Nebula Award Nominees, 2009
Posted on February 27, 2009 Posted by John Scalzi 32 Comments
It’s that time again. Here are this year’s nominees for the Nebula Awards, one of the two big awards in SF (the other, of course, being the Hugo):
Novels
Little Brother – Doctorow, Cory (Tor, Apr08)
Powers – Le Guin, Ursula K. (Harcourt, Sep07)
Cauldron – McDevitt, Jack (Ace, Nov07)
Brasyl – McDonald, Ian (Pyr, May07)
Making Money – Pratchett, Terry (Harper, Sep07)
Superpowers – Schwartz, David J. (Three Rivers Press, Jun08)
Novellas
“The Spacetime Pool” – Asaro, Catherine (Analog, Mar08)
“Dark Heaven” – Benford, Gregory (Alien Crimes, ed. Mike Resnick, SFBC, Jan07)
“Dangerous Space” – Eskridge, Kelley (Dangerous Space, Aqueduct Press, Jun07)
“The Political Prisoner” – Finlay, Charles Coleman (F&SF, Aug08)
“The Duke in His Castle” – Nazarian, Vera (Norilana Books, Jun08)
Novelettes
“If Angels Fight” – Bowes, Richard (F&SF, Feb08)
“Dark Rooms” – Goldstein, Lisa (Asimov’s, Oct/Nov 07)
“Pride and Prometheus” – Kessel, John (F&SF, Jan08)
“Night Wind” – Rosenblum, Mary (Lace and Blade, ed. Deborah J. Ross, Norilana Books, Feb08)
“Baby Doll” – Sinisalo, Johanna (The SFWA European Hall of Fame, ed. James Morrow & Kathryn Morrow, Tor, Jun07 )
“Kaleidoscope” – Wentworth, K.D. (F&SF, May07)
Short Stories
“The Button Bin” – Allen, Mike (Helix: A Speculative Fiction Quarterly, Oct07)
“The Dreaming Wind” – Ford, Jeffrey (The Coyote Road: Trickster Tales, ed. Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, Viking, Jul07)
“Trophy Wives” – Hoffman, Nina Kiriki (Fellowship Fantastic, ed. Greenberg and Hughes, DAW Books, Jan08)
“26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss”– Johnson, Kij (Asimov’s, Jul08)
“The Tomb Wife”– Jones, Gwyneth (F&SF, Aug07)
“Don’t Stop” – Kelly, James Patrick (Asimov’s, Jun07)
Scripts
The Dark Knight – Nolan, Jonathan; Nolan, Christopher, Goyer, David S. (Warner Bros., Jul08)
WALL-E” Screenplay – Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon, Original story by Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter (Walt Disney June 2008)
The Shrine – Wright, Brad (Stargate Atlantis, Aug08)
Norton
Graceling – Cashore, Kristin (Harcourt, Oct08)
Lamplighter – Cornish, D.M. (Monster Blood Tattoo, Book 2, Putnam Juvenile, May08))
Savvy – Law, Ingrid (Dial, May08)
The Adoration of Jenna Fox – Pearson, Mary E. (Henry Holt and Company, Apr08)
Flora’s Dare: How a Girl of Spirit Gambles All to Expand Her Vocabulary, Confront a Bouncing Boy Terror, and Try to Save Califa from a Shaky Doom (Despite Being Confined to Her Room) – Wilce, Ysabeau S. (Harcourt, Sep08)
Congratulations to all the nominees — we’ll find out who won at Nebula Weekend, April 24-26,2009 in Los Angeles, California.
Glad to see Stargate Atlantis get a nomination! “The Shrine” was an especially intense episode. I don’t think it has much of a chance against WALL-E, though…
Yay for Nina Kiriki Hoffman!
Yay for “Little Brother,” “Powers,” and “Brasyl”!
Why is Emerson LaSalle never given a lifetime achievement award?
For novels I’m hoping either “Little Brother” or “Cauldron” get it. Superpowers is a fun read as well, but I loved those two.
Jesus Christ, how the hell did Cauldron get nominated?? I really liked the Priscilla Hutchins series, but the last two have been embarrassing.
Heh. A study in contrasts, those last two messages were.
Sorry, Kenshin, but I really thought Cauldron was dreadful.
I’m very pleased to see my friend Kristin get a nomination. It’s also neat to see both Flora’s Dare and Little Brother got noms; I read the two in immediate succession, which helps you notice that, both being set in San Francisco, they actually share some scenery.
