Last week, the Science Fiction Writers of America announced the winners of their annual Nebula Awards. Since 1965, the Nebula Awards have been given each year for the best novel, novella, novelette, and short story eligible for that year’s award.
The Nebula is considered, along with the Hugo Awards, to be the most prestigious recognition for writers of fantasy and science fiction.
Novel
Network Effect by Martha Wells
Murderbot is back in its highly-anticipated, first, full-length standalone novel. You know that feeling when you’re at work, and you’ve had enough of people, and then the boss walks in with yet another job that needs to be done right this second or the world will end, but all you want to do is go home and binge your favorite shows? And you’re a sentient murder machine programmed for destruction? Congratulations, you’re Murderbot.
Come for the pew-pew space battles, stay for the most relatable A.I. you’ll read this century.– I’m usually alone in my head, and that’s where 90 plus percent of my problems are. When Murderbot’s human associates (not friends, never friends) are captured and another not-friend from its past requires urgent assistance, Murderbot must choose between inertia and drastic action. Drastic action it is, then.
Novella
Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark
In 1915, The Birth of a Nation cast a spell across America, swelling the Klan’s ranks and drinking deep from the darkest thoughts of white folk. All across the nation they ride, spreading fear and violence among the vulnerable. They plan to bring Hell to Earth. But even Ku Kluxes can die.
Standing in their way is Maryse Boudreaux and her fellow resistance fighters, a foul-mouthed sharpshooter and a Harlem Hellfighter. Armed with blade, bullet, and bomb, they hunt their hunters and send the Klan’s demons straight to Hell. But something awful’s brewing in Macon, and the war on Hell is about to heat up. Can Maryse stop the Klan before it ends the world?
Short Story
“Open House on Haunted Hill” by John Wiswell
Andre Norton Nebula Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction
A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher
Fourteen-year-old Mona isn’t like the wizards charged with defending the city. She can’t control lightning or speak to water. Her familiar is a sourdough starter and her magic only works on bread. She has a comfortable life in her aunt’s bakery making gingerbread men dance.
But Mona’s life is turned upside down when she finds a dead body on the bakery floor. An assassin is stalking the streets of Mona’s city, preying on magic folk, and it appears that Mona is his next target. And in an embattled city suddenly bereft of wizards, the assassin may be the least of Mona’s worries…
Ray Bradbury Nebula Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation
The Good Place Season 4 Episode 13/14: “Whenever You’re Ready” by Michael Schur
Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, and Jason are four cosmically bound friends in the fight for their eternity, alongside their former torturer, Michael. Michael, in a fit of panic, had relinquished his role as the Architect to Eleanor, so that she and the gang could help four new residents become better people. Unfortunately, the Bad Place doesn’t exactly make their task easy, and its latest move places Chidi in a dire situation, putting his relationship with Eleanor and the others in jeopardy.
Best Game Writing
Hades
Hades is a rogue-like dungeon crawler in which you defy the god of the dead as you hack and slash your way out of the Underworld of Greek myth.
