28 Comments on “The 2010 Nebula Awards Nominees”

1. While I of course have not read everything on this list, what I have is very deserving. In particular, Amal El-Mohtar’s short story in Apex was excellent. I hardly ever remember short stories after reading them, but that one has stuck with me.

2. What a wonderfully varied selection of nominees. Congratulations to all of them!

3. Wait, Ellison’s trademarked his name?

4. I’m particularly impressed with the nominees for the Ray Bradbury award here. It’s really good to see animated “kids” movies getting attention, alongside movies like Inception. These are movies that I watch with my kids on a regular basis, but I love them even when the kids aren’t around.

5. Harlan Ellison® is a registered trademark of Killmanjaro Corporation, The. The initial filing was in 2001 and it was registered in 2002. The Harlan Ellison® trademark was first used in 6/7/1949. It’s current federal status is SECTION 8-ACCEPTED.

6. Since I know Caroline Yoachim (and she’s the first Nebula nominee I’ve known personally) I’m absolutely thrilled that she’s on the ballot. It’s a great story. Plus, I’m consumed with envy and jealousy…but, you know, that’s to be expected.

7. This entry needs a fanfare to introduce it. Something like the 20th Century Fox fanfare.

8. Number of science fiction novels nominated for Nebula award: one.

   Am I being bitter and grumpy? Perhaps. But I think it’s a sad sign of the times when these silly “historical” pseudo-fantasies are dominating the nominations. Moby Dick…. and zombies! Adolf Hitler… and Zombies! Madame Bovary…. and Zombies! Gimme my award now! Gimme!

   Fantasy writers, get off my lawn…

9. I’m curious…why does Aismov consistently beat out Analog in awards? Is it the type of story (i.e. Asimov’s skews towards a type of plot/storyline/style that attracts more awards, and Analog doesn’t) or is the perception the stories in Asimov’s are of higher quality?

10. Michael:

    You are incorrect about the number of science fiction books nominated. Beyond that, the awards are for both science fiction and fantasy. Beyond that, your assertion of what’s dominating the awards suggests you haven’t read the books and stories that you are complaining about, or indeed even the jacket cover text.

    It’s your prerogative to be bitter and grumpy. It’s best if it’s based in reality.

11. Michael: Yes, where did you get the idea the list of finalists is packed with those stupid “classics revisited” zombie novels? Not a one there. And in fact, Blackout/All Clear is time travel SF, while Who Fears Death (remarkable) is an SF/fantasy hybrid. So, two out of six.

    Seriously, dude. Read some stuff.

    Still, SFWA. No nom for Under Heaven = Fail! Having read four of the six so far, I can say this isn’t a bad list at all, but there were better books from last year — Kraken, The Dervish House — a little more deserving. But I can understand if people are getting Miéville fatigue and want to give him a year off from the ballots.

12. Hey, maybe that’s what I should do for a Hereville sequel! “11 year old Orthodox Jewish girls… and Zombies!”

13. Hurray for Scott Westerfeld and Behemoth! I got to meet him last October and that just sealed my famdom.

14. Hah, guess they really stuck it to the patriarchy with that list of novel nominations.

15. I think you omitted a line break after SFWA’s address and the “About SFWA” heading.

16. While I have not read everything on the best novel list, I feel “The Dream of Perpetual Motion” being left out is a gross oversight, unless it was somehow ineligible. Easily one of the best novels I have read in quite some time, definitely right up there with “The Windup Girl”

17. As an Old Fart, I am surprised to see how the short story category is dominated by online venues over the old hardcopy magazine and book sources. (Four out of seven might not quite be “dominated”, but I don’t think it was that many years ago that -any- non-hardcopy publication among the nominees was unusual.

    But in the novella and novelette categories, it looks like there’s only one on-line publication nominated. Is this just because on-line venues publish so few? (And if so, why? It’s not like there’s be that much extra expense or trouble to put a 25,000 word story online over a 2,500 word story. Or is it because of the assumption that online-readers have shorter attention spans than people who read magazines or books?)

