By JJ: The Nebula Finalists have just been announced, and if you’d like to check them out to see whether you think they’d be good contenders for your Hugo ballot, you can use this handy guide to find material which is available for free online.
Where available in their entirety, works are linked (most of the Novelettes and Short Stories are free). If not available for free, an Amazon link is provided. If a free excerpt is available online, it has been linked. (In some cases, you may need to scroll down the linked page and/or click on an “Excerpt” link to see the excerpt.)
Fair notice: All Amazon links are referrer URLs which benefit fan site Worlds Without End.
Novel
- Amberlough by Lara Elena Donnelly (Tor) (Chapters 1 & 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4)
- The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter by Theodora Goss (Saga) (excerpt)
- Spoonbenders by Daryl Gregory (Knopf; riverrun) (excerpt)
- The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US; Orbit UK) (excerpt)
- Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty (Orbit US) (excerpt)
- Jade City by Fonda Lee (Orbit US; Orbit UK) (excerpt)
- Autonomous by Annalee Newitz (Tor; Orbit UK 2018) (Chapters 1-4)
Novella
- River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey (Tor.com Publishing) (excerpt)
- Passing Strange by Ellen Klages (Tor.com Publishing) (excerpt)
- And Then There Were (N-One) by Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny 3-4/17 (full text)
- Barry’s Deal by Lawrence M. Schoen (NobleFusion Press) (no excerpt)
- All Systems Red by Martha Wells (Tor.com Publishing) (excerpt)
- The Black Tides of Heaven by JY Yang (Tor.com Publishing) (excerpt)
Novelette
- “Dirty Old Town” by Richard Bowes (F&SF 5-6/17) (.pdf full text)
- “Weaponized Math” by Jonathan P. Brazee (The Expanding Universe, Vol. 3) (.doc file)
- “Wind Will Rove” by Sarah Pinsker (Asimov’s 9-10/17)
- “A Series of Steaks” by Vina Jie-Min Prasad (Clarkesworld 1/17)
- “A Human Stain” by Kelly Robson (Tor.com 1/4/17)
- “Small Changes Over Long Periods of Time” by K.M. Szpara (Uncanny 5-6/17)
Short Story
- “Fandom for Robots” by Vina Jie-Min Prasad (Uncanny 9-10/17)
- “Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™” by Rebecca Roanhorse (Apex 8/17)
- “Utopia, LOL?” by Jamie Wahls (Strange Horizons 6/5/17)
- “Clearly Lettered in a Mostly Steady Hand” by Fran Wilde (Uncanny 9-10/17)
- “The Last Novelist (or A Dead Lizard in the Yard)” by Matthew Kressel (Tor.com 3/15/17)
- “Carnival Nine” by Caroline M. Yoachim (Beneath Ceaseless Skies 5/11/17)
The Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation
- Get Out (Written by Jordan Peele) (trailer)
- The Good Place: “Michael’s Gambit” (Written by Michael Schur) (Clip 1 Clip 2 Clip 3 Clip 4)
- Logan (Screenplay by Scott Frank, James Mangold, and Michael Green) (trailer1 trailer 2)
- The Shape of Water (Screenplay by Guillermo del Toro & Vanessa Taylor) (trailer)
- Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Written by Rian Johnson) (supercut trailer)
- Wonder Woman (Screenplay by Allan Heinberg) (trailer 1 trailer 2)
The Andre Norton Award for Outstanding Young Adult Science Fiction or Fantasy Book
- Exo by Fonda Lee (Scholastic Press) (.pdf excerpt)
- Weave a Circle Round by Kari Maaren (Tor) (excerpt)
- The Art of Starving by Sam J. Miller (HarperTeen) (Chapters 1-3)
- Want by Cindy Pon (Simon Pulse) (excerpt)
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Wow, well done, @JJ!
/clickity-clickaty-boo
Thanks so much, JJ!
Some additional options for those in the US:
The Expanding Universe, Vol. 3 anthology which contains the novelette “Weaponized Math” by Jonathan P. Brazee is available for $0.99 on Kindle or to borrow from Kindle Unlimited (or the Kindle Owners Lending Library).
Asimov’s also has Sarah Pinsker’s “Wind Will Rove” available along with their other Locus Recommended Reading List stories here:
http://www.asimovs.com/about-asimovs/award-nominees/
Get Out, Logan, and Wonder Woman are all on HBO right now.
Season 1 of The Good Place is on Netflix. “Michael’s Gambit” is the final episode (eps. 10-13 are the ones that originally aired in 2017).
Great – very useful.
About ‘Spoonbenders by Daryl Gregory’. I haven’t heard of the book or the author I don’t think. Nice to see something unfamiliar – anybody know anything about it?