Yeah. Always interesting when I encounter someone who has diametrically opposed responses to something. Out of curiosity, Kenshin, didn’t the fact that McDevitt spent 3/4 of the book setting up a trip to the center of the galaxy, where they encounter the monster from Star Trek 5, and spend a dozen pages getting into and out of trouble, and leave for home without doing anything – didn’t that anoy the crap out of you?
No?
OK then. Different strokes and all that, but…
I must just have the most horrible reading habits or something. I haven’t heard of any of these except by reading the site here.
None of them have crossed my radar at all.
Damn. I a niche in a niche market.
Interested outsider, curious: Little Brother for Novel but not Norton? Or both? Seems a YA considered good enough to be nominated for the former would be a lock on the latter.
Tom, really? I mean, Brasyl was a Hugo Finalist (and would have had my vote, personally) last year, Little Brother had a huge push on the ‘net, and Practchett, McDevitt, and Le Guin aren’t exactly no-names. Only SuperPowers (which got a lot of attention, but seemed to build gradually) strikes me as even close to obscure amongst the finalists.
And Jeff, I think that the Norton is selected by a separate process.
My money is on Little Brother.
I’m with JOhnny C… I liked the series, but Cauldron was awful. I mean… waves of planet destroying clouds ravaging the galaxy and we get… THAT? One more example of how hard it is to posit some galaxy threatening entity and not have the reveal disappoint.
It’s good to see the Western Shore series by Le Guin get some recognition. I’ve been recommending those books to teens for a couple of years now at the library.
Two YA books, that’s interesting.
Of the novels I’ve read Little Brother, Cauldron and Brasyl. Of those three, I have to agree Cauldron was not as good as the older stuff, and I thought Little Brother was awful, so I guess Brasyl would be my choice as of today. But I see that electronic editions of the Pratchett book and Superpowers are available, so if I had a vote I’d most likely read those first.
Little Brother? Really?
I expect you may see it on the Hugo ballot as well, Chris G.
That’s just odd. I approve of the concept but I thought the execution was less than elegant. Still, congrats all around!
There are some authors that seem to get nominated regardless of the quality of their work, McDevitt and Haldeman seem to fall into that group. Joe Haldeman’s Camouflage won a few years ago and it was one of the worst SFF novels I’ve ever read. From what I’m reading McDevitt, who I believe won last year, also managed to get a meh-class novel on the short list.
Little Brother on the other hand is a different creature. While not the most original story or best writing. The book has an intangible quality that spoke to me. I don’t know how to describe it other than I connected with the novel and I loved it. Couldn’t put the book down.
Either Little Brother or Brasyl would have my vote.
Logically speaking, Superpowers should beat Powers. Right?
Patrick: YMMV. I found Little Brother to have unbelievable characters and plot issues.
Little Brother FTW!
I was just reading the Amazon reader reviews for Superpowers yesterday, and it doesn’t seem to be all THAT well thought of. Are those reviews unusual for this book? I like the idea of the story, so I’ll probably get it, but I can’t imagine it really speaking to me like Little Brother did.
Yet another list of which I have read none of. Hardly ever read the Hugo nominees, rarely seen the films on the Oscars, and now this.
I constantly wonder where my fandom is.
I have to also confess that I’ve not read any of the nominated novels. Most weren’t on my radar. Of those that did pop up (Brasyl), the blurb just caused me to shrug my shoulder and move on.
And I’m a fairly active reader of sci-fi/fantasy, buying 4-5 novels a month, none of which are TV or film tie-ins.
I haven’t read either Little Brother or Powers, but I’m interested that two of the nominees are Young Adult novels. Is that unusual? Would those who’ve read them say they clearly are YA or transcend that label? LeGuin usually does, IMO.
It’s a reflection that YA is a strong market category right now, which is drawing authors to it.
And I’m happy about that- the YA SF/fantasy fan of today may well become the fan of adult SF tomorrow.
Yea for “Flora’s Dare”! It’s a rare treat to have a sequel that is more than a match for the original book. Is the surge in the YA market the chicken or the egg? It’s a hot market, but I’ve long thought that there is a lot of really excellent writing being done for younger people that flies under the “adult” radar. Maybe adults in a post – “Harry Potter” world are just more open to reading the good stuff that’s out there?
Sinisalo on Nebula nomination http://tinyurl.com/btlnjr
Brasyl is a serious novel, the rest are just books. Where is Lost Colony on that list?!