18. There are two stories that were initially published online in the novella category, both from Subterranean.

19. Or actually, the Life Cycle has been available online @ Subterranean for long enough that it’s accessible to voters who read primarily online. I’m not sure whether it came out first in website or chapbook form. (If anyone hasn’t read it, they ought to; it’s awesome.)

    I was surprised Charles Yu didn’t make it onto the ballot. I wonder if he’ll be nominated for the Hugo?

20. @12: Congrats on the Nebula nom, Barry! I read about Hereville on Esther Friesner’s SFF-Net group. Immediately hopped over to the website and read the comic, then added the book version to my Amazon wish list. Several weeks later, my lovely wife bought me the book as my Valentine’s Day present.

21. Congrats to all who were nominated – I’ve had the pleasure of reading about 25% of this years nominees – all well deseved/awsome – it’s a shame there isn’t a epub/pdf ‘packet’ like there was for Hugo nominees (or if there is – it’s a shame I didn’t get one because I vote for Hugo’s and not for Nebula’s) :)

22. @#19 by Rachel Swirsky: “Lifecycle of Software Objects” first appeared as a rather small in trim size – and wonderfully designed – hardcover from Sub Press.

23. Nice to see jack McDevitt in there. Haven’t read ‘Echo’ yet, I believe it’s the fourth ‘Alex Benedict novel, right? The first, ‘A Talent for War’ is on my ‘all-time ten best’ list.

24. Congrats to Connie Willis! I am SHOCKED to see N.K. Jemisin’s book on the list. I read it because someone bought it for me after I put it on my Amazon wishlist after seeing the superlative reviews. I did read the entire thing, but it was a pretty painful experience. I really have on interest in reading the rest of the “Inheritance” trilogy.

    Never read any Jack McDevitt but I do know his stuff is pretty hard core military space-opera stuff, generally my favorite genre.

25. this looks pretty weak, probably weaker than last year. To be fair I haven’t read the Native Star or Echo, but it’s hardly encouraging to see perennial Nebula candidate McDevitt back on his post, and I don’t have much hope that this will be the novel where he finally breaks with his conservative instincts. I’ve never gotten the Connie Willis appreciation and personally found Blackout/All Clear pretty agonizing–self-important, dull and cliched. I am quite pleased to see Who Fears Death on that list, and there’s very little wrong with Shades of Milk and Money and the 100K Kingdoms—but they’re also not consistently great, and this list leaves out an awful lot of effective novels. The Dervish House especially, I’d have thought that was a shoe-in for quality as well as popularity, and it’s a bit discouraging to see so many of my favorites not echoed here. The Dream of Perpetual Motion and Habitation of the Blessed in particular. Still, it is encouraging to see as much new blood as there is here, and it does point to some interesting developments with the award. It’s certainly not as predictable as I would have thought, and I suppose I’ll reserve full judgement until I read the last two items. Knowing whether The Native Star is anywhere near as bad as Flesh and Fire was will be crucial in making the comparison.

    How did so many first time authors get on the list?

    For the Bradbury Award, mixed reaction. Toy Story deserves to be present and win, but “Vincent and the Doctor” wouldn’t have been my pick for the last season of Who. No love for “The Lodger?” Ah, well, probably it’ll be one of the five Dr. Who nominees in the Hugo shortlist this year.

26. Mad Prof, start with the above mentioned ‘Talent…’. It takes place in the far future; one of history’s greatest military heroes is remembered for being instrumental in uniting humanity, but there are holes in the story.

    Rasholnikov, not everybody runs their reading through a liberal-PC filter ;-)

27. Kij Johnson’s ‘Ponies’ was, by far, the most haunting story I have read in ages. Every time I went to the Tor.com site and saw the illustration at the top of the page, I felt disturbed all over again.

    Any story with that much power, certainly deserves to be recognised.

28. i am lazy. i read a lot. why can’t you/amazon/sfwa give me one link to click that puts all the nominated novels in my cart ready for checkout? please help me part with my money.