Tor.com has just drawn my attention to the SFWA announcement of the Nebula nominees for 2015. Let’s take a look!
Best Novel
The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison (Tor)
Trial by Fire, Charles E. Gannon (Baen)
Ancillary Sword, Ann Leckie (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu, translated by Ken Liu (Tor)
Coming Home, Jack McDevitt (Ace)
Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer (FSG Originals; Fourth Estate; HarperCollins Canada)
THERE, GOOD. Glad to see The Goblin Emperor is on the ballot.
Okay, looking at the rest of this, I can see I may want to prioritize The Three-Body Problem, just to see whether I like it — I expect it’s impressive, but that’s not the same thing as liking it. But I would vote for an impressive work I didn’t personally like if I thought it was the best book on the ballot. Speaking of impressive books that I hated, I really disliked Jeff VanderMeer’s Finch a few years ago, so there’s no way I’m touching Annihilation unless I hear something that makes me really willing to take a chance on it. Okay, and Jack McDevitt’s books just don’t appeal to me that much, though I know lots of people love his work. I’ve never read anything by Charles Gannon, but I see this is a second book in this series. Looks like gung-ho alien invasion SF. Here’s a review from Goodreads that makes me think maybe I ought to put the first book on my wishlist. In fact, I think I will do that right now before it slips my mind.
Best Novella
We Are All Completely Fine, Daryl Gregory (Tachyon)
Yesterday’s Kin, Nancy Kress (Tachyon)
“The Regular,” Ken Liu (Upgraded)
“The Mothers of Voorhisville,” Mary Rickert (Tor.com 4/30/14)
Calendrical Regression, Lawrence Schoen (NobleFusion)
“Grand Jeté (The Great Leap),” Rachel Swirsky (Subterranean Summer ’14)
Hey, you know what, I actually have “Calendrical Regression” . . . somewhere around here . . . I think. Sure sounds very familiar anyway.
Best Novelette
“Sleep Walking Now and Then,” Richard Bowes (Tor.com 7/9/14)
“The Magician and Laplace’s Demon,” Tom Crosshill (Clarkesworld 12/14)
“A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai’i,” Alaya Dawn Johnson (F&SF 7-8/14)
“The Husband Stitch,” Carmen Maria Machado (Granta #129)
“We Are the Cloud,” Sam J. Miller (Lightspeed 9/14)
“The Devil in America,” Kai Ashante Wilson (Tor.com 4/2/14)
Best Short Story
“The Breath of War,” Aliette de Bodard (Beneath Ceaseless Skies 3/6/14)
“When It Ends, He Catches Her,” Eugie Foster (Daily Science Fiction 9/26/14)
“The Meeker and the All-Seeing Eye,” Matthew Kressel (Clarkesworld 5/14)
“The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family,” Usman T. Malik (Qualia Nous)
“A Stretch of Highway Two Lanes Wide,” Sarah Pinsker (F&SF 3-4/14)
“Jackalope Wives,” Ursula Vernon (Apex 1/7/14)
“The Fisher Queen,” Alyssa Wong (F&SF 5/14)
And for this shorter fiction, I guess we can all agree on the single best title, at least. Right? Right?
All together now:
“The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family”
Or is that just me?
Anyway, more short work to possibly check out quick before Hugo nominations close. I’m not taking time to look for links right now, but I expect some of them are available online.
Please Feel Free to Share:
Good for Addison/Monette! It sounds like she was pretty discouraged about her career for a while, so this has to be a tremendous boost. I hope GE makes the Hugo ballot as well.
I feel like I should read THE THREE-BODY PROBLEM, but I’m really put off by the idea of reading a novel set during the Cultural Revolution. I’ll probably wait and see whether it’s on the Hugo ballot. If it is, I’ll read it; if not, I’ll probably chicken out, unless someone who knows me says I’d love it.
I read FIRE WITH FIRE last year, since not a lot of MilSF books from Baen make it to the Nebula ballot. To be honest, I wasn’t too impressed, especially by the first section. (Did you know our hero was a polymath? Why, yes, he’s a polymath. Totally a polymath!) I thought the first book got significantly more engaging once the protagonist headed out to meet the aliens, so I might like the second book better. I’ll probably give it a try at some point, but I’m not rushing to read it.