@Camestros: Ooooh, I knew the name sounded familiar — Gregory wrote “Second Person, Present Tense”, way back in 2005; an intense, unsettling story about free will as an illusion we cultivate, while actually all our actions are determined with no conscious decision at all. It really stood out for me when I ran across it in a bookstore.
ISFDB lists it as winning the Asimov’s Reader Choice awards, being anthologized a bunch of times, and being nominated for the Sturgeon award.
Oh, hey, Bowes has uploaded “Dirty Old Town” — @JJ, would you like to add it to the list?
Standback: Oh, hey, Bowes has uploaded “Dirty Old Town” — @JJ, would you like to add it to the list?
Thanks for calling that to my attention. I’ve asked Mike to make the update.
I’m a completist at heart, and I’m still hoping that Schoen will make an excerpt of Barry’s Deal available for Hugo voters. 🙂
Camestros Felapton: About Spoonbenders by Daryl Gregory. I haven’t heard of the book or the author I don’t think. Nice to see something unfamiliar – anybody know anything about it?
I haven’t read it, because the synopsis just did not appeal to me at all. I did get We Are All Completely Fine from the library a couple of years ago and read it, because it was a Nebula Novella nominee. I found it okay, but way too “superheroey” for my taste. That’s a bug for me, but I’m sure that, for a lot of people, it’s a feature. Tor has an excerpt of it here.
Please note that this post has been permalinked on the “2017 Recommended SF/F page” which is linked at the top of File 770, so that you can find it again easily later on.
Thanks JJ!
Weaponized math is just gun p0rn, btw. nothing particularly special about it, imo.
Chris S: “Weaponized Math” is just gun p0rn, btw. nothing particularly special about it, imo.
Wow, that is one singularly unremarkable story. It mistakes exhaustiive details about weaponry, ammunition, and sniper tactics for worldbuilding, and the only thing SFFnal about it is that it takes place on a planet which is specified as not being Earth.
Dunno how that got onto the Nebula ballot. If it made it onto the Hugo ballot, I’d No Award it. 😐
I’ve just finished Barry’s Deal by Lawrence M. Schoen, and it’s another fun entry into the Conroyverse. If you’re already a fan, you’ll definitely want to read this one.
If you’re not familiar with the series, some of the stories are available for free; the first two stories below are good introductions, and provide setup for Barry’s Deal.
“Buffalo Dogs” (short story – pdf)
Barry’s Tale (novella – epub, mobi, pdf)
“Yesterday’s Taste” (short story – pdf)
Calendrical Regression (novella – epub, mobi)
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Regarding “Weaponized Math”, I find that story probably the most baffling Nebula nominee this year, though I’m always happy to see self-published works recognized.
I also came across this interview with the author on a podcast/vidcast aimed at self-published SFF writers.
Those are absolutely the right top five movies for the Ray Bradbury Award, three of the four most nominated speculative fiction films at the Academy Awards, the first superhero movie to be nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, and an AFI Film of the Year in “Wonder Woman.” For the sixth spot on the Dramatic Presentation, Long Form ballot, I’d like to see “Blade Runner 2049” but I wouldn’t be upset if any of the rest of the Oscar nominated speculative fiction films — “War for the Planet of the Apes,” “Guardians of the Galaxy, V. 2,” “Beauty and the Beast,” or even “Kong: Skull Island” — ended up in the sixth spot. A long shot would be “It,” which is the highest grossing horror film ever but earned no nominations at the Academy Awards.
“The Good Place” is a worthy nominee, if a bit surprising because it’s a comedy. I’d like to see it on the Hugo ballot for Dramatic Presentation, Short Form. My picks for joining it would be “Game of Thrones” episodes “Spoils of War” or “Beyond the Wall,” “The Handmaid’s Tale” episodes “Offred” or “Night,” “Stranger Things” episodes “The Mind Flayer” or “The Gate,” “American Gods” episodes “The Bone Orchard” or “Come to Jesus,” and “The Leftovers” episodes “The Book of Nora” or “The Most Powerful Man in the World (and His Identical Twin Brother).” That last one is a long shot, as I expect “The Expanse” episode “Home” will be nominated instead. I wouldn’t be upset, as “The Expanse” won last year. Also, two episodes of “Game of Thrones” might end up nominated again as well, displacing another worthy contender.
Looking at those lists, I can say it really has been a good year for speculative fiction on both the large and small screen.
I forgot three likely and worthy nominees for Dramatic Presentation, Short Form. First, “Star Trek: Discovery” although I’m not sure which episode would best represent the series. The highest rated on IMDB is “Into the Forest I Go,” but that doesn’t excite me as much as the ones with Harry Mudd. Then there are the shows that imitate Star Trek, especially the “Black Mirror” episode “USS Callister.” Also, someone will have an episode of “The Orville” on their ballots. I think that show’s best episodes haven’t aired yet.
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