2011 Nebula Award Winners
For the first time in a while, I haven’t already read the winning novel.
And just when my To Be Read stack had gotten to a manageable size….
The full list, courtesy the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America:
Winning Novel: Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis (Spectra)
Also Nominated:
The Native Star by M.K. Hobson (Spectra)
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin (Orbit UK; Orbit US)
Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor)
Echo by Jack McDevitt (Ace)
Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor (DAW)Winning Novella: “The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen’s Window” by Rachel Swirsky (Subterranean Summer ’10)
Also Nominated:
The Alchemist by Paolo Bacigalupi (Audible; Subterranean)
“Iron Shoes” by J. Kathleen Cheney (Alembical 2)
The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang (Subterranean)
“The Sultan of the Clouds” by Geoffrey A. Landis (Asimov’s 9/10)
“Ghosts Doing the Orange Dance” by Paul Park (F&SF 1-2/10)Winning Novelette: “That Leviathan Whom Thou Hast Made” by Eric James Stone (Analog 9/10)
Also Nominated:
“Map of Seventeen” by Christopher Barzak (The Beastly Bride)
“The Jaguar House by in Shadow” by Aliette de Bodard (Asimov’s 7/10)
“The Fortuitous Meeting of Gerard van Oost and Oludara” by Christopher Kastensmidt (Realms of Fantasy 4/10)
“Plus or Minus” by James Patrick Kelly (Asimov’s 12/10)
“Pishaach” by Shweta Narayan (The Beastly Bride)
“Stone Wall Truth” by Caroline M. Yoachim (Asimov’s 2/10)Winning Short Story (tie): “Ponies” by Kij Johnson (Tor.com1/17/10) and “How Interesting: A Tiny Man” by Harlan Ellison (Realms of Fantasy 2/10)
Also Nominated:
“Arvies” by Adam-Troy Castro (Lightspeed 8/10)
“I’m Alive, I Love You, I’ll See You in Reno” by Vylar Kaftan (Lightspeed6/10)
“The Green Book” by Amal El-Mohtar (Apex 11/1/10)
“Ghosts of New York” by Jennifer Pelland (Dark Faith)
“Conditional Love” by Felicity Shoulders (Asimov’s 1/10)
Ray Bradbury Award: InceptionAlso Nominated:
Despicable Me
Doctor Who: “Vincent and the Doctor”
How to Train Your Dragon
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Toy Story 3
Andre Norton Award: I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett (Gollancz; Harper)Also Nominated:
Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi (Little, Brown)
White Cat by Holly Black (McElderry)
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic Press; Scholastic UK)
Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword by Barry Deutsch (Amulet)
The Boy from Ilysies by Pearl North (Tor Teen)
A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner (Greenwillow)
Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld (Simon Pulse; Simon & Schuster UK)The Nebula Awards® are voted on, and presented by, active members of SFWA. The awards were announced at the Nebula Awards® Banquet held at the Washington Hilton Hotel the evening of May 21st.
“As president of SFWA, I congratulate each of our award recipients tonight. Their work represents the best in the field of science fiction and fantasy, and is proof the ‘literature of ideas’ continues to be a fresh and vital wellspring of imagination.” ~ John Scalzi
Oh god, Connie Willis again?
Her last “award winning” novel was the worst novel of any kind I have ever read.
And by the description, she just keeps writing the same crappy novel over and over.
We we ever see the like of Asimov and Clarke again?
“We we ever see the like of Asimov and Clarke again”
Maybe (probably, absolutely) not. Lots of folks are all aswoon with Neal Stephenson, but I find his writing turgid and confusing and utterly lacking in the conceptual poetry of great science fiction. But I’m old.
I love Stephenson.
And Peter F. Hamilton,Joe Haldeman, and Iain M. Banks, just to name a few I’ve been reading lately.
All a lot more than Asimov, who’s work I find kind of bland, really.
Well, as I intimated, I’m sure it’s a generational thing.
I’ve seen this sort of process from the inside. Best not to take it too seriously.
Just last week I started rereading Aasimov’s works. TSo far, the writing isn’t as good as I remembered (read them in my early early teen years), but the story telling still really holds up, and the foundation/empire/robot universe is still one of the more impressive universes I’ve seen created.
I’ve moved away from Sci-Fi in the last decade, but am trying to get back into it. I’ll check out your suggestions, Dodd.
I notice you didn’t put Connie Willis on your list even though she has, according to Wikipedia, won “ten Hugo Awards and seven Nebula Awards.”
Having read every Hugo and Nebula winning novel, it’s hard for me to see how her stuff is considered to be on the same level as works like Rendezvous with Rama and Dune.
It just strikes me as so many rejected Dr. Who scripts.
I haven’t quite finished my years-long project of reading all the Hugo and Nebula winners yet (much closer on the former than the latter), but I did read the two Willis books that have garnered one of those awards — Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of The Dog — some fairly long time ago (certainly not recently). I don’t remember finding them either especially bad or especially good. In fact, I really don’t remember much about them at all.
Which, I suppose, pretty much proves your point.