments on the ballot selections welcome.
I’ll start: I’m glad most of the nominees were from the last calendar year.
Congratulations to all the finalists!
they removed Peter Watts’ Blindsight… dissappointed I am…
Jay Lake’s Mainspring didn’t make the final ballot? Color me very surprised. Congrats to all the nominees.
I’ll follow up with: I’m glad that Mike Resnick’s January 2008 story (“Alistair Baffle’s…”) was not nominated, as enjoyable as it was.
I wish Mary Robinette Kowal’s story made the short list.
Otherwise, congrats to the finalists and I’ve got some good reading ahead of me.
Big congrats to Jen Pelland for making the final ballot. I’ve known Jen via Livejournal since about 2003 or 2004 and have been watching her work on breaking in.
I am disappointed for Peter Watts — Blindsight really blew my hair back.
Great news about Ragamuffin, which was getting such insufficient notice in the year’s end lists that Chad had to remind me it was Hugo-eligible. I read it and it’s going on my Hugo ballot.
(ObDissentingVoice: I am one of the few people on the planet to dislike Blindsight.)
I’m also shocked that Blindsight didn’t make the list. And while I loved “Alastair Baffle’s Emporium of Wonders” by Mike Resnick, I can understand the technical reason it didn’t make the final ballot. With luck, Resnick’s story will make the final ballot next year.
John, could you possibly explain to me the difference between a “novella”, a “novelette” and a “short story”? I can figure out what a “novel” is by yself, I hope… Thanks.
Short story is up to about 8k words, then it’s novelette up to 17.5 words, then it’s novella up to 40k words, after which it’s a novel.
While I enjoyed Odyssey, I’m not sure if it deserves the nod, and the Haldeman was an enjoyable trifle, not a best novel nominee.
Yeah, where is Blindsight? I’m still mulling the ideas about consciousness from that.
I guess I am really out of it this year. I read the Harry Potter book, and liked it. I read part of the Yiddish Policemens Union, and didn’t like it (or I would have read it all). I saw Pan’s Labyrinth, and was not impressed. That’s it for the whole list. There are only a coule of others I ever even heard of.
The Chabon book was also shortlisted for the Edgar. I assume this has probably happened before, but not often.
By the way, I just received the email from Tor with the link to d/l OLD MAN’S WAR. Yahoo delivered it to Bulk mail, so that might be something to be aware of for other Yahoo Mail users.
Thanks, John… I had no idea that writing was akin to boxing, in that there are weight categories…
JEN JEN JEN JEN JEN JEN JEN JEN JEN JEN JEN!!!!!!!!!!
I, too, am rather surprised _Blindsight_ didn’t make it, but since the only nominee I’ve read is TYPU (which was, IMO, excellent), I guess I can’t claim they’re not more deserving than _Blindsight_.
And was anyone else amused by this:
V for Vendetta … based on the graphic novel illustrated by David Lloyd and published by Vertigo/DC Comics
[Sarcasm]I could have *sworn* that _V for Vendetta_ had actual words, written by an actual writer.[/Sarcasm]
Alan Moore got really pissy about the movie adaptation, and refused to have anything to do with it. I believe he asked them to remove his name from everything, so maybe that’s why they left him off.
I really don’t understand the Nebula Awards. For me the nominees are a joke. And not only the nominees but the winners themselves. Joe Haldeman’s Camoflague (2005 Winner) was one of the worst SF novels I have ever read and yet it won and I won’t be suprised if Accidental Time Machine wins this year as well. The should just rename the Nebula Award to the Haldeman awards, give it to him every year and if he failed to publish something, he can pick a name out of a hat. It seems to make as much sense as my experience with the award.
Now I haven’t read all of the nominees and I am not 100% sure on the qualifications to be nominated but I’ve read at least 10 books published in 2007 this year I would consider better than the books I have read on this list. Also, based on what I have seen from reviews, top ten lists, and the like none of these books were anything special.
I trust the Hugos a lot more than I do the Nebulas and even more after this latest round of nominees.
I agree that Camoflauge wasn’t great, but I thought The Accidental Time Machine was amazing. Not that is should necessarily win, but it was still an excellent time travel novel, probably my favorite one other than THe Man Who Folded Himself by David Gerrold. Then again, I haven’t read that many so I’m probably missing out.
I have to go find out about Blindsight since apparently everyone loves it.
I’m stunned that Accidental Time Machine is nominated and even more stunned to see someone say they loved it. It wasn’t a bad novel by any means, and I liked how Haldeman resolved it for the most part (more than that I cannot say w/o spoiling it) but I found it eminently forgettable. I wouldn’t have nominated it for any awards just based on the fact that it feels very ‘old school’ to me, a less egregious version of AC Clark’s 3001 where the societies and science don’t seem like they passed through the current era on their way to the depicted future.
I’d put John or, say, Stephenson on my example list of writers w/o that archaic feel, if you need a counter-example.
I thought The Accidental Time Machine was ass, myself. Definitely surprised at what didn’t get on the final ballot. Well, I’m rooting for Toby.
I’m rooting for Matthew Hughes for best novelette. Great stuff.
I am nonplussed, to say the least. I thought Camoflage was brilliant. It might have been a bit edgy for some tastes; it definitely challenges some of our comfortable ideas about the universe. I realize some people like to read the same space-opera over and over and if you introduce something that isn’t one of the familiar tropes, it can be seen as — what was the word you used? — let’s be gentle and say unsettling.
I really loved The Accidental Time Machine. It has the Haldeman sense of whimsy and is a bit more mellow than some of his previous stuff. The time paradoxes were elegant. I like Toby’s novel too, don’t get me wrong; this is a very strong field this year. Toby is the young Turk; Joe is the mature master. We’ll see how this plays out.
The Nebs are definitely an excitement. I like the stuff that gets on the Hugo ballot, too, but it’s less likely to be really cutting edge.
Blindsight was on the Hugo ballot last year, wasn’t it?
CHABON IS THE ONLY NOVELIST I KNOW OF THAT HAS BEEN NOMINATED FOR THE HUGO OR THE NEBULA AND HAS WON THE PULITZER FOR A PREVIOUS, AND INCREDIBLE, NOVEL.