Friday, January 09, 2009

2009 Nebula Award Nominees: The Long List

Via the SFWA Website, below is the preliminary ballot for the 2009 Nebula Awards (which, given the weird way the award works is for the 2008 season, which means a fair amount of 2007 fiction. You dig?)

What this means for you, the viewer, is that my Nebula season is about to begin where I read and write about as many of the nominated works as possible. I'm excited. You should be, too. This blog should be a flurry of award activity and posting.

I've already read a small handful of these (two novels, three novelettes, one short story) and I wouldn't be surprised if "The Prophet of Flores" or Territory makes the final ballot (probably Brasyl, too...)

Novels
:
Abraham, Daniel: A Betrayal in Winter (Tor, Jul07)
Barzak, Chris: One for Sorrow (Bantam, Sep07)
Bull, Emma: Territory (Tor, Jul07)
Doctorow, Cory: Little Brother (Tor, Apr08)
Goonan, Kathleen Ann: In War Times (Tor, May07)
Le Guin, Ursula K.: Powers (Harcourt, Sep07)
McDevitt, Jack: Cauldron (Ace, Nov07)
McDonald, Ian: Brasyl (Pyr, May07)
Pratchett, Terry: Making Money (Harper, Sep07)
Rothfuss, Patrick: The Name of the Wind (DAW, Apr07)

Novellas:
Asaro, Catherine: The Spacetime Pool (Analog, Mar08)
Benford, Gregory: Dark Heaven (Alien Crimes, SFBC, Jan07?)
Eskridge, Kelley: Dangerous Space (Dangerous Space, Aqueduct Press, Jun07)
Finlay, Charles Coleman: The Political Prisoner (F&SF, Aug08)

Novelettes:
Bowes, Richard: If Angels Fight (F&SF, Feb08)
Flynn, Michael F. : Quaestiones Super Caelo et Mundo (Analog, Aug07 (Jul/Aug07 issue))
Gardner, James Alan: The Ray-Gun: A Love Story (Asimov's, Feb08)
Goldstein, Lisa: Dark Rooms (Asimov's, Nov07 (Oct/Nov 07 issue))
Kessel, John: Pride and Prometheus (F&SF, Jan08)
Kosmatka, Ted: The Prophet of Flores (Asimov's, Sep07)
Moles, David: Finisterra (F&SF, Dec07)
Sinisalo, Johanna: Baby Doll (The SFWA European Hall of Fame, Tor, Jun07
(trans. from the Finnish by David Hackston))
Wentworth, K.D.: Kaleidoscope (F&SF, May07)

Short Stories:
Allen, Mike: The Button Bin (Helix: A Speculative Fiction Quarterly, Oct07
(Reprinted in Transcriptase)
Cassutt, Michael: Skull Valley (Asimov's, Nov07 (Oct/Nov 07 issue))
Finch, Sheila: Stranger Than Imagination Can (The Guild of Xenolinguists, Golden
Gryphon Press, Sep07)
Ford, Jeffrey: The Dreaming Wind (Coyote Road, Trickster Tales, Viking Juvenile, Jul07)
Henderson, Samantha: Bottles (Realms of Fantasy, Apr07)
Hobson, M. K.: The Hotel Astarte (Realms of Fantasy, Jun07)
Johnson, Kij: 26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss (Asimov's, Jul08)
Jones, Gwyneth: The Tomb Wife (F&SF, Aug07)
Kelly, James Patrick: Don't Stop (Asimov's, Jun07)
Nestvold, Ruth: Mars: A Traveler's Guide (F&SF, Jan08)
Plante, Brian: The Astronaut (Analog, May07)
Rickert, Mary: Holiday (Subterranean #7, Sep07)
Scholes, Ken: Summer in Paris, Light From the Sky (Clarkesworld Magazine, Nov07)
Van Pelt, James: How Music Begins (Asimov's, Sep07)

4 comments:

Harry Markov said...

I have to get acquianted with when all these different awards take place to actually start covering them on my blog as well. I think I have Little Brother on my TBR list. Ah, so many titles. So little time.

Greyweather said...

Well this is unusual. Normally the Nebula nominees are all books I've never even heard of, let alone read.

Of course it wouldn't be the Nebula without a Jack McDevitt nomination. I've never read any of his work myself. Is he really that good, or does he just have a lot of friends in the SFWA?

Joe said...

Daydream: Just wait another month or so and the short list (5 - 6 titles in each category) will be out.

Grey: McDevitt doesn't have the official nomination list, not until the short list.

I had checked Odyssey out from the library last year, but I never got around to reading it, so I don't know if he's that good or not.

I've got two theories, though.

One: The SFWA members who take the time to nominate for the Nebula really like his work. Just as if I and like other like minded people were members you would likely see a rash of Mary Robinette Kowal, Elizabeth Bear, and Jennifer Pelland nominations, maybe this group just happens to like McDevitt's stuff.

Two: I kind of remember John Scalzi writing last year about why he doesn't nominate for the Nebula - the nominations are an open system, the other members can see who nominated whom.

So, if you are a SFWA member and you are friends with many of your peers but you don't think your friend's story or book deserves your nomination, you either nominate that person and be intellectually dishonest towards the award; or you don't nominate.

I choose to accept / believe, for the sake of this discussion, that rather than nominate works that they don't believe in, many SFWA members take Scalzi's position and just not nominate.

(apologies to Mr. Scalzi if, in any way, I misrepresented his position or thoughts...I'm working off memory here, so take it with a grain of salt)

Delving said...

I always enjoy Terry Pratchett.. Haven't read Making Money though.

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