2018 Nebula Awards Nominees

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA, Inc.) announced the nominees for the 54th Annual Nebula Awards on February 20, including the Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation, the Andre Norton Award for Outstanding Young Adult Science Fiction or Fantasy Book, and for the first time, the Nebula Award for Game Writing. The awards will be presented in Woodland Hills, CA at the Warner Center Marriott during a ceremony on the evening of May 18.

2018 Nebula Award Finalists

Novel

  • The Calculating Stars, Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor)
  • The Poppy War, R.F. Kuang (Harper Voyager US; Harper Voyager UK)
  • Blackfish City, Sam J. Miller (Ecco; Orbit UK)
  • Spinning Silver, Naomi Novik (Del Rey; Macmillan)
  • Witchmark, C.L. Polk (Tor.com Publishing)
  • Trail of Lightning, Rebecca Roanhorse (Saga)

Novella

  • Fire Ant, Jonathan P. Brazee (Semper Fi)
  • The Black God’s Drums, P. Djèlí Clark (Tor.com Publishing)
  • The Tea Master and the Detective, Aliette de Bodard (Subterranean)
  • Alice Payne Arrives, Kate Heartfield (Tor.com Publishing)
  • Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach, Kelly Robson (Tor.com Publishing)
  • Artificial Condition, Martha Wells (Tor.com Publishing)

Novelette

  • The Only Harmless Great Thing, Brooke Bolander (Tor.com Publishing)
  • “The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections”, Tina Connolly (Tor.com 7/11/18)
  • “An Agent of Utopia”, Andy Duncan (An Agent of Utopia)
  • “The Substance of My Lives, the Accidents of Our Births”, José Pablo Iriarte (Lightspeed 1/18)
  • “The Rule of Three”, Lawrence M. Schoen (Future Science Fiction Digest 12/18)
  • “Messenger”, Yudhanjaya Wijeratne and R.R. Virdi (Expanding Universe, Volume 4)

Short Story

  • “Interview for the End of the World”, Rhett C. Bruno (Bridge Across the Stars)
  • “The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington”, Phenderson Djèlí Clark (Fireside 2/18)
  • “Going Dark”, Richard Fox (Backblast Area Clear)
  • “And Yet”, A.T. Greenblatt (Uncanny 3-4/18)
  • “A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies”, Alix E. Harrow (Apex 2/6/18)
  • “The Court Magician”, Sarah Pinsker (Lightspeed 1/18)

Game Writing

  • Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, Charlie Brooker (House of Tomorrow & Netflix)
  • The Road to Canterbury, Kate Heartfield  (Choice of Games)
  • God of War, Matt Sophos, Richard Zangrande Gaubert, Cory Barlog, Orion Walker, and Adam Dolin (Santa Monica Studio/Sony/Interactive Entertainment)
  • Rent-A-Vice, Natalia Theodoridou (Choice of Games)
  • The Martian Job, M. Darusha Wehm (Choice of Games)

The Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation

  • The Good Place: “Jeremy Bearimy”, Written by: Megan Amram
  • Black Panther, Written by: Ryan Coogler and Joe Robert Cole
  • A Quiet Place, Screenplay by: John Krasinski, Bryan Woods and Scott Beck
  • Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Screenplay by: Phil Lord and Rodney Rothman
  • Dirty Computer, Written by: Janelle Monáe and Chuck Lightning
  • Sorry to Bother You, Written by: Boots Riley

The Andre Norton Award for Outstanding Young Adult Science Fiction or Fantasy Book

  • Children of Blood and Bone, Tomi Adeyemi (Henry Holt; Macmillan)
  • Aru Shah and the End of Time, Roshani Chokshi (Rick Riordan Presents)
  • A Light in the Dark, A.K. DuBoff (BDL)
  • Tess of the Road, Rachel Hartman (Random House)
  • Dread Nation, Justina Ireland (Balzer + Bray)
  • Peasprout Chen: Future Legend of Skate and Sword, Henry Lien (Henry Holt)

The Nebula Awards will be presented during the annual SFWA Nebula Conference, which will run from May 16th-19th and feature programming developed and geared toward SFF professionals. On May 18th, a mass autograph session will take place at the Warner Center Marriott Woodland Hills and will be free and open to the public.

The Nebula Awards, presented annually, recognize the best works of science fiction and fantasy published in the previous year. They are selected by members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. The first Nebula Awards were presented in 1966.

22 thoughts on “2018 Nebula Awards Nominees

  1. Out of that novel list, I’ll be rooting for Spinning Silver. 🙂

    And Artificial Condition should have been Exit Strategy instead!

  2. Congratulations to all the nominees!

    Should I surprised that Circe isn’t on the list?

    And just to be contrary to Contrarius, it should clearly be Rogue Protocol instead. ?

  3. Well, Nebula nominators and I are on the same page in regards to novels. 4 of the 6 are on my Hugo ballot, and the other 2 were already on my TBR. Guess I’ll bump them to the top.

  4. Did something weird happen in the short fiction categories? Several of the nominees have never been featured in a prominent publication (or at least one that I have ever heard of) or nominated for a major award. And the stories themselves were featured in the kind of very-small-press anthologies that don’t usually tend to produce award nominees. Of course, I haven’t read almost any of the nominees, and I’m hesitant to question any nominee from a place of ignorance. I’d be interested to know if anyone here has read them.

  5. thenixondive: Did something weird happen in the short fiction categories? Several of the nominees have never been featured in a prominent publication

    SFWA has a private forum where works which are not available to read for free online can be posted for SFWA members to read for awards consideration.

    Four of the novels are works I chose not to read because their synopses are utterly unappealing to me. I absolutely believe that the people who nominated them enjoyed them, but I’ll be really disappointed if the Hugo ballot goes the same way.

  6. @Lorien —

    And just to be contrary to Contrarius, it should clearly be Rogue Protocol instead. ?

    Well, it should really be ALL of them, of course. 😉

    @JJ —

    Four of the novels are works I chose not to read because their synopses are utterly unappealing to me.

    I did pretty good guessing this year — I’ve read all but one of the novel nominees (haven’t read Blackfish City). I’d personally consider all of the ones I’ve read to be good books, but not outstanding in terms of award worthiness — except that I do think Spinning Silver is pretty great. 🙂

  7. @thenixondive
    The unexpected finalists are mostly self-published writers and the anthologies in question were self-published. A lot of them are affiliated with a group called 20Booksto50K.

  8. Congratulations to the nominees!

    I’m particularly super pleased to see Alix E. Harrow’s “A Witch’s Guide To Escape” on the list; that story packs a serious wallop. Harrow’s debut novel, The Ten Thousand Doors of January, is due in September; it’s pure magic and footnotes, and the way things are going I think it’s going to make a real splash.

    “The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections” was another strong favorite of mine. I’m super hyped to see it make the shortlist. And, Tina Connolly has a short story in the next issue of F&SF. Based on how weird, evocative, and expertly-constructed “Last Banquet” was, I’m really looking forward to reading more from Connolly.

  9. Pingback: Some Thoughts on the 2018 Nebula Award Finalists | Cora Buhlert

  10. thenixondive on February 20, 2019 at 12:58 pm said:

    Did something weird happen in the short fiction categories?

    Following Cora’s observation I did some digging and yes, 20booksto50K’s closed Facebook runs a reading list of books for the Nebulas. The following works were the ones on the list that are also finalists:
    NOVELLA
    Fire Ant ** Jonathan Brazee
    NOVELETTE
    Messenger** R.R. Virdi and Yudhanjaya Wijeratne
    The Rule of Three** Lawrence Schoen
    SHORT STORY
    Interview for the End of the World Rhett Bruno
    Going Dark Richard Fox
    ANDRE NORTON AWARD
    A Light in the Dark, AK DuBoff

  11. @Standback: “The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections” was another strong favorite of mine…Tina Connolly has a short story in the next issue of F&SF.

    That is just an awesome story. I’ll buy the next issue of F&SF if I see it on the stands.

  12. @John: If you do, the same issue will also have a new story by R.S. Benedict, who is fantastic (and a treasure that F&SF have managed to keep mostly to themselves…). I don’t normally look forward to specific individual issues, but this one’s an exception 🙂

  13. @thenixondive

    Did something weird happen in the short fiction categories?

    Another factor is that some of these authors are active in SFWA, which means that when they post free copies of their stories and ask the other members to read them, they’re likely to get takers.

    I don’t think anything gets nominated that’s actually unqualified; I’m sure these are excellent stories. But if you want to get nominated for an authors’ award, it helps to be visible in the authors’ organization.

  14. While not precisely available online, the Tor eBook Club Selections for January (The Only Harmless Great Thing by Brooke Bolander) and February (Witchmark by C.L. Polk) are both Nebula finalists. So if you downloaded them, you have them.

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