Nebula Award Winners

[ezchaos]

For those of you interested, on Saturday night the Nebula Award winners were announced. The winner for the best novel was in the fantasy genre, so I figured I'd put this thread in the Fantasy forum.

The nominees for best novel were:

American Gods, Neil Gaiman (Morrow)
Bones of the Earth, Michael Swanwick (Eos)
The Other Wind, Ursula K. Le Guin (Harcourt Brace)
Perdido Street Station, China Miéville (Del Rey)
Picoverse, Robert A. Metzger (Ace)
Solitaire, Kelley Eskridge (Eos)

American Gods won.

Locus has all of the other categories. Also, they have the nominees and winners for some other awards for this year.

[Bear]

Good. I was hoping American Gods would win. But I would have been happy if Perdido picked up the win too.

[ezchaos]

Also Ursula LeGuin was named Grand Master which is cool.

[Duarh]

but C.C. Finlay's 'The Political Officer' didn't get the best novella. . .

Good about le Guin, though.

[Llama]

With the exception of PERDIDO that was a fairly uninspiring list of nominees.

And AMERICAN GODS won! No, really?? Zzzzzz....

[Mithfânion]

ZZZZZZZZZZZ indeed

I've read more interesting travel guides of the US rural regions than that "Fantasy" book.

[ezchaos]

Yeah, I didn't think the nominees were that great either.

BTW, I don't quite understand what time frame the Nebula powers-that-be use to pick the nominees. Hasn't American Gods and PSS been out for a few years? I see that American Goods was released in mass market paperback on April 30, 2002, but I would think that they would go by when the first edition came out. For AGs, that must have been sometime in 2000 or 2001? Same for Perdido St Station.

[Nimea]

ezchaos,
if you want to know, take a look here.

About the nominations: Both 'The Other Wind' and 'Solitaire' got good reviews and are on my wish list.

And to choose between 'American Gods' and 'Perdido Street Station' . . . heck, hard decision.

[Colonel Worf]

So that means American Gods won a Hugo and a Nebula?

American Gods sounds like a good choice to me, with Perido Street Station in at a close second. American Gods was pretty good, some boring parts but an original concept.

The Nebula awards to me have never really made great choices, to me they've passed quite a few times over the more deserving, just like all awards.

[Soon Lee]

Nebulas: Voted for by members of SFFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America).
Hugos: Voted by members of The World Science Fiction Society.

Hugos tend to be more of a popular vote while Nebulas, being voted by writers, tend to be more elite(?). Like all awards, YMMV but they serve as a good signpost of the field in general and are usually a good resource.

[DarthV]

I have only read two, PSS and AG, of the candidates and thought they were both terrific, but I enjoyed Perdido quite a bit more.

[lemming]

I've read more interesting travel guides of the US rural regions than that "Fantasy" book.

Really, Mithfanion? I wanna read those travel guides then! What were they, what were they?

I thought AG ended up a lot tighter than PSS. If Mieville had had a better editor I might disagree with the judges, but as things stand, it looks like a good decision on their part. I'm sad that this is likely to keep pushing Gaiman away from graphic novels though... his prose has improved a lot, but IMHO it's still not up to the level of his work on the Sandman series. I'd like to see him try original scriptwriting sometime.

[Rhaegar]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who wasn't very impressed by American Gods. Perdido kicked its arse anyway....