Nebula Award winners announced

Below are the winners and the finalists in the various categories of the Nebula Awards, which were awarded Saturday night.  In a couple of cases, I might give some brief thoughts on the categories.  Interesting to see that the SFWA voters, despite the turnover of the past decade, still seem to have the knack of selecting a winner that I view as being among the most mediocre of the Novel finalists.  Some things really never do change, do they?

Best Novel

• Winner: Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
• We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Karen Joy Fowler (Marian Wood)
• The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman (Morrow; Headline Review)
• Fire with Fire, Charles E. Gannon (Baen)
• Hild, Nicola Griffith (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• The Red: First Light, Linda Nagata (Mythic Island)
• A Stranger in Olondria, Sofia Samatar (Small Beer)
• The Golem and the Jinni, Helene Wecker (Harper)

 I've read five out of the eight finalists.  Out of those five, I would have ranked them in this order:  1) Fowler, 2) Wecker, 3) Samatar, 4) (and some distance from the first three) Gaiman, and 5) Leckie.  At this point, I'm resigned to Leckie being the latest Gaiman, someone who wins multiple genre awards in a given year despite not having written anything that truly will be memorable a decade from now.  Then again, the list of truly original works winning any sort of literary/genre award is very small compared to the pleasingly comfortable re-treads with shiny tires and spinners, so take my comments with multiple grains of salt.

Best Novella

• Winner: ‘‘The Weight of the Sunrise,’’ Vylar Kaftan (Asimov’s 2/13)
• ‘‘Wakulla Springs,’’ Andy Duncan & Ellen Klages (Tor.com 10/2/13)
• ‘‘Annabel Lee,” Nancy Kress (New Under the Sun)
• ‘‘Burning Girls,’’ Veronica Schanoes (Tor.com 6/19/13)
• ‘‘Trial of the Century,’’ Lawrence M. Schoen (lawrencemschoen.com, 8/13; World Jumping)
• Six-Gun Snow White, Catherynne M. Valente (Subterranean)

Best Novelette

• Winner: ‘‘The Waiting Stars,’’ Aliette de Bodard (The Other Half of the Sky)
• ‘‘Paranormal Romance,’’ Christopher Barzak (Lightspeed 6/13)
• ‘‘They Shall Salt the Earth with Seeds of Glass,’’ Alaya Dawn Johnson (Asimov’s 1/13)
• ‘‘Pearl Rehabilitative Colony for Ungrateful Daughters,’’ Henry Lien (Asimov’s 12/13)
• ‘‘The Litigation Master and the Monkey King,’’ Ken Liu (Lightspeed8/13)
• ‘‘In Joy, Knowing the Abyss Behind,’’ Sarah Pinsker (Strange Horizons 7/1 – 7/8/13)

Best Short Story

• Winner: ‘‘If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love,’’ Rachel Swirsky (Apex 3/13)
• ‘‘The Sounds of Old Earth,’’ Matthew Kressel (Lightspeed 1/13)
• ‘‘Selkie Stories Are for Losers,’’ Sofia Samatar (Strange Horizons1/7/13)
• ‘‘Selected Program Notes from the Retrospective Exhibition of Theresa Rosenberg Latimer,’’ Kenneth Schneyer (Clockwork Phoenix4)
• ‘‘Alive, Alive Oh,’’ Sylvia Spruck Wrigley (Lightspeed 6/13)

Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation

• Winner: Gravity (Alfonso Cuarón, director; Alfonso Cuarón & Jonás Cuarón, writers) (Warner Bros.)
• Doctor Who: ‘‘The Day of the Doctor’’ (Nick Hurran, director; Steven Moffat, writer) (BBC Wales)
• Europa Report (Sebastián Cordero, director; Philip Gelatt, writer) (Start Motion Pictures)
• Her (Spike Jonze, director; Spike Jonze, writer) (Warner Bros.)
• The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (Francis Lawrence, director; Simon Beaufoy & Michael Arndt as Michael deBruyn, writers) (Lionsgate)
• Pacific Rim (Guillermo del Toro, director; Travis Beacham & Guillermo del Toro, writers) (Warner Bros.)

Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy

• Winner: Sister Mine, Nalo Hopkinson (Grand Central)
• The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, Holly Black (Little, Brown; Indigo)
• When We Wake, Karen Healey (Allen & Unwin; Little, Brown)
• The Summer Prince, Alaya Dawn Johnson (Levine)
• Hero, Alethea Kontis (Harcourt)
• September Girls, Bennett Madison (Harper Teen)
• A Corner of White, Jaclyn Moriarty (Levine)

I've only read the Hopkinson and Johnson and out of those, I would select Hopkinson's work.  A good, solid work, although not my favorite novel, adult or YA alike, by her.

Service to SFWA Award was given to Michael J. Armstrong.

Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award was given to Samuel R. Delany.