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Worlds Without End Blog

2015 Nebula Award Nominees Posted at 2:04 PM by Dave Post

Dave Post

Raising Caine The Fifth Season Ancillary Mercy The Grace of Kings Uprooted Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard Updraft

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America have announced the nominees for the 2015 Nebula Awards. In the Novel category the nominees are:

See the official press release for a complete list of nominees in all categories.

What do you think of this list?  Any favorites?

11 Comments

Emil   |   20 Feb 2016 @ 14:37

Five of these are on the io9 reading challenge list. I’m pretty stoked about that. I think it is a toss-up between Lui and Jemisin.

DrNefario   |   21 Feb 2016 @ 04:50

I’m surprised we haven’t seen any nods for Aurora or Seveneves yet.

I mean, I haven’t actually read either of them, myself, yet, but I expected them to be everywhere.

daxxh   |   21 Feb 2016 @ 11:28

I am surprised too. I have read Seveneves and it is definitely award worthy. But, I haven’t really been that impressed with a lot of the Nebula nominees the past few years, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.

Boris Marcius   |   21 Feb 2016 @ 13:21

Surprise for me too, noms without Aurora, Seveneves and Luna: New Moon. I didn’t read them for now, but they are most important books on my to-read list of 2015, with addition of new Roberts Adam book. Though I’m not sure if McDonald qualifies for Nebula. Well, I hope all noms are excellent books.

Buck Ward   |   21 Feb 2016 @ 13:39

Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie, read by Adjoa Andoh, is a 2016 Audie Award Finalist

Scott Laz   |   21 Feb 2016 @ 18:23

The novels mentioned as surprisingly missing are all SF. It appears that the Nebula is mostly a fantasy award now. The fantasy nominees are the ones you’d expect, but the “science fiction writers of America” don’t seem to be reading much science fiction these days. I hadn’t heard of Barsk, but it looks interesting…

Weesam   |   22 Feb 2016 @ 00:10

SFWA stands for Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. As such, why shouldn’t they nominate fantasy? I see four fantasy and three SF on that list, which seems like a pretty good mix. Although, I would have expected either Seveneves or Aurora there is well.

Personally, I’ve read all but one of these novels. I really must read that Gannon series soon. However, I’m hoping for a Jemisin win. Fifth Season was excellent.

Scott Laz   |   22 Feb 2016 @ 15:28

weesam: I was just being a cranky old guy. SFWA was originally the Science Fiction Writers of America (does anyone know when they changed it?), and all the Nebula winners were SF up to around 1990, so I still think of it as a science fiction award (even though I know it no longer is!). I stopped following genre fiction for quite a while in the late ’80s though early ’00s, and was surprised, when I came back, that fantasy novels were winning Hugos and Nebulas! For me, it broke the continuity of these awards that I’d always thought of as pretty good guides to the best SF of each year. I’ll stand by my speculation that SFWA members are more “into” fantasy than SF, since the SF selections seem surprising (and incomplete) compared to the fantasy side. I’ve read and enjoyed both Grace of Kings and Uprooted, incidentally, but didn’t think they were quite good enough to add to my “award worthy” listing.

Weesam   |   22 Feb 2016 @ 15:51

That makes sense, Scott. I, on the other hand, am thrilled that the Hugo’s and Nebula’s are finally recognising they are both SF and Fantasy. Much as I love SF, I also love fantasy and like to see it getting the recognition here.

daxxh   |   23 Feb 2016 @ 11:11

I am like Scott. I was rather disappointed in 2012 when there was only one SF book nominated. And, I was a little annoyed the following year when two of the nominated books weren’t SF or F, even though I read both and really liked the one.

Scott Laz   |   24 Feb 2016 @ 13:20

I wonder if they’ve ever considered having two best novel awards–one for each genre. (I wish the Hugo would do the same.) The skew towards fantasy isn’t surprising with the Nebula. Quite a bit more fantasy than science fiction is published in the U.S., so there are bound to be more fantasy writers than SF writers in SFWA at this point. I know there’s a lot of genre blending going on these days, but many writers and fans are much more interested in one genre or the other, so the winners of these awards that include both could in part come down to how many voters are on one “side” or the other of the genre divide.

The counterargument is that five out of the last six Nebula winners have been science fiction! 2312 was the only SF nominee for 2012, but it did win the award, maybe because the science fiction vote had no other alternatives…

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