Comments: The 1990s started with a bang for the Nebula Awards, with a sterling set of nominees. Interestingly, the slate was generationally diverse, with a few entries from some old science fiction stalwarts, several from authors in the prime of their careers, and a couple from authors just starting out. This was something of a change from the years of the 1980s, in which the awards seemed to lurch from honoring everyone's favorite authors from their childhood, to honoring the "new guard".
Not only that, but with ten of the twenty-four nominations on the ballot going to works written by women, the slate was also, for the first time, something approaching equitable in its treatment of female authors. In many ways, 1990 seems to have been the year in which the Nebula Awards "grew up" and began to shed its "old boy network" trappings.
Best Novel
The Healer's War by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
Other Nominees:
The Boat of a Million Years by Poul Anderson
Good News from Outer Space by John Kessel
Ivory by Mike Resnick
Prentice Alvin by Orson Scott Card
Sister Light, Sister Dark by Jane Yolen
Best Novella
The Mountains of Mourning by Lois McMaster Bujold
Other Nominees:
A Dozen Tough Jobs by Howard Waldrop
Great Work of Time by John Crowley
Marîd Changes His Mind by George Alec Effinger
Tiny Tango by Judith Moffett
A Touch of Lavender by Megan Lindholm
Best Novelette
At the Rialto by Connie Willis
Other Nominees:
Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another by Robert Silverberg
Fast Cars by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
For I Have Touched the Sky by Mike Resnick
Silver Lady and the Fortyish Man by Megan Lindholm
Sisters by Greg Bear
Best Short Story
Ripples in the Dirac Sea by Geoffrey A. Landis
Other Nominees:
The Adinkra Cloth by Mary C. Aldridge
Boobs by Suzy McKee Charnas
Dori Bangs by Bruce Sterling
Lost Boys by Orson Scott Card
The Ommatidium Miniatures by Michael Bishop
Go to previous year's nominees: 1989
Go to subsequent year's nominees: 1991
Book Award Reviews Home