17 Comments on “This Year’s Nebula Winners”

1. Rock on everybody!

   You know, I think I may have misjudged KJR – I read Jane Austen Book Club thought it was all right, nothing I’d recommend. I didn’t even know she wrote SF!

2. Yikes! A grand master whose work I can’t recall reading a single word of. Off to the library!

3. Nice lineup. Here’s hoping the new SFWA ruling cabal will put some effort into helping the Nebs reclaim some of their lost cred.

4. I know nothing of the man, but ‘Moorcock’ sends my inner fourteen-year-old into shrieking titters. Alas.

5. Well deserved for Moorcock. Hard to believe it took so long.

6. Interesting that Yiddish Policeman’s Union was nominated for both the Nebula and the Edgar (a nomination which cased some slight grumbling in the crime fiction community).

7. Well, and for a Hugo and the Sidewise award, too. Chabon’s hit a lot of bases this time around.

   I’m not sure why it’s causing grumbling, though. Is it not a mystery? Is it not science fictional in its way? And so on? The only reason to grumble about it being nominated for any of these awards is that it was marketed as a mainstream novel, not a mystery or science fiction novel.

8. Read Moorcock in the 70’s and 80’s liked him then and like his new stuff just as well now.

   He really deserves the title.

   I have GOT to get to the Library….

9. Don’t know if there was grumbling in the SF community; I’ve been out of that loop for a while, more’s the pity. But some folks in the crime fiction community saw the nomination as a bid to suck up to the literary establishment “to try and bring more mainstream pub to the organization,” in the words of one commenter.

   Me, I was just pissed that Laura Lippman’s What the Dead Know didn’t get nominated.

10. J.D. Rhoades:

    I don’t know how the Edgars are nominated, but the Hugos are selected by attendees of the current and previous worldcons — i.e., fans make the selection. So while people could complain about the Yiddish nomination if they chose, they can’t really say it was the work of a closed group to try to get some mainstream love. I just think people liked the book, personally.

11. I was mostly disappointed that “Pirate Freedom” didn’t win, as that was one of the best-written books, considering writing as a craft, that I’ve ever read. “Here, let me show you how it’s done…” But equal genre-slotting difficulties there.

    So I offer an observation up for general rebuttal: I have never seen one of these “it’s not REALLY (genre)” discussions come to anything, or produce any useful output. Do you therefore know going in to one, that you’re wasting your time?

12. I thought it was Michael “Moocock.” (Let’s see if anyone remembers THAT.)

13. It’s too bad Sarah Beth Durst’s “Into the Wild” was up against the Potter book.

    Great book, and she is very, very cool.

14. I loved Pan’s Labyrinth. I’m very happy that it won.

15. Sentences containing “Ted Chiang” and “Nebula” are starting to get a certain air of inevitability.

16. Novel: The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon

    Opens mouth…

    So while people could complain about the Yiddish nomination if they chose, they can’t really say it was the work of a closed group to try to get some mainstream love.

    …closes mouth.

    I made that exact argument in the Hugo Nomination thread a few weeks back. A few people disagreed rather vehemently.

    So this time I’m going to shut up and, you know, read the book before I dig myself any deeper.

    Though, dog help me, I do seem to love digging.

17. What’d the winner get?