Saturday, May 1, 1999

1999 Nebula Award Nominees

Location: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Comments: In 1999, Joe Haldeman won the Best Novel Nebula for his almost but not quite sequel to The Forever War titled Forever Peace. Both are excellent novels, but neither is actually connected to one another except thematically. As a result, Haldeman won two Nebula Awards with two novels with very similar titles but which are not related to one another in any meaningful way. I'm not sure how this achievement stacks up in terms of notable Nebula Award victories, but I think it is interesting.

From my perspective, however, the real story of this year's awards is that the SFWA dusted off the Ray Bradbury Award so that they could award it to the greatest television show of all time: Babylon 5. While the Hugo Awards got around to honoring Babylon 5 first, they only bestowed awards upon two individual episodes. The SFWA, on the other hand, handed Straczynski and award for the entire run of the series, recognizing the triumphant achievement that it was.

Best Novel

Winner:
Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman

Other Nominees:
The Death of the Necromancer by Martha Wells
How Few Remain by Harry Turtledove
The Last Hawk by Catherine Asaro
Moonfall by Jack McDevitt
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis

Best Novella

Winner:
Reading the Bones by Sheila Finch

Other Nominees:
Aurora in Four Voices by Catherine Asaro
The Boss in the Wall, A Treatise on the House Devil by Avram Davidson and Grania Davis
Ecopoiesis by Geoffrey A. Landis
Izzy and the Father of Terror by Eliot Fintushel
Jumping Off the Planet by David Gerrold

Best Novelette

Winner:
Lost Girls by Jane Yolen

Other Nominees:
Echea by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Lethe by Walter Jon Williams
The Mercy Gate by Mark J. McGarry
Time Gypsy by Ellen Klages
The Truest Chill by Gregory Feeley

Best Short Story

Winner:
Thirteen Ways to Water by Bruce Holland Rogers

Other Nominees:
Fortune and Misfortune by Lisa Goldstein
Standing Room Only by Karen Joy Fowler
Tall One by K.D. Wentworth
When the Bow Breaks by Steven Brust
Winter Fire by Geoffrey A. Landis

Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation

Winner:
Babylon 5 by J. Michael Straczynski

Other Nominees:
None

Go to previous year's nominees: 1998
Go to subsequent year's nominees: 2000